BD, After some private emails I think I need to clarify where I am coming from with my emails about Tour schedules etc.
Firstly I have nothing against Chris Hughes, he does a thankless task very well. I do not blame Chris for any of the issues with scheduling. I have spoken to Chris many times both before and after the split of the tours about the various formats. From those conversations I think Chris feels that part of his job as DOC is to schedule the tours according to the following parameters: A tour Should have the format that we currently use as decided by the A Tour captains midway through last season. B Tour Every team should be able to win the B tour. Up to 32 teams should be able to play the B tour regardless of whether that makes a sensible number of teams. I think that Chris feels that these constraints are what we, the Tour playing members, want the structure to be rather than a reflection of his personal choice as to the right way to do it. Within those constraint Chris has done a fantastic job. His schedule for 25 teams for B tour 2 was genius as was coping with the loss of a pitch at the last minute. However the point of my emails (and I think others) to Britdisc is to further the discussion about what the constraints for the tournament formats should be. I hope that we can have a sensible discussion on the matter. What do players in the A, B (both top16 and bottom16) & Women's tour really want. If we can get a consensus either publicly on BD or privately as to what we the players and teams want the format to be then we can present those sets of formats to Chris and ask him to write the particular schedule for the venue in question. (Or screw it I'll write the schedule if he doesn't want to do it.) So what do other teams want? I've spoken to some teams and players about it and the overall picture is discontentment with the current system particularly with the amount of pitch time. I'll try to collate a set of opinions from all the teams. Can I get answers to the following questions: A tour teams 1. Are you happy with the current format with back to back games? 2. If not which format would you rather see (see my previous mail for a suggested set of choices)? 3. What would be the ideal length of games for the A tour? B Tour teams 1. Are you happy with the current format? 2. Are you happy with the current amount of pitch time? 3. What would be the ideal length of games for the B tour? 4. Do you think it is important to keep an open format in which every team can win? 5. Do you think that the number of teams should be restricted to make scheduling easier (ie to multiples of 4)? Women's Tour teams 1. Are you happy with the current format? 2. Are you happy with the current amount of pitch time? 3. What would be the ideal length of games for the women's tour? Please reply to me privately rather than to BD. Cheers JP __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [email protected] http://zion.ranulf.net/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/informed.asp
