From britdisc-owner@csv.warwick.ac.uk Fri Oct 25 20:05:31 1996 Received: from thistle.csv.warwick.ac.uk by clover.csv.warwick.ac.uk with ESMTP id UAA25027; Fri, 25 Oct 1996 20:03:24 +0100 (BST) Received: by thistle.csv.warwick.ac.uk id TAA04954; Fri, 25 Oct 1996 19:52:02 +0100 (BST) Received: from violet.csv.warwick.ac.uk by thistle.csv.warwick.ac.uk with ESMTP id TAA04946; Fri, 25 Oct 1996 19:50:59 +0100 (BST) Received: from arl-img-5.compuserve.com by violet.csv.warwick.ac.uk with SMTP id SAA11110; Fri, 25 Oct 1996 18:03:06 +0100 (BST) Received: by arl-img-5.compuserve.com (8.6.10/5.950515) id NAA04977; Fri, 25 Oct 1996 13:02:33 -0400 Date: 25 Oct 96 12:57:15 EDT From: Stuart Clark <101336.3664@compuserve.com> To: Britdisc <britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk> Subject: More thoughts.... Message-ID: <961025165715_101336.3664_GHW90-1@CompuServe.COM> Sender: owner-britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Status: RO Folks, I really quite like Oz's idea of top three at Nationals not having to qualify for the following year. I think it has a number of benefits Firstly, as he says it would make the third/fourth playoff game much more exciting - there'd be everything to play for. Secondly, the "top 3" teams from one year would not have to spend three quarters of the next years regional qualifying tournament crapping on everyone BUT, the regional qualifier would not be deprived of all the high quality teams from that region so "weaker teams" would still get the chance to face at least some of the top teams. Thirdly, don't the National Champs have a God-given right to defend their title at National finals? (I dunno - do they? Whaddya think?). I also think anything more than top 3 would be excessive and that would really start treading on people's toes. OK, before I go further, let me just say that this is all based on the premise that teams will be fielding their strongest squads for Nationals. Right, where this possibly backfires is that the "victims" of such a system might feel that their region has been denied one qualifying place at regionals, these would be the teams competing for that last qualifying place - but assuming that the top team from the region (one of the pre-qualifiers - top 3) is fielding their strongest squad would a team battling it out for fifth place (should everyone need to qualify) find their objective that much different if they still had to fight for fourth place and the top team pre-qualified. No, I don't think so. Derek, I can't remember what your argument was exactly but it echoed one of my concerns - that squads change from year to year. In hindsight, I think that should the top three automatically qualify one year, then if they field a weak team the following year well then they're being downright foolhardy. Personally, I don't think this would happen, the teams that are competing at that kind of level would all (I would hope) feel that they have a chance at the title and would field their best team. BUT, just supposing they don't, well then they're going to get their ass kicked and they'll have to qualify again the following year. At worst, they'll have got a free ticket to National finals based on last years performance. This is where the crux of the argument is I think - people are probably already reaching for keyboards to shoot me down in flames and say "Ah yeah Stu, but that's not right - why should they get a free ticket." OK people, lets put aside all our illusions of grandeur here - as I said before, the teams that will have the biggest gripe will be those fighting it out for the last qualifying positions and, let's be honest will those teams be able to beat even weakened top squads (Is there such a thing as a weak Shotgun team?) Even if the top 3 from a previous year are weak, it's my reckoning they'd still finish in the top 8......easy. They'd just have to re-qualify next year.....and that's incentive enough for them to field a strong team if they don't want to have to qualify. Andy Cotgreave wrote: >By keeping regionals and non-peer pool tournaments we grow in terms of >numbers, but until the top teams can compete exclusively with each other, >the highest level of competitive British ultimate will not improve. We are >at the situation where there are plenty of teams for concurrent >tournaments. If there were tournaments for top teams, and lesser teams, >then the top tournaments would be more competitive, and improve the higher >level. Other tournaments would be *equally* competitive, because the level >of play would be more equal on both days, and there would be new teams >emerging as winners. This would serve to improve the game at both levels, >and teams would be able to choose which level they want to play at. I totally agree, but again it comes back to that horrible A-word. Apathy. Basically we've got to find potential hosts for those "lesser teams". This is a discussion I had with Si Hill earlier in the week - the evolution of a second "clique" of teams where there'd be some crossover. I think the main problem here is that there is horribly stagnant mind-set, that the tournament calendar that's grown over the last few years is THE calendar. That the big tournaments that happen every year (Southampton, Ross, Lurkers, Warwick Indoors) are THE tournaments to be seen at. Everybody wants to go to the Southampton Outdoors, loads try, 16/20 get in, everybody then waits for the next milestone on the Ultimate Calendar - Croydon, then the same scenario unfolds. What needs to happen is that the next generation of tournament hosts needs to be identified so we can add to that calendar and even have concurrent tournaments so that the 16 or so teams that feature regularly now can still have their own friendly tournaments pretty much as they always have and 16 of the newer teams begin to form their own circuit with a similar vibe - Almost like the natural evolution of a second "league" (Yeuch! Horrible word). It is happening slowly, it just needs to happen a lot faster. Please don't think I'm suggesting an us-them kind of arrangement....I'm not (well maybe I am INITIALLY), there needs to be cross over between the systems, maybe when the minnows think they can take on some of the more established teams or when some of the bigger teams see the raw talent in the younger teams and invite them to come and play. This will ultimately bring more teams into contact with each other and bring the newer teams up to a better standard in a much shorter period of time. It wouldn't hurt for some of the bigger teams to go to the "younger tournaments" anyway - in fact I'm sure many of them would love to. But we gotta find hosts first. I'll point the finger at myself first - as an RC (that's RC not arsey!!) that's partly my job, and I'm trying, believe me. At the moment we have potentially 3 teams (mine included) who are thinking of playing hosts for the first time next year in the SE, but whilst the BUF can assist and encourage, we can't put a gun to people's heads and tell them to put on a tournament. Sean, (I think it was Sean, sorry, I had lots of =, E1 and 20's in your message) >When I have played for Shotgun against a "weaker" team and played the game >as we would any other (thus giving the team the respect they should have), I >have received complaints that we didn't give the other team a chance and we >should have let them make more passes and maybe score a few more points. >But when we have taken it easy against a team I have received complaints >that we were being patronising and only fooling around. I think we are >beginning to get a balance between the two - playing hard but not with total >intensity. Seeing as no-one else commented despite your invitation to, I'll say this, I think Shotgun are getting a nice balance, I watched them playing Hurricane at the Qualifiers and you could see the Hurricane players really getting into it because they were completing passes and getting opportunities to get free and possibly score, I think the complaints start to come when teams aren't even getting an opportunity to get a first pass away, heads go down and nobody enjoys it - winners or losers (then you get the situation where 7 players all walk over the disc 'cos no-one wants to pick it up). On the question of being patronising and fooling around, there's a difference here between clearly "enjoying" your ultimate even if it is an easy game i.e. having a bit of a laugh while you're cruising to a win, and being patronising. Patronising I'd class as throwing forty yard scoring scuba's or hook-thumbers from the half way line just because you can. Dunno if that makes it any clearer for you????? I'll respond to Aram's proposition some other time otherwise I'll be here all day. Feel free to shoot me down in flames. Stu.