Is that really true? I suppose that might apply for teams like Abstract who are drawn from places all across a country but don't think that really applies to more town/city based teams. Brighton Ultimate Club hasn't been developed specifically to play Tour tournaments. Sure we play the Tours but we spend a lot more time having two practices a week all through the year, our own winter and summer leagues and going to other tournaments. Maybe we're just special, but I'm sure teams like Bristol and Ltd do a lot more than just play the Tour, and have players that turn up and play but don't want to travel the length and breadth of the country to play?
Scuttles point is a valid one. The Tour requires a lot of commitment and dedication. Thats probably what we want at the top end of British Ultimate, but can we really say that is of benefit to all levels? Maybe a way forward would be to run some form of UKU regional tournaments as well as the Tour , maybe on the same weekend as EUCF. They would give the opportunity to test out regional interest without having to completley restructure the way we play competitive Ultimate. Ala ----- Original Message ---- From: IndoorsDOC <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Scuttler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, 15 May, 2007 12:51:45 PM Subject: Re: [BD] summing up todays discussion 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 __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [email protected] http://www.fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/staying-informed ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Answers - Got a question? Someone out there knows the answer. Try it now. http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/ __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [email protected] http://www.fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/staying-informed
