Chris, Many teams practice outdoors all year round. Certainly the Winter Leagues in London and elsewhere, plus the Savage 7s in Crystal Palace last December would tend to support extending the outdoor season.
The obvious problem of weather, bad light, hardened surfaces and wind conditions that can make the game pretty ugly are worth considering carefully however. I wouldn't like to play on any more pitches resembling Towcester again in any season. David Eastman, Hammerage (I'll ignore the anti-Indoor nonsense as thats the Clapham Boys speciality.) >From: "Chris Berry" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: Why not shorten the indoor season? >Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 14:33:38 > >Dear All, > >After following the interesting discussion on tour divisions, mixed events >and saturation of the calender i would like to throw in some suggestions. > >Firstly, i believe that separating the Tour into two divsions should be >avoided in principle. I can remember when i first started what a thrill it >was watching and learning from the best teams in the country - it is a >valuable part of the tournament experience for those that are new to the >game. As i say, i disaggree in principle but am not blind to the >impracticalities of hosting a 40+ tournament and don't have any better >solutions than those suggested. Onlt that we perhaps could use a 'winter >league' style qualification before the outdoor season. > >Keeping the Tour and Mixed tour separate is imperitive: making players >choose between mixed and open would be damaging to both mixed ultimate and >the progress of womens ultimate in this country. It would also push the >team >numbers in the open division higher still. The efforts of Nancy Stebbing >and >Co. should not be dismissed and those that wish to play in both divisions >will just have to appreciate their hectic Ultimate Calender. > >The Uk is one of the few nations that play indoors, the US play outdoor all >year round so it seems strange that here in the UK we allocate 5 months of >the Ultimate calender to it. A simple solution to the saturation of the >Outdoor calender would be to increase the length of the season as their is >no real reason why we can't play all year round. Starting the Tour in >March( >or even February) would open up the ultimate calender so that the tour >didn't dominate the season. It would also encourage more students to play >outdoors as there would be more outdoor non-tour events during term time. >This may demand a small sacrifice to the shmindoor season but as many will >agree, it shouldn't hold back the growth of ultimate in the country. > >May i also suggest that to allow easier scheduling of large tour >tournaments >that we aim to hold them over bank holiday weekends and make them a three >day event? > >Chris Berry (Un Poco Loco) >....waiting to be beaten down from all angels by smindoor lovers >everywhere!!! > > >"I married Miss Right," conceded Harry. "I just didn�t know her first name >was Always." > > >_________________________________________________________________ >MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: >http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx > _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
