Scuttler wrote:
Tour remains great at what it designed for, providing multiple
high quality games for the top flight. It cannot however achieve that for
which it was not designed, benifit the teams from smaller towns with
smaller pools of players who struggle to get teams together for a full
calander.
I was going to leave this discussion, but I have to disagree with you
Scuttles. Abstract has been going now, under different names, for 8
years or so. We'd pretty definitely count as a team from a smaller town
(there's isn't a single non-student regular player in St Andrews). The
team is principally drawn from various Unis across scotland - last year
was the first year that we put out two teams, and we did so for most of
the tours. Nothing has been stifling /our/ growth. We give anyone in
Scotland the chance to play serious summer ultimate. And we're not the
only club to have a similar story - virtually all of the geo-type teams
in the country, at the top level and /also/ at the lower levels, have
appeared specifically to play in the tour. Some play other tournaments
as well, but the tour is the big, consistent objective that keeps most
of these teams together. Teams that play other high quality non-tour
events, like BritOpen, are still frequently telephone teams - great fun,
but not the way forward, because they can be exclusive and difficult to
get into for new players, and they don't train together.
My point is this: we (Abstract) do sometimes struggle to get a team
together, but the tour is not a hindrance but a help. It encourages club
stability and constant improvement. It provides 'multiple high-quality
games' for every team, not just the top teams. It gives a worthwhile
number of games over a season.
The tour /has/ massively benefited the lower teams in British ultimate -
the depth is now incredible. The standard in the middle of the B-tour is
excellent, far more than I could have imagined 10 years ago. I played on
a team that came 7th on tour in 1996(ish). I've improved enormously as a
player since then, and now regularly finish around 25th.
It ain't broke.
Benji
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