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Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1997 13:09:28 -0500
From: Stuart Clark <Frisbee@compuserve.com>
Subject: London Summer League.
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Roger wrote,

>As for what has been known as 'Summer League', which has traditionally
>taken place on the Common on a Thursday night - with so many London
players
>maybe we should try to make it some kind of summer league rather than just
>an all-are-welcome practice? Opinions welcome. 

OK. here's my opinion,
I think Paul posed the original question about an "all-are-welcome"
practice because it's something he and I have discussed in the past - I
know the North London League (whilst not hugely supported - Neal Travers
will correct me if I'm wrong) managed to keep going all through last summer
thanks mainly to the efforts of Neal, Wayne Davey and a few others.  Paul
and I had discussed the idea of setting something up which was more
accessible to players in the South London area (A south London league
equivalent) that would also be open to all players of whatever standard,
and we did consider the fact that established players might not always
relish the idea of playing alongside beginners every week. So I think there
is room for a compromise.

>From a development point of view it would be nice if I could field
enquiries and say to people "Hey look, there's this open practice you can
go to every week on Clapham common" as well as putting people in touch with
teams.  I've had loads of enquiries from people regarding the article that
appeared in Time-out and really all I can do at the moment is say "Here is
your nearest team - get in touch with them" and when you think about it, in
the London area you're really only looking at Albatross, Angels,
Playthings, Shotgun and Violently Happy - that's quite restricting -
there's no way I'm going to put someone new to the game in touch with
Shotgun or VH.  So it's fine if the enquirer is based in the west or North
of London, but failing that, East London is a bit of a desert as far as
Ultimate teams are concerned. 

So, back to the point. If there was an open practice which happened on a
regular basis in Central "ish" London, then we can get those people who
would have normally slipped through the net, to at least get along to a
practice and check out the game for themselves - and if they like it, they
might bring their friends next time and who knows what might come from
that. Heaven forbid - perhaps new teams!

Now I don't think that has to conflict with a competitive London League. If
you could raise say 5 or 7 teams to play against each other on some kind of
round robin basis then you could draw up a rota system to have 4 or 6 of
those teams turn up on any given practice, play say two competitive "long"
games, and ask volunteers or nominate members of the absent team for that
week (i.e the team not scheduled to play) to come along and muck in with
the beginners, give them some pointers and coaching - and all this can go
on alongside the competitive games - Hell, if we get enough interested
people we might have two or three games of beginners Ultimate going on.

Having said all that, the only stage Paul and I had gotten to was talking
about it - I guess that's why he posed the question - maybe to see if
anyone had any thoughts about setting something up.  

Again, Opinions on the above are welcome. I'm sure Paul and I would like to
see some creative input.

Stu
VILLAGE PEOPLE
SE RC (Yeah, I'm that as well)