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Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 15:50:25 +0100
To: britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk
From: Roger Thomson <roger@kbw.co.uk>
Subject: Re: WUCC in vancouver - and togetherness
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At 13:58 25/04/97 +0100, Si Hill wrote:

>Is that next to the heads of all the Shotgun players who wanted more 
>competition but wouldn't play for anyone else?

No Simon, because if our heads are in the sand your head is definitely up
your arse on this issue (despite your usual level-headedness). I've
addressed this to Britdisc in order to help unplug the butts of all the
other simple-minded persons (and there are lots) who share and voice this
opinion every now and again.

If you're not interested - read no further.


Of the 28 players on or roster less than 10 do not live in London. The
heart of Shotgun live within several miles of each other in South London.
We party together. We work together. We don't just play together. It
therefore makes good sense for us all to play together, and it would be
ridiculous for us to play for anyone else. Can you see Pete Harvey playing
with the Playthings?

As it happens the quality of play at our pratices as well as at tournaments
attracts good players who are less than challenged playing for their own
teams. Where else in the country can you go and get such a high standard
practice twice a week if you're a skilled player? 

Frankly there are more and more athletes entering the sport who much prefer
playing with other athletes in a competitive game than with the average 'I
play Ultimate because I didn't play any other sport before university and
it looked fun' kind of player - and we provide that environment.

The reason these players flock to us is that NOONE else provides that
environment. If there was even one other team that provided that kind of
regular game Shotgun would probably pick up less than half of these players
and 'Game on!'. 

Until another team is prepared to put as much into playing as our players
we'll stay at the top. We shouldn't be criticised for that commitment and
the resulting quality of play. 

What we want is more competition at our level, not competition at your
level. In five years time we'd rather there were 5 teams of our quality
than one more team of your quality.

This will be a long time in coming and we believe the best way of achieving
it is to provide great practices so that we can develop better skills and
share them with players from other teams. Without this the standard of
British Ultimate will not improve as quickly and we'll be as left behind as
we are in other sports. Just remember:
Who taught Catch 22 the new offence they had developed and has introduced
the idea that you can play more than stack offence to the masses?
Which team do 2 out of 3 of the GB captains play for? 
Which team in this country practices the most and sets the best example of
how a team can be successful if they work at it?
Which team welcomes and gets top players from other teams at their regular
practices, thereby giving these players a chance to stay in shape and
improve disc skills?
Which team outranks all the other British team at EVERY international
tournament they attend?

And please don't think that I'm just blowing the Shotgun trumpet - I'm
trying to make you think...Our dominance should worry the rest of you when
you stop to consider how far behind the best world club teams Shotgun is.
We can't just assume that Ultimate in this country will evolve into a more
competitive sport; people have to make it evolve and while the BUF has
worked wonders at the grass roots level, noone looks after things at the
top level.

Controversial as always,
Roger
SHOTGUN