Pin Badge Collecting... It's All The Rage!

Waking up this morning I was faced with many blurry eyes at monitoring as the physical demands of the day’s previous game was still evident. Thankfully today our schedule was relatively free as we were treated to a day off, a day to recoup before our third and final group game. 

These are more valuable that they look...

Instead of training we were given the option of going to watch another sport – either gymnastics or football. As much as I wanted to watch the gymnastics having been blown away by the excitement of it at the Olympics, I wanted to go and support our men’s football team who were playing Malaysia in their group game. The game scheduled for a 5pm kick off which meant I had the morning, along with the girls who also wanted to watch football, to chill and relax and we thought we would make the most of it and begin pin badge collecting. Yes you heard me right, pin badge collecting.

Trev bartering with some volunteers over pin badges!

Not often a hobby you would associate with the Universiade or sport in general, pin badge collecting has become quite a thing over the past few Games. When I first attended the Universiade in Belgrade in 2009 I was surprised by a fascination shown by the athletes to exchange their country’s pin badge, which was often their flag or a unique design shaped around their country’s characteristics, for another country’s pin badge. The aim was to see who could collect the most and I was glad to see when I arrived in Kazan for the 2013 Universiade this hobby had not died. The girls who hadn’t attended a Universiade before laughed when I said they would be all doing it and today showed me that I wasn’t wrong. Before we knew it everyone’s desire to exchange and swap pins emerged and all the girls wanted to be get involved.

My collection so far. It's only early days!

Armed with the Great Britain Kazan 2013 designed pins we set off in search for the most bizarre and rare pins, often targeting the smaller nations due to the limited supply of their pin badges. Venturing around the village we went, I was determined to find the pins of a few countries I had already set my sights on – UAE, Thailand and Japan. As you can imagine this provided much entertainment and often became the ice-breaker when chatting to other Nations. It appears the trading of pins can be used as a great way of forming friendships with other nations and led to some great conversations with athletes from all around the world.

For us our Great Britain pins hold a sense of identity; it’s a way of saying who we belong to and acts as a way of displaying pride in our country. And it is fair to say these Great Britain pin badges are definitely in high demand as Britain is a very popular country worldwide. Our pin badge collecting is set to continue for the next few days as we all compete to see who can gather the best collection… I am just hoping our HQ have enough pin badges to fuel this collection! If not we will have to look at alternative things to swap… As Trev would say after today she is "feeling pin rich".

Team GB Men's Football Team in Action

In the afternoon we went along to support the men play against Malaysia in their group game which they dominated and emerged with a 2-0 victory. Despite getting caught in another tropical downpour during the game, it was entertaining and fantastic that we could go and show our support to the lads; we are all part of the same team and we want to cheer them onto success.

Evening entertainment was provided in the form of Cranium, a card game which didn’t last long as we discovered ‘Heads Up’ an app on Dan G’s phone. For those who have never played it you need to download it. It’s a 21^st century version of charades and more than entertaining. The video below gives you a little more insight into the level of entertainment it provided, so funny and too many laughs which is always good for a relaxed evening. The phone shows a word which the rest of the group have to act out and when successful the person holding the phone tilts it so a new words shows up. The aim is to complete as many as you can in 60 seconds! I am sure after watching the video you will download it straight away, I think about 5 of us did after playing it only once!

An early night soon followed as we look ahead to tomorrow’s game, our third and final group game. We are going into the game in the same way we did against Japan and Brazil, prepared and organised to go and get the win. We know 3 points will see us progress through to the quarter-finals and that is the least we will settle for. Tomorrow is also a new day and an opportunity to bounce back from yesterday’s game. We are ready so bring it on!

Off to support the men... Come on Team GB!