From britdisc-owner@csv.warwick.ac.uk Fri Jul 17 07:06:48 1998 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk (8.8.7/8.8.8) id KAA17335 for britdisc-outgoing; Thu, 16 Jul 1998 10:35:54 +0100 (BST) Received: from penguin.wise.edt.ericsson.se (penguin-ext.wise.edt.ericsson.se [194.237.142.5]) by pansy.csv.warwick.ac.uk (8.8.7/8.8.8) with ESMTP id KAA17311 for <britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk>; Thu, 16 Jul 1998 10:35:50 +0100 (BST) Received: from enlrynt300.dsn.ericsson.se (enlrynt300.dsn.ericsson.se [164.48.68.114]) by penguin.wise.edt.ericsson.se (8.9.0/8.9.0/glacier-1.11) with ESMTP id LAA08390 for <britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk>; Thu, 16 Jul 1998 11:35:34 +0200 (MET DST) Received: by enlrynt300.dsn.ericsson.se with Internet Mail Service (5.5.1960.3) id <35QHBN1Z>; Thu, 16 Jul 1998 11:35:40 +0200 Message-ID: <5F052F2A01FBD11184F00008C7A4A8005DF784@eukbant101.ericsson.se> From: "Alan Baldwin P (EML)" <Alan.Baldwin@eml.ericsson.se> To: britdisc@csv.warwick.ac.uk Subject: Re: Advance Notice Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 11:35:33 +0200 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.1960.3) Content-Type: text/plain Sender: owner-britdisc@warwick.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Just thought I'd like to stick my oar in, Wayne has come up with a pretty definitive description of history, and a pretty good description of what would happen if we tightened up the geo rules. I've got a few points to add. He missed a particularly relevant point in view of who he plays for. Back in the early nineties Druids did pick off the cream of players from Uni. That ONE university being Southampton! The 91/92 Southampton team were Karl Mann, Jeff Jackson, Wayne Retter, Chris Hughes, myself, Paul Schuricht, Dave Murray, and a few others. Anyone notice anything in common about these players? - Druids possibly? The problem we had is that everyone in this team was due to graduate at different times. Forming a team out of these players when the first batch graduated would have destroyed the skunks, so the solution for us was to play with Druids, with whom we already had close ties, since Jeff played for them pre-Uni.. When the Warwick team of a year later Guy, Colin, Norm etc... graduated they had no such strong links to any one club, the result was that they all went their separate ways, some to Stan, some to Druids. Most of those players are now the core of UTI, most of their big tournament experience has come from playing with teams such as Stan, VH, Druids, and Gun. For the UTI team to turn around and start criticising these teams for not being geo, for them to start getting on their toy (high) horses and saying they've developed their own team, their own tactics, it was all their own doing, its not just wrong, its downright hypocritical. If winning affects your memory so badly then I'm happy we never did it too much as Druids. Lets face it every single one of the UTI players (or players on any top team) would jump ship to another team if their own team was for some reason not going to world clubs. Can't remember Gun being so undignified, petulant, smug, and childish when they were winning tournament after tournament. On the subject of geo-teams, what does it matter? - We have the strongest set of teams this country has ever seen, the middle level of British Ultimate is beginning to show real signs of strength, and for that we have the tour to thank. The tour encourages competition at this level particularly, and the 5-12 section in the tournament is always hotly contested. (though not always by Red-shift :-( ) Is the geo-team concept really the reason for this new strength, or is it the fact that the tour forces teams of a similar level together? I moved form one of the telephone teams to a geo team at the tail end of last year. (Druids-Red-shift). The reasons for this move was that we already had a reasonable player base in Southampton who all "commute" to play. We all wanted to practice regularly, besides picking up with Skunks practices at the weekend. It just seemed the right thing to do last year, having now sat on both sides of the fence. I can honestly say that I prefer playing for the telephone team, but enjoy the regular practices organised for the geo-team. As Rafi says we just love playing this great sport. Next year we won't be playing with Red-shift, because there will no longer be a Red-shift team. several of us are returning to Druids, yes I'm jumping ship, I want to play at world clubs, but that's not the only reason. It also has to do with player numbers, caused by a few players leaving, a few injuries, and a couple of emigrations! However you can bet your bottom dollar that I'll still organise practices in Southampton outside of the skunks practices, and we'll still train some of the upcoming stars from the skunks team in our practices. Alan Baldwin