Fraggers United - 20 years old today!

It's rare for a clan to still be active after such a long time. Herekip reminiscences over the 20 year history of one of Finland's oldest quake clans...Back in the day here in Finland, we had a portal just like QuakeWorld.nu called iNET Dome. There was QW related news in general, clan-news, player-news, announcements about player transfers and most likely everything you needed to know about what's happening in the Finnish scene, and elsewhere in Northern Europe.Dome had fragrank which kept statistics for their two main servers: iNET Small and iNET Large. Small ran DM1-DM6 and Large was for "big boys", a lot of action only on DEATH32C.Dome's Fragrank was the first time I discovered two names but one prefix. Timi and Scopa. Timi was leading the rank with over 100k frags, and Scopa wasn't that far behind. One thing that was amazing, they both played under "FU"-tag. I did a small amount of research and quickly noticed that FU stood for Fraggers United.

At least for me, -FU- was one of the top notch teams in Finland back then. We had many superior teams like clans Cute, Z, The Viper Squad, Galaxy, Followers of the Bananameister, The Forsakens, No Problem!, Finnish Allied Quakers, Zetor, Clan Malfuction and many more. Fraggers United more than justifies inclusion on that list.Back in those golden times, Fraggers United was a real threat for most of the teams on battlefield. FU was widely recognized on servers, and people knew that a player wearing the iconic -FU-/fragunit-tag indicated they were a real main event player.On this day 20 years ago, 10.10.1997, Fraggers United was formed by X-FU.That means 20 years of pure fragging and fun. That also means loads of DM4 2on2 games with Quad ON&dropquad. Some of you know those games as AnzaQuad as well. That means a lot of great memories. I once carried Anza's monitor at LAN (trying to help) but only got "STFU" when trying to ask a question. Being just a small part to FU back then was a big thing for me... even if it was just the monitor.I won't try and write the full history of FU, since I haven't been a member from the very start. I did a quick stint, but after I found (and someone pointed out) that my skill level wasn't enough for the team after all, I started to look for something else. But back then, playing for FU was something really special for me. I felt I could now say I've done something right in this game.After a few years of training with other teams, I came back and since then, I've been trying to help Anza to run this team from one season to another and represent this very oldschool team with honour.During the modern QuakeWorld era we haven't reached the heights that FU reached in its prime. I think FU has gained some kind of respect during the years just by showing up for tournaments, and trying to always behave with respect towards other teams and players.I want to thank every single player who played for our dear team during the past 20 years. We have all made it so far together. FU also wants to thank every team we have played. It's always been a pleasure to play against you guys and that's how it will be in the future as well.You can take a nostalgia trip and find something interesting from our webpages . Some links on Battles section are still working - old screenshots, results etc. There's a player list (I know it's incomplete. I don't know who is missing. Too many years.. sorry..) but it can be found on FU's wikipage. FRAGGERS UNITED. AFTER TWENTY YEARS YOU'RE STILL NOT FRAGGING ALONE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!Best regards,Tom "FU-kip" Grönholm