THREE UK sides, including defending champions Sharks, are in the line-up for the eighth May bank holiday Slowpitch Tournament. The event starts tomorrow morning and reaches its climax with the final on Monday afternoon.

The tournament started as a domestic-only competition in 1997, with Taylor’s Tornados claiming the top prize.

They repeated their success in 1998 and the following two years saw a victory for the Uniglobe Royals and Specsavers Rookies respectively.

It was not until 2001 that the tournament was extended to an open invitational event, with UK sides competing for the first time.

Solent League sides have dominated ever since.

Breakers won in 2001 and 2002 and Sharks were crowned champions last year.

The trophy-holders will be joined by fellow Solent League side Shafted for this weekend’s event.

But Bristol League team Flyers are an unknown quantity, as are the Jersey Blue Sox.

There are suspicions that the latter side might consist largely of players from last year’s winning Muratti team using the tournament as pre-competition training for the European championships to be held in Austria later in the year.

All the island’s top slowpitch sides are also in action.

Arguably, the island’s best hope of success lies with the in-form league front-runners, Condor Ferries.

The tournament structure sees sides split into two pools and playing a round- robin format over days one and two before Monday’s play-offs ahead of the final at 4pm.