From britdisc-owner@csv.warwick.ac.uk Tue Jun 27 11:51:15 2000 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk (8.10.1/8.9.3) id e5RAnW320958 for britdisc-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jun 2000 11:49:32 +0100 (BST) Received: from snowdrop.csv.warwick.ac.uk (root@snowdrop [137.205.192.31]) by pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk (8.10.1/8.9.3) with ESMTP id e5RAnUe20944 for <britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk>; Tue, 27 Jun 2000 11:49:30 +0100 (BST) Received: from sphmgaaf.compuserve.com (hs-img-6.compuserve.com [149.174.177.155]) by snowdrop.csv.warwick.ac.uk (8.10.1/8.9.3) with ESMTP id e5RAfvY13695 for <britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk>; Tue, 27 Jun 2000 11:42:01 +0100 (BST) Received: (from mailgate@localhost) by sphmgaaf.compuserve.com (8.9.3/8.9.3/SUN-1.9) id GAA10910 for britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk; Tue, 27 Jun 2000 06:40:36 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 06:40:04 -0400 From: Stuart Clark <Frisbee@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Re: Tour III - nanny state rule and its exploitation To: Britdisc <britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk> Message-ID: <200006270640_MC2-AA41-5952@compuserve.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk id e5RAnUe20949 Sender: owner-britdisc@warwick.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Again, as somebody who has experienced this from both sides, here's my two-penneth, I. for many years, was captain of the aforementioned Village People (thankyou Paul Meaney!) and I was proud of that team, not because we did anything fantastic or ever threatened to make a semi-final, but because I believe we had a good reputation as being a good spirited team. Quite a few years ago, around the transitional period between "monster" nationals of 36 teams and the introduction of the tour we had an interesting run-in with the Playthings at a nationals at Oxford. We were on, first game of the Sunday morning, in an important play-off for a top 12 spot. We used to meet Playthings all the time and had many a good scrap against them, if they were on form we knew we had a hard fight on our hands. We were all there at 8.30am, warming up and throwing around (which for us was unheard of) and the Playthings were nowhere to be seen. At 9am, the hooter sounded - the Playthings had, I seem to remember, 3 or 4 people. We could have played the game 3 on 3 or 4 on 4, but that seemed pretty pointless, or we could have played 7 on 3/4, but it would have been a pasting and no fun for anyone. OR, we could have started taking points off them for every minute they weren't ready (yes, the rule was in force at that tournament - what 5(?) years ago). However, we chose none of those options and waited for the Playthings to arrive. It was about 9.25 before the Playthings were ready to start. At the end of game hooter we were level. There was no two point cap. The game went into sudden death "overtime" and we lost. Personally I thought that was a spirited decision by us, others may think it was stupid. Yes, we were beaten fair and square in a "proper" game but we did feel somewhat robbed of a top 12 position, not because of anything the Playthings had done, but because on a field not-too-distant from us, another team had won a game by enforcing the point-a-minute rule. And here's the crux of the issue - it's not about cries of "Spirit!" - it's about enforcement of the rules. A case in point which many of us probably remember is Catch 22 copping a lot of crap on Britidisc about spirit for taking a dropped pull and scoring off it. Si Hill promptly and correctly pointed out that those were the rules of the game and the rules that Catch played by. It had nothing to do with Spirit. Rarely now do you see teams letting other teams off for dropped pulls. The same applies for this seven on the line/point docking rule. It's in the tour rules and it has been for a while (at least last season as well as many teams found to their cost). It needs to be there so that we have standardisation across the board when this situation arises - so that a team that shows more "spirit" doesn't lose out in a situation where another (argueably no less spirited team) enforces the rules and progresses onward through the tournament. We should all acknowledge that the rule exists, we should all have no qualms about enforcing it on our opposition and we should all accept that our opposition will enforce it on us if we don't have seven on the line at the hooter - without raising questions about spirit afterwards. Spirit should be about how you as an individual and/or a team handle yourselves on the field once the game is in play, not about judgement calls about how and when to begin a game if a team isn't ready - the tour rules now take that out of our hands. I appreciate Aram's comments but the rules can't allow for any individuals circumstances regardless of how unfortunate or unforseen they are. Your opposition aren't to know why you aren't there - they just know you aren't. I would bore you with the Village People/French Connection story since it's quite amusing but I think I've rambled enough and hopefully made my point. Stu Ex Village People now.....wait for it......BAF (Co-ed!)