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[s3xy_j0nny]

The grrr article:

What started out as a simple gesture showing others that Jonno “s3xy_j0nny” Wickwar and Gethyn “Megageth” Gilmore simply knew each other, Clan Grrr has grown to a complete Battlefield squad with 20 players.

In the beginning, Jonno and Gethyn were friends and they often played together but on different teams. They always faced the problem of other players bad mouthing the opponent, and funny enough, it was either Jonno or Gethyn being badmouthed. To show that the two knew each other, and that they were friends, they created the tag [grrr]. About a year after their campaign to show friendship, someone approached them asking if he could join because despite all the clans in the local scene, [grrr] suited his personality.

Shortly after they allowed Lawrence “gr@v1ty” McKelvin into the squad, they posted on the SGS Forum that they had added another player. And so the applications and invitations to join [grrr] had officially opened.

Soon after this the team recruited Lee “SlipperyDuck” Logan, Jarrod “Dragonne” McElhinney, and Mike “Flycatchr” Fletcher. But then, one day, “a chimp masquerading as a human” slipped through the application system and joined the team. After showing that he was incapable of actually being human, Paul “Candidate” Du Plessis was kept in the squad, but things changed thereafter, for the better of the team.

Because of the breach in maturity and logic, [grrr] started a more rigorous application program, only allowing members that have been screened. The screening requires a lengthy Q&A which involves questions “from the completely inane, to the downright incomprehensible.”

Team [grrr], to date, plays Battlefield Bad Company 2 seriously, where fooling around takes place in Worms, Left 4 Dead and even Titan Quest.

Management

Management in [grrr] is a lot different to every other team we’ve ever focused on. Grrr constantly changes their fearless leader each year because with maturity there’s “being opinionated, set in your ways, and stubborn.” To counter the stubborn-opinionated factor, each member has a chance to lead.

The Players

* Jono ‘s3xy_j0nny’ Wickwar
* Gethyn ‘megageth’ Gilmour
* Jarrod ‘Dragonne’ McElhinney
* Lee ‘leelo0270′ Logan
* Sheri ‘NiteShade’ Buchner
* Odette ‘Onyx’ Margrate
* Mike ‘flycatchr’ Fletcher
* Darin ‘SloDaz’ Kent
* Christo ‘Voetsek-Mikey’ Struwig
* Paul ‘Paul’ du Plessis
* Stuart ‘Icenflame’ Davies
* Ion ‘flufster_wolf’ Marais
* Lawrence ‘-gr@v1ty-’ McKelvin
* Ignatius ‘Jackal-GI’ Marais
* Dirk ‘Leprechaun’ Buchner
* Johnny ‘Phatso’ Romanos
* Denis ‘Skouperd’ Dell
* Peter ‘pmurgs’ Murgatroyd
* Greg ‘baselineac’ Lewis
* Jason ‘Scorpyon’ Davies

At the moment [grrr] isn’t sponsored, however they have been before. Notice the glasses in the picture below, yeah – that’s a sponsorship. While [grrr] has “flirted” with sponsorship a few times, they’ve never landed anything as great as teams such as Pantheon, Bravado, miNt or Ventus. Regardless, they offer the opportunity to promote gaming on a more social, different level to those that eat-sleep gaming.
Competition is not the main goal behind [grrr]–as the history suggests, it’s more friendship–however they do compete in a few of the AGASA and Do Gaming cups to show the kiddies just how it’s done. Oh and most of them are in their thirties, so by kiddies we mean school-goers.

To [grrr], gaming is social. The spouse should take care of the kids.

The Name

Grrr is the sound made when “another player is consistently beating the snot out of us in-game.” Or, it could “be that our beloved wife, child, girlfriend, dog, cat, goldfish or pedigree Siberian hamster just jumped on us from behind causing us to miss that ultimate humiliation kill,” but whatever the case: Grrr!

The Past

The fearless leaders are happy with the development of the team, and they enjoy the players in the team. They are always up for a competition, and always up for a party. Every year [grrr] attends the rAge Expo, where they create their very own video of their experience at the event. You can view their latest clip here, it was created by their very own SlipperyDuck.

From playing in the LAN to having braai’s and consuming copious amounts of alcohol, it’s the plan for the first week of October – year after year.

Grrr is renowned for their participation and commitment to the event, despite the events inability to pull-through with competitions.

The Future

Basically, Grrr will exploit every opportunity given to them. Whether it’s a new game, or a new market – they will try their best to be involved. The main idea behind the team is to be more involved with the local community, and naturally create more friends and relationships with people who share the same interests.

The Competition

Remember BBH? Well, it seems these guys are mutually competitive, but also friends. They’ve helped each other grow and succeed in everything they do, and the competition here is pretty much the equivalent to Old Boys games at school.

And to throw the ball back to BBH, Megageth, one of the founding members said: “We love to beat BBH, it keeps us warm at night. I am still smiling from our last victory some weeks ago. There is a strong brotherly rivalry between the clans, we are both well-established and consist of comparatively chronologically gifted gamers who have played against each other many times over several years.”

The Community, and Gaming in General

South Africa’s gaming division doesn’t receive much support, and it was disappointing for everyone that there were no official tournaments at rAge. Players play every type of game around, however no-one supports these games.

Grrr loves gaming, and they understand that it’s not a financial payout. Not yet, and not for long anyway. It’ll take a few years before we see this.

To improve gaming, players need to be involved in competitions all over the world, for more international exposure and experience. But to pull this off, it’s tougher than we all know and think.

With regards to console gaming, and Grrr. It’s not going to happen unless you can incorporate a keyboard and mouse, sorry.

eGamer Overview

The idea behind was [grrr] was to initially show that Jonno and Gethyn knew each other. There was never the intention of a team. And it’s funny how these things just seem to work out. To date Grrr is a long standing team which boasts loads of dedicated members who are all friendly. They play to enjoy, which counts the most.

Furthermore, they will do almost anything to support the community and grow what the community has to offer. There’s no selfishness just a bit of stubbornness because of old-age.

No active sponsors at the moment, however their strange outlook at gaming will be able to promote companies and brands which aren’t focused on competition and competitive gaming. Look at the sunglasses for instance. Can you say drug cartel?