From britdisc-owner@csv.warwick.ac.uk Mon Sep 9 13:06:19 1996 remote from Received: from thistle.csv.warwick.ac.uk by clover.csv.warwick.ac.uk with ESMTP id NAA26220; Mon, 9 Sep 1996 13:06:18 +0100 (BST) Received: by thistle.csv.warwick.ac.uk id NAA10853; Mon, 9 Sep 1996 13:00:56 +0100 (BST) Received: from amsta.leeds.ac.uk by thistle.csv.warwick.ac.uk with SMTP id NAA10842; Mon, 9 Sep 1996 13:00:50 +0100 (BST) Received: from newton.leeds.amsta (newton.leeds.ac.uk [129.11.36.64]) by amsta.leeds.ac.uk (8.6.12/8.6.9) with SMTP id NAA23131; Mon, 9 Sep 1996 13:01:52 +0100 Received: by newton.leeds.amsta (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id NAA21356; Mon, 9 Sep 1996 13:02:56 +0100 Date: Mon, 9 Sep 1996 13:02:56 +0100 From: amtsjh@amsta.leeds.ac.uk (S J Hill) Message-Id: <199609091202.NAA21356@newton.leeds.amsta> To: britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk Subject: UK only. Nationals. Cc: eurodisc@ira.uka.de X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Sender: owner-britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Status: RO Hi Everyone Please let me start with a few apologies - cos thats the sort of chap I am. 1. Things have been a little rushed, and not as well organised as one would hope... this should begin to change as we now have someone (ie me at the moment) who's job it is to sort out these things! 2. I am sending this to BritDisc and EuroDisc - for those few people who haven't got themselves sorted onto BD yet... if there are any such people left. (If this applies to you then get yourself onto BD today so that we can stop boring the rest of Europe with messages that are of no interest to them.) 3. This is necessarily quite a long email - be thankful that I don't put my CV at the bottom of every email I write! National Outdoor Championships ============================== Dates and Venues ---------------- Regionals: all on 19/20 Oct. North & Mids : Boston Spa South-West : Exeter Uni - Double Locks South-East : Hitchin, Herts - Priory School Finals are on 26/27 Oct @ Priory School in Hitchin as SE Reg. Apologies to those people who feel that consectutive w/es are a bit tough. I agree - but we didn't have a lot of options. You will soon be contacted by the TD of your regional qualifier with more info... like prices. At this point I still don't have an exact figure for the cost of finals... but we are trying very hard to keep all the costs as low as possible. Regions ------- Sorting everyone into exactly the right region is not straightforward for a number of reasons. On the whole I believe that most teams are in the right region. Its unlikely to be possible to move people around at this late stage, but if there are any glaring mistakes please let me know. (Basically its the same as last year I think.) Finals Format ------------- With your invitation you will receive a more detailed version of this but... Building on last year's Nationals based on the regionals+finals format, we have made a few changes this year with the intention that this system should remain in place for several years, (until the number/quality of teams requires the system to be updated). The total number of teams drops to 16, (from 24 last year). But in keeping with the spirit of what was done last year, there will be 2 divisions of 8. Format: Both divisions of 8 play in 2 groups of 4 in games of about 90 mins to 17. The top 4 then play semis in full games to 21. The teams ranked 5-12 at the end of group play then playoff from quarter-finals to decide 5-12th places; and the bottom four playoff to decide 13-16th. (These other games will be the same length as the Saturday games.) Note that to achieve a schedule like this requires teams to play consecutive games: qualifying teams will require a reasonable size squad! (Remember the rules about only playing for ONE team over regionals and finals.) Qualifying Places: Each region gets 5 teams to the finals; with 2 guaranteed in the top 8. The 16th place, and the distribution of the remaining 2 places in the top 8 are to be decided on the basis of results from the previous year. This is of course the reason why teams playoff for 5-12 positions: it gives an opportunity to reflect the strengths of teams in each region as changes occur from year to year. Given that the system last year was slightly different, and that the results were affected by Lurkers' no-show, this year's distribution has been based on a mixture of last year's result and a bit of common sense. Not everyone will agree with the decision, but that would be true of whatever system was used. Seeding: The seeding too is to be based on the results from the previous year. The format of the tournament has been set up in such a way as to allow for any mistakes in the seeding to work themselves out: the top two teams will still end up in the final. Also, there will no longer be any "re-jigging" of groups so that teams from the same region avoid each other in the opening groups. This year's seedings will therefore run as follows: (NB this does NOT tell you which teams are in which group). 1. SE1 2. SW1 3. NM1 4. SW2 5. SE2 6. NM2 7. NM3 8. SE3 9. SW3 10. SE4 11. SW4 12. NM4 13. SE5 14. SW5 15. NM5 16. SW6 Some explanation is required because this does not tally exactly with last year! 1. 8th place last year was a N&M team: however this was *possibly* affected by the Lurkers' no-show; and given that the system has slightly changed it was deemed fairer that this place be awarded to one of the other regions. 2. The decision to give the place to the SE was based on 2 main reasons: - The SW had only 2 teams finishing in the top 8 after 2 of their 4 teams were knocked out by N&M teams. - The emergence of UTI in the SE means that Lurkers' no-show from last year could have actually punished a completely different team! 3. By way of compensation to the SW for this difficult decision, this year they are awarded the 16th spot in the finals. Thus 6 teams qualify from that region. I hope this meets with your approval. Lots of people have ideas about this sort of thing - I'd love to hear from anyone who has comments about all this (especially constructive ones)... but as I've already said: don't expect any changes in time for this year! That's about all I think. See you at Eastbourne. If you want to talk to me I'll be the one with 22 on my back. Simon Hill, Director of Competitions (<-- which is why I'm doing it now rather than Scott...)