Stirling’s annual England vs Scotland match is quite unlike anything else on the calendar. As far as I’m aware, it’s the only Airsoft International matchup anywhere in the world. The highest level of the game, it’s competitive, serious and extremely challenging, with 75 players selected for each team going at it relentlessly over two days in an urban training facility. Stirling have this site and event mastered and it’s a fantastic advert for Airsoft. I hung my boots up a couple of years ago after a decade with England, only to receive a (fairly) last minute call from my old teammates with the Norvern Monkeys. Would I consider playing for Scotland?

I only had an hour to respond so I took the plunge and figured it’d be great to experience things from the other side, and see what could be learned. Additionally, I’ve been talking recently about how much has changed in the game with the flooding of high end gear (thermal scopes, NVG’s) into even the average skirmish day, so I reckoned on Stirling events to be an ideal showcase for high level kit. And as I mentioned in the pre-game blog , I wanted to see how a rather basic loadout would hold up against all the technology. I do want to go through what I picked out and why in a separate article, so let’s get into the event.

In the run up, we were all invited to a Team Scotland Whatsapp group which is where they’d go through planning in advance. The group was extremely well run, with command giving out all the event info we needed, talked through comms and team setups, and gave their expectations of each squads’ TL, 2IC and RO. We were given a teamsheet with everyone’s name, squad, and role as well as the radio frequencies which is something I’ve not had previously. Absolutely top organisation from Scotland HQ.

It was nice to get the band back together, as it were, with the Norvern Monkeys dusting off their kit for another trip to Catterick. But dusting off in the way Airsofters do – a month of shopping for the correct camo and ordering repairs to kit that has seen a lot of use down the years. We formed up with Pete and Angelo from old battle buddies North West Mercs to give us a formidable squad of ten. England and Scotland play as Tans vs Greens with camo rules given in advance;

England – Multicam, MTP, MC Arid, AOR1, DCU, Tan, DDPM, ACU

Scotland – DPM, US Woodland, Green, Black, Tiger, MC Black, MC Tropic, DNC

8 options each, nice and simple. Scotland HQ preferred us to all wear US Woodland tops (not actually called M81, that was the first BDU pattern it was used on) and plain green pants for easy ID so we went online shopping and made sure we were in the right team colours. As players, it’s important to make sure that when uniform colours are listed, you’re adhering to them. Playing in the UK, we’re used to having to deal with a wide range of weather, from wet to very wet, and so we expect to have to change into something at some point and therefore needed a backup set that was also in the team colours, and also something that isn’t going to leave you cold and wet. Especially in December.

The forecast was very wet, with gale force winds, so we knew we’d be in for a pretty uncomfortable weekend. A lot of players suddenly started cancelling on both sides and numbers dwindled. As far as I know, there were a few very last minute call ups as replacements but regardless, the event goes ahead. If you’re going to do this game though, you have to remember where you are and why you’re here.

• You’re playing a competitive game for your country
• You’re playing all day and through the night into the next day
• You will get cold, wet and tired
• It will hurt
• It’s a very high standard of play
• Your team needs you
• You cannot turn up, then just sit wrapped up in your sleeping bag scrolling through Instagram because it’s raining outside and then go home early because you really fancy a McDonald’s breakfast on the way home to your mums

Be prepared. Make sure everything works. Give it everything you have.

It was dark as we arrived into Catterick on the Friday night. Our team was accommodated in The Barn, a sort of overflow car park for last minute players. It’s sheltered, and has lighting which isn’t a rough experience, yet somehow remains the coldest place in Britain. Gear was unloaded from the truck and we headed to the main safe zone, Regen One, to browse the Land Warrior stall and pick up some last minute bits and pieces. I was able to order my ASG BB’s in advance and have them brought to the event for collection which is superb, and picked up a couple of boxes of ‘nades because at this game, you can never have too much pyro.

Walking in, I was surprised to see men in robes, crocs, and a smattering of ThruDark logos as well as gazebos, tables and chairs. Certainly a lot has changed from the more spartan experiences of the past. I got my water bottles filled up for the night and headed into the main accommodation blocks with John, our comms guy to meet the Scotland HQ guys and get our radios programmed in with all the right settings from a laptop. I stood quietly under a Scottish flag proudly draped from the walls as the comms guys chatted about UHF and VHF reception across different parts of the country as well as squelches and lots of other things I didn’t really understand as my radio was wired up to download the setup for the weekend. Despite not being able to join the conversation, I love guys who bring this level of detail and knowledge to events and are happy to share it.

I had noticed on the Friday that I’d woken up with a cold but wasn’t going to let that stop me. Come Saturday morning, after a windy night in the barn, I got up a whole lot worse and had lost my voice, which was going to be a bugger for radio comms, meaning effectively I was listen-only for most of the trip. My M727, which had worked flawlessly for two years at a steady 345fps suddenly decided to follow suit and spat out a meagre 130-141fps through chrono. It was a bit late for tech time but a quick reseating of the bucking at least had it hitting a reasonable range. Again though, this is EvS. You don’t give up no matter what happens.

As we assembled at the starting point, it was announced that Scotland chief Scott Allen had pulled out of the event with a cold and looking around at the mass of Scotland players on the start line, it did look very depleted. Our first objective was to race to buildings 18-20 and hold the position. ALthough we had paper maps, both teams were required to download the ATAK app which provided us with a map and live player positioning (our team only) throughout the event. It’s an interesting concept, and although I did worry we’d end up having zombies wandering around staring phone screens, that thankfully wasn’t the case. Here’s an example from my TL Booty from in game,

The only issue at Catterick however is the lack of phone signal, meaning that the dots aren’t accurate and often jump players between buildings. It also sapped my phone battery, so after a couple of hours play I decided to turn it off and save it for moments when I really needed it turned back on. Although inaccurate, it still gave a vague idea of where the team was and my TL found it useful, although arguably he’s better off doing to coordinating while we stay fixed to our weapons. I’d like to trial it somewhere with better reception and on a larger site before doing a more in depth article on it. Instead, I just kept me head up and my eyes on whatever was going on around me, as well as using call and response when entering buildings, although it caused a lot of confusion with some Scottish players throwing grenades in first and then calling “Scotland”, and others forgetting the word and shouting “Green” instead. For my sins, my first breach I ran in and called “England” out of habit…

With Scotland starting the bottom left (red X) and England top right of the map, this initial dash for territory is vital to seize a foothold for the first objective (blue circle). Looking at it, it seemed a bit closer to the England starting position, but in this game orders are orders and if that’s what HQ want, that’s what we do. At game on, I grabbed my rifle by the carry handle and rand as hard as I could over the wet ground, darting through hedges and jumping low walls trying to get there as fast as I could, and arrived as the first Scottish player but realising that I’d been beaten by only a few seconds, seeing multicam trousers behind the hedge only a few metres away from bursting through what would have been a hostile doorway into the target building. It was too late to even get the weapon up and us first few Scottish players arriving were quickly hit by a wall of fire. England had secured the area first and immediately we were on the back foot. The Monkeys fought back throughout the morning and eventually took and held the building which was needed for extraction of a big red box at 13:00hrs, however that relied on other elements bringing us the box which unfortunately failed, frustrating the guys that we’d been holding on for zero points, but the game goes on.

The game revolves around securing buildings for the most part. To score 10 points, Scotland would need to secure and hold a building until the hour it “scores”, for example here at 18:00 building 21-23 (a semi-detached house, 21 one side and 23 joined to it) would have to be completely clear of English players as the marshals walk in at exactly 18:00. If there’s even one English player fully inside, the building is deemed “contested” and neither team scores. Extractions of big red boxes give 5 points. It means the game keeps going, with no quiet time or downtime waiting for something to happen; as soon as one building is scored and you’re pleased with your efforts, the fighting is already moving to the next objective.

By early Saturday afternoon we found ourselves in respawn often. England had set up a good line through the middle of the site and had a lot of angles covered, and it became very difficult to get into the village because as a team we weren’t holding territory. From a first floor window I remarked to another Scottish player that you could see how well the English team are drilled. It’s a machine that I hadn’t appreciated as much from the other side of the fence, but now we had to break them down. The Monkeys had a few mortars which we planned on using in such a situation, but by now the high winds were dragging them off target and the heavy rain was starting to have an effect on comms. Running a shoulder mounted fist mic exposed to the elements, although I could still hear everything quite clearly, nobody could hear my whispery replies. It became increasingly difficult to reach command. Wet grenades were becoming difficult to strike up, the ground was getting heavier to run on and increasing numbers of players were taking up positions in the safe zone, getting gear off and returning to the warm rooms of the dorm blocks (both teams I might add). We had to fight England and the weather. Surprisingly, the Baofengs (I ran a UV-5R and a UV-82 dual channel) held up perfectly, a cheap earpiece lasted fine, but some of the more expensive PTT’s and headsets some of the squad had unfortunately didn’t last.

As darkness fell, the advantage had by those with NVG’s or thermals became more apparent. Also the sheer number of LMG’s in game using a loophole that states if it’s semi auto capable, it can be used like an AR in buildings, giving the player a close quarters weapon (talking short M249’s here) that can go outside and open up full auto with a huge capacity box mag that can put out a lot of BB’s. This, combined with night vision, allows you to see targets coming out of respawn and turn the hosepipe on to spray plastic and keep the opponent in regen area. I’m not a fan of spray and pray Airsoft myself and will still be running an M4 in future but it’s something to be aware of when you’re up against them. Thermals were mentioned often but in a game like this, it’d be easy to see people in the open but you wouldn’t be able to ID them, and I know some guys have the attitude of “I’ll just shoot anything” but removing your own team from play really doesn’t help.

In the driving rain and winter cold, we worked as hard as we could to keep contesting buildings and try and slow the England juggernaut down. Out in the open, as Pete pointed out, is very difficult without night vision. Inside buildings, we have a chance. Teammate Jordan had rented a set of NVG’s for the event, a service provided on site, but without turning his illuminator on couldn’t see anything inside anyway and we debated it on the way home. By turning it on, it’s as visible as torch light to other users anyway so the debate continues as to whether it’s a good investment or not; interestingly I’ve spoken to three people who said they would probably not have bothered. Ten years ago, red light filters were a must for all players to provide low lighting without alerting the whole site to your location, yet this year I think I was the only one as white light lit up buildings regularly. The argument I think is that under NVG’s, an IR illuminator is the same as white light and nobody really cares any more. With six hours of the game being in darkness and most windows covered to give some incredibly dark rooms, being able to work as efficiently at night as during the day is key and I think it would be a very different game if it was hosted in July.

From the Scottish side, it’s seen as more of an advantage to England but on the night the Scotland performance picked up, with the scores finishing at 90-40. It sounds like a lot, but I feel we lost a lot of ground during the afternoon in daylight. Returning to base for a short sleep, I dropped all my wet kit and was actually surprised that my simple US issue BDU shirt had somehow managed to keep my Lonestar Pro t-shirt underneath dry, despite only being cotton. As I closed my eyes, someones alarm went off and it was time to wake up again. It had been a cold night for sure, and I woke up feeling a hell of a lot worse than the previous day. “You look how I feel” came one compliment, and my TL asked if I wanted to sit this day out. But, every man counts and I guessed Scotland might be missing a couple more after seeing some cars being packed the night before. I pulled my wet outer gear back on, hauled my rig up and grabbed my rifle to head out as some players tucked into breakfast. They left shortly afterwards.

Something had changed within the Scottish camp that night though. I didn’t take anything myself other than paracetamol and some water. But on that Sunday morning Scotland absolutely flew out of the blocks with the forces they had left and suddenly everything started to click. Monkeys took a target building and command rallied a defensive perimeter and not only did we hold it and score, we moved straight onto the next one. With any advantages of night vision removed, and comms up, Scotland started to function the way we wanted it to and won more points on Sunday, showing that they can be more than a match for the English. If we’d hit that first day with the same energy and discipline, the result would have been very different.

It’s a mix of tactics, technique and determination in equal measure. Overall, the team has to work together as a team – you have 75 assets working together as a system rather than sporadic groups of guys who think “ahh fuck it, I’ll just go looking for a firefight”. They’re no good if not coordinated properly, and there are several ways to play and win this game but each tactic will only succeed if everyone is on the same page, and that’s the job of the TL’s passing on that instruction from HQ. As a player, you need to follow these instructions to make it work; don’t question things, just get it done. The technique is important because a lot of your opponents are very well trained and drilled, and you can see this on the Stirling YouTube channel. Know how to enter a building, how to sweep and clear without just sharing that shit “my wife asked me to sweep the house last night, no idea why she’s so angry” meme. Have the skills to use your weapon correctly. And the determination to keep going no matter what the weather is or how tired you are. You need a lot of drive here.

My one gripe at EvS, and I’m not pointing at the organisers here, but day two after we’ve been rained on throughout Saturday night sees a lot of players having to switch into non-uniform clothing that they find under their car’s back seat, even if it’s in the opposing team colours. Common sense says to ignore the colour of rigs and webbing which is fine, but when you can only see the top half of players over a hedge and they’re wearing black, the assumption is that it’s Scotland until they suddenly turn and breach your building. I paid a fiver for a surplus US shirt – it doesn’t have to be anything expensive and it performed really well, but whatever you choose to wear be prepared with a change of kit, especially in the British winter. I know I’m not the only one who took issue with it but I’ll probably be the only one being vocal about it, and I don’t mean to upset people but it is an issue when you’re relying on team colours instead of armbands, which most players definitely prefer.

Everyone since the event has described playing the storm as brutal, or horrific, but in truth that’s the experience of EvS anyway. It remains the event to aspire to in terms of the quality of play and the organisation, and if I get asked the same question next year then yes, I’d love to go back and play for Scotland again because I really want to see them win. In the meantime, I’ll be getting some practice in for it regardless and fine tuning my loadout for the tenth year in a row just in case. If not, then it’s always a great experience and one to learn from for the next event.

Big thank you to Stirling, to Team Scotland, and to the Norvern Monkeys/NWM.