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Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 01:50:49 +0100
Subject: Re: Regionisations
From: Paul Hurt <paul@ultimatum.demon.co.uk>
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Just a couple of points before I go to bed...

1) IMHO, "city leagues" have real potential to expand the player base beyond
the tournament-hardened crowd we have now. Your korfball analogy is right on
the money.

The trick is achieving a critical mass of teams/players within one city
(though to me, three teams is critical mass! Double round-robin. Then the
following year you can aim for four. Build it and they will come).

You need a good number of experienced players to form the core of the
league. So that pretty much counts out summer weekends (when most will want
to play at tournaments - or even have a weekend off when there's no
tournament).

Making it weeknights means that you can't cast the net too wide,
geographically speaking - people have to be able to get to the fields, play
the game, hit the pub, and get home in time to get up for work again the
next day.

We're lucky enough to have sufficient players in London to make this work
with Summer League - games are competitive, and most players can stay out
until closing time and still get home.

Maybe Oxford could manage it. Perhaps Bristol. Edinburgh?

OTOH, London's Winter League worked at weekends because of Roger's
commitment to the idea, because teams wanted to play outdoors all year
round, and because there was nothing else going on ;-)  (Spoken like a true
Clapham player.) Not the easiest time of year to introduce new players to
the game though.


2) If you're suggesting regionalising the Tour, that would defeat much of
the object of the excersise - if the top teams ended up in different regions
they would not get the high level play they need to remain competitive
internationally.


3) I've always thought that "fun tournament" date clashes are a good thing,
as long as the tournaments aren't both at the same end of the country. That
way, you get "regionalisation" without any extra effort, more tournaments
squashed into the year, more space for new teams to come and play (and
possibly without getting crushed by 80% of the opposition). How does not
having all the "top teams" at a tournament make it any less fun?


4) Beware of one-day tournaments if dragging teams in from far and wide -
currently, much of the appeal of Ultimate to new players is the social/party
side of things, which is seriously undermined if you're having to spend
Saturday night getting home. We had that with the British Ultimate League
back in the early eighties - didn't work all that great.


Ramble mode off. :-)


Paul