Meet the real AFC Richmond, bringing the spirit of Ted Lasso to the World Beach Ultimate Club Championships

AFC Richmond are no ordinary ultimate frisbee team. Then again, ultimate frisbee is no ordinary sport. Inspired by the popular TV series, Ted Lasso, the South West London club consists of a cast of characters, including teachers, students, clothes models and computer programmers, who are set to bring the spirit to the World Beach Ultimate Club Championships (WBUCC) in Portugal.

For those who are unfamiliar with the sport, ultimate frisbee is essentially a cross between netball and American football but with a disc. Like netball, when in possession of the disc, it is not possible to move, and similarly to American football, there are end zones where players must score. What makes it unique, is that there are no referees, and instead, the game is judged through the spirit of fair play.

Although considered a niche sport, for those who play, it is an integral part of their lives. Patrick Held, who has been with the team for four years, highlighted this when speaking exclusively to the Sports Gazette. “Frisbee is an important part of my life, even though I’ve only really been playing it properly for about four years. I’m quite a beginner, but a lot of people in our team have been playing it for 20 years.”

The WBUCC will be held from 14-19 October, in Portimão, located in the Algarve. Teams from all over the world will be aiming for success, with clubs from the USA, Finland and Kenya all competing. Seeded 43 out of 54, AFC Richmond will compete in Pool E against top seeds, the Amherst CropTops, for a place in the knockout stages.

Meet the Greyhounds

As Ted Lasso once said regarding this incredible roster, “I feel like we fell out of a lucky tree, hit every branch on the way down, ended up in a pool of cash and Sour Patch Kids.”

“Our team, AFC Richmond, originates from a pickup frisbee group,” Patrick told the Gazette. “A pickup means anyone can come along and play and learn how to play the sport where we play at Old Deer Park, Richmond. A couple of years ago, a few of us were watching the TV series, Ted Lasso, which is based in Richmond. There was a lot of synergy between our ethos of good spirit, fair play and encouragement and believing in yourselves as with the character in the show.

“Obviously, it’s an amateur sport. We all have full-time jobs, so a lot of training takes place on weekends. We have people who are clothes models to computer programmers. We also have personal trainers on our team as well as students. The age range of our squad ranges from 21 to 44, so we have a wide range of ages.

“We based our kits on the fictional Premier League football team, and we also have a lot of little things that link us to the show. We wear visors, and we are also growing moustaches for the competition, which I think will be lots of fun. It’s not to say we’re a parody team. We still take the sport very seriously, but it’s just our identity as a team.”

Also known as ‘the Richmond Greyhounds’, this unique team has been forged through hard work, good will and fighting spirit. In true Lasso style, the Greyhounds have engaged fans with some blistering content on their Instagram page. Heck, they might even make a Twitter account about their moustaches.

AFC Richmond hit the lucky tree to qualify for the WBUCC

“We qualified for the competition after we finished fourth in the Beach National Competitions in Bournemouth, Poole. We were invited as one of the runner-up positions to come and play in the competition. Initially, we thought we hadn’t qualified, but another team couldn’t make it from the UK, so we managed to take their place. We’ve only known that we were going to the competition for about six months or so, so the training has been quite intense to make sure we’re ready for the competition.

“We’ve been training two or three times a week for different things. Beach frisbee is quite different from any other sport in that you’re sprinting on sand. It’s very, very tiring, and there’s definitely a technique to it, so that’s something we’ve been developing as a team. We’re doing lots of sprints, with short breaks and interval training to try and get our recovery rates up really quickly.”

AFC Richmond’s aspirations for the WBUCC

Although the competition has a strong emphasis on spirit, AFC Richmond will be looking to prove they are no push-overs, and go out on a high like Willie Nelson.

“We are definitely a minnow, but we are hoping to win a few games. There’s a couple of teams above us that we feel like we might be able to scrape a victory against, and what we’d like to do is, outperform our seeding position, so if we can finish anywhere above that, we’ll be super happy.

“In our group, we’ve got an interesting variety of teams. The top seed, the Amherst CropTops, are from the USA. They are seeded sixth in the world, so they’re an incredibly strong team. We would do well to take even a couple of points off them. We also have the best French team in the world, the Manchots, but they are pretty high up outside some of the North American teams.

“Lower down the groups, these are the teams that we hope to take some points off. We have PuTi, who are from Finland, and then the Prague Devils, who are from Czechia. We would definitely be looking to see if we can beat them. The team seeded below us are a bit of an unknown quantity. They’re a team from Kenya called Kakamega Wolves, and we don’t really know anything about them at all, so there’s a slight bit of concern there. All of these teams have got here on merit, so anyone in that bottom half can definitely beat anyone else, so it’ll be very exciting to see how we do.”

Ultimate frisbee prides itself on spirit

When speaking to Mr Held, it was clear that the allure of ultimate frisbee conjured up a great sense of enthusiasm. “It’s definitely a sport that once you get your hooks into it, there’s a lot of camaraderie,” he told the Gazette.

“It’s a very social sport, with a big sense of fair play and spirit. One of the things that is judged during the competition is the spirit of the team, and each team you play, you award spirit points to, and there is a winner of the spirit competition at the end of the tournament. I guess it could be considered like the Fair Play Award at the end of the World Cup, but more about how you approach the game.

“After you finish a game of frisbee, you have a reflection circle, which sounds all very hippy dippy, but it’s actually just celebrating the moments within the game across both teams and coming back together to talk about those key moments is really enjoyable. It’s just a really fun sport to play, and I think that’s something that really hooked me.”

They say it is the hope that kills you, but AFC Richmond are not too crazy about that phrase. In fact, it is the lack of hope that comes and gets you. Ted Lasso believes in hope, AFC Richmond believe in hope, hell even I believe in hope. Together, we believe in belief.