Speaking as someone who's team has been around the 16th mark all summer, I'd strongly suggest that splitting the tour is a bad idea.
As for competitive games and relegation, such things already happen. We play in a group of 8 teams on a saturday, which decides whether we get to crossover up (perhaps as high as 5th) or down (perhaps as low as 24th). We made an arse of tour III, and ended up seeded outside the top sixteen at IV, which meant: even if we won all our games, we couldn't be above 13th afterwards. This certainly felt like relegation.....Each group of 4 is like a 'division' in itself. Our highest this year is thirteen, and our lowest 20th. You'd need pretty strong reasons for splitting the tour before I agreed that we should play a whole year either up or down a division. It's not like clapham or chevvy, where you can guarantee a good line-up - sometimes we put out weaker or stronger teams. Sometimes we just play like arses, and other times like gods. Another point is that the tours are full. Could you guarantee to fill a second division? Weaker players go to these tournaments partly because it's the highest level ultimate there is, and they get to see it, and occasionally play against it. They get to score one point maybe against the very best, and that'll keep them addicted to ultimate for years to come. I scored the only point in a game against Shotgun Wedding about 6 years ago, and I still remember Paul Atkins throwing that hammer to the left of the endzone.... The kudos of saying to people that you were at THE tournament in your chosen sport shouldn't be underestimated. The only reason why the tours might be split is their size - I agree that some venues are stretched, and other great venues are now overlooked, 'cos they can't cope. But it can be done. There've been some great tournaments run this year. Other times, the facilities have been stretched, but there's a simple solution - don't bid if you can't handle it. There's enough grass in this country to organise a decent tournament or four..... And before everyone tells me how hard it is to find suitable venues: fine, we'll bid for it in St. Andrews. We've got plenty of decent pithces, as those of you at world's will know. But would you come? If you're prepared to look for it, or pay for it, venues can be found. My last point is that some of the tournaments have been overstretched by the inclusion of other tournaments, e.g.women's. There really is no need to put the two tournaments on at the same time; some of the players play open AND women's for a start, and it's a half baked system when they have to choose between them on a game by game basis. If there's acres of space and time, then fine, but if TD's are just trying to squeeze a few more quid out of teams without a proper tournament really happening, then it's to no-one's benefit. Enough ranting. Benji _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://pootle.near.me.uk/mailman/listinfo/britdisc
