Laura “Laurapl0x” Browne didn’t mind the near constant roar of cheers as she walked past the wooden booths, lined with Milan Club Dublin flags and logos of every NFL team at the Woolshed Baa in Dublin. It was the nerves that were eating at her.
She had begged a friend — who was now walking by her side — to come with her because she was afraid of the awkwardness. Online meetups work like that sometimes, she thought, especially when meeting digital friends for the first time.
She scanned the crowd, looking past the football fans for any sign of Overwatch she could find in the dim sports bar. Then she found them, huddled in a corner watching the Vancouver Titans play the San Francisco Shock in the Stage 2 Finals of the 2019 Overwatch League season.
“None of us knew each other,” Laura said. “Our screen had no sound on it so we were trying to guess what was happening.”
One bar, all of Ireland’s biggest Overwatch fans
The noise in the bar drowned out much of their conversation, but LauraPl0x said she could still remember the group laughing whenever they had to make up their own audio for when Hyo-bin “ChoiHyoBin” Choi and Matthew “super” DeLisi put a stop to the Titans’ final push on Blizzard World.
“It was a scuffed setup,” she said, “but it was awesome.”
LauraPl0x had joined the Irish Overwatch Discord server earlier that season. While the nerves struck her at first, she said she felt comfortable soon after arriving at the bar.
“Andy was there and he gave everyone a big hug,” she said. “That made everyone comfortable.”
Andy Bohan, the general manager for Team Ireland’s Overwatch squad and one of the founders of the Irish community, organized the gathering in order to bring everyone even closer together. It was one step of many toward forming one of the most dedicated groups of Overwatch fans in the world.
Grinding through Diamond had given LauraPl0x the belief that she was ready to swing with some of the Emerald Isle’s Overwatch heavyweights. She joined one of the Irish Overwatch tournaments with her squad and soon found that victory was a distant dream.
“We thought we’d be able to roll with them,” she said. “Andy’s team just spawn camped us. They just destroyed us.”
