A matter I think is of real importance here, above all others, was the state of the pitches. Every field we played on had dips, holes and even metal plates covering post holes all over them (ok so someone had carefully piled soil over the metal plates, not only to create further lumps at the back of endzones but also only to be washed away during the night). As a result of the dips in the fields, we had one player turn his ankle and was out for the weekend, and one player who jarred their knee because the ground he was running on suddenly wasn't flat anymore.
If somebody is seriously injured due to the state of the fields at a sanctioned event held at a UKUA approved venue, the UKUA, vicariously along with the venue, would be open to all manner of negligence claims, which I hope your insurance would cover. Matt Tooting ________________________________ From: Sion Scone <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, 8 June, 2009 12:45:52 Subject: [BD] A list of questions about Tour 1 Some are aimed at the TDs, some at the schedule / format writers, some at the competition committee. Personally I always try to raise issues because without feedback how can things be improved? However I believe that since a lot of concerns, complaints etc fall on deaf ears, people just don't bother and put up with things they really shouldn't. Hence I'm making this public in the hope that some people get in touch with me to tell me they agree / disagree with what I have to say below. So here we go... feel free to add your voice if you agree (or disagree, maybe my experiences were exceptional). 1 - If the format for Tour 1 is so open, what was the point in Tour 0? Tour 0 as a seeding tournament might work in principle, but if you divvy into North/South then you create a new problem that needs fixing at Tour 1. Tour 0 should never have happened - what a waste of effort. 2 - Its commonly said that the "big teams" shouldn't have to play at Tour 0 because its "a waste of their time". For the second year in a row, one of the teams that didn't need to go to Tour 0 dropped a significant number of places (for whatever reason). My point is that perhaps it should be considered that those "big clubs" aren't as stable as people assume, and that other teams are closing the gap. Throw in things like Fire having evenly split squads and things become less predictable still. Basically, if we're going to have a seeding tournament then every team needs to be there. 3 - Who wrote that schedule, and who approved that venue? Why were some teams playing first and last game on Saturday? With a 9am start and a 7.30pm finish, add in warmup / warmdown time and we were on the fields for 12 hours. That's a ridiculously long time. Luckily it didn't rain too much and it wasn't freezing cold; but it could have been. There was ZERO shelter and the only facilities I saw were portaloos. There was inadequate parking which resulted in a lot of people getting parking fines. The pitches weren't even close to flat, the first one we played on had craters, not potholes. 4 - I was continuously hunting for pitch water. Every single game. Thankfully (!!!) we had an injured player with us who could act as water boy and get the organisers to bring water to the fields for us. No pitch water is unacceptable in my eyes, particularly given the heat on Sunday. 5 - Our first game on Sunday got moved and *nobody* bothered to tell us. We only found out when there were three teams trying to warmup on the same pitch... I understand that if something goes wrong and a pitch becomes unusable then the schedule might need to be altered, but the TDs *have* to take responsibility to notify the teams concerned. Not to do so is simply unprofessional. 6 - I understand that some of the problems with scheduling were related to the large number of teams on a small number of fields. The simplest solution to this would be to hold the women's and open events at different venues... was this considered? 7 - Some of the teams playing this weekend basically have been working towards that tournament for months. Is there any reason we were left so long to know the format (not the schedule but the tournament format, i.e. who plays who)? For the geeks out there who like to plan ahead, this information is useful! Besides, what if there'd been an obvious problem with the format? There were a lot of discussions at the weekend regarding the format, but because it was only released on Friday afternoon there was no time to make changes if they were needed. Most people's opinion was to then not bother complaining... but not mine :-) I will point out that I thought it was good there was food available and there were medics on site (who seemed pretty busy from what I saw). Props for that. If this is seriously the best that the UKU can do then I suggest a coup. And before anyone says "well you do better" or similar: firstly, I'm willing to try. Secondly, remember that not only did you pay £180 entry fee per team for this event, but every single person who wanted to play has to register with the UKU and pay £27.50 (unless you're eligible for a discount) as well. That means that the people who get this money (TDs and UKU) are accountable, and we have the right to complain. Do you really think that you get value for money? Don't accept second best for UK Ultimate! Lets keep pushing the standards up. Brummie __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [email protected] http://www.fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/staying-informed __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [email protected] http://www.fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/staying-informed
