It’s been a Surreal week for UK esports organisation Endpoint, with circumstances out of their control leading to a Crucial 24 hours that almost threatened to become a Mighty Mess.
After qualifying for the Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Fall Europe CSGO event in mid-September, it’s been quite a ride for the UK outfit.
On September 22nd, Endpoint announced that British CSGO analyst and content creator Allan Hender had joined the team as head coach, who quickly found himself in unusual circumstances.
On Tuesday this week (September 28th), Endpoint reported that their CSGO player BOROS was unable to secure a visa to Sweden to take part in the IEM Fall event.
The Jordanian said he had letters from ESL, the Mayor of Stockholm and Visit Stockholm tourism board, but that the Embassy of Sweden in Jordan couldn’t process the visa in time.
It looked like the new coach was going to have to join the team as a substitute player, however another turn of events threw a curveball at Endpoint.
Dexerto esports editor Luís Mira and HLTV editor-in-cheif Milan Švejda reported that IEM organisers ESL had sent out a last-minute email to teams giving them a day to submit an additional coach or sub player.
Endpoint community manager Tom Coles came to the rescue after noticing the rule change and informing his team:
“Valve are attempting to nerf Allan Hender,” Endpoint said. “Looks like we have no choice but to bring in a new 5th to stand in.”
Cue a frantic 24 hours that saw Endpoint attempt to bring in German CSGO player mirbit, to stand in for BOROS, instead of coach Allan. Phew. We hope you’re still with us, reader.
Mirbit then tweeted his journey to Sweden, and made it on time to join up with Endpoint and play in their first match against Astralis yesterday (September 29th), which they lost 16-7.
Allan subsequently announced his cheeky retirement from competitive CSGO play, which spawned a nice bunch of memes in the Twitter thread:
Endpoint also thanked 00 Nation and Ulti Agency for the last-minute loaning of mirbit.
So, there we go. A whirlwind week and a chaotic 24 hours for Endpoint, but all sorted now.
How will the UK org fare at IEM Fall 2021? We’ll see – they next face Complexity from 9.45pm this evening (September 30th).
Elsewhere, Stockholm also played host to another esports event recently – the first Wild Rift Origin Series Championship – which saw UK org Rix.GG finish runners-up.
Additional reading: The next chapter for UK CSGO: Is there a brighter future ahead?
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
