Tour 3 - TD's view: I don't think that any of this is the fault of TDs (and I think you are saying that?), we state how many pitches we will have available and then the DoC writes us a schedule. We therefore have no control over the number of teams entered or the length of games.
At Tour 3 we will have one more pitch available than were at Bristol this weekend and I would like to limit the number of entrants in the B-Tour, so that there is no push for time and teams can have some rest before their next game to get food etc. However, it's not up to me as to how many teams get in or even the criteria for deciding who gets in and who doesn't. One thing though is that the pattern every year is that fewer and fewer teams enter each Tour as sutdents have exams and then go on holiday over the summer. So hopefully there won't be the demand for 60 odd teams at the rest of the Tours... On the cost per pitch time front - I don't really mind how much each team pays as long as the overall amount to us is the same. If there is real demand for it we could weight the cost of entry into Tour 3 to the pitch time available - but we would need some steer from the UKUA as to whether or not we're allowed to do that? I suspect not, at least for this year. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jon Palmer Sent: 05 April 2005 10:19 To: britdisc@near.me.uk Subject: [BD] A&B & Women's tour Pitch time BD, This weekend at Bristol saw the following situation: A tour 16 teams 8 pitches 6 * 90 mins = 540 mins of pitch time per team B & Women's Tour combined 44 teams ~10 or 11 pitches - giving benefit of the doubt for the two pitches lost to weather (approximate as a few women's games where played on the A tour pitches) 8*45 mins = 360 minutes of pitch time per team. So the A tour teams used twice as many pitches per team than the B & Women's tours and got 50% more pitch time yet the cost of entry was the same for all teams. How can this be acceptable? By Adam's own admission this years Tour 1 exceeded the venues capacity. Doesn't the UKU have a responsibility to prevent this from happening? It should have been obvious at the bidding stage that you it is hard to run a good quality tournament for sixty teams on 18 pitches. Furthermore that if you insist on using nearly half of those pitches for only a quarter of the teams then it is impossible to run a good quality tournament for the remaining three quarters of the teams. I don't blame Adam or Matt for trying to make as much money as possible with as many teams as they think they can fit. I'm sure their bid indicated the number of pitches and the maximum number of teams they would have in each division. They made their bid and it was accepted, fair enough. However shouldn't the UKU have some minimum standard for tournaments? At the bidding stage shouldn't they have refused the bid for 60 teams and instead insisted that the tournament be A & B tours only then found another venue for the women's tour OR insisted that the tournament be A tour, women's tour and only a 16 or 20 team B tour? >From my experience playing, running and scheduling outdoor tournaments it seems clear to me that the absolute minimum standard for an outdoor tournament should be one pitch between every four teams. In practice, due to the format, this is often not enough for a B tour event with 32 teams. It will most likely still result in 45 minute games which I don't find acceptable. A more realistic minimum for serious, competitive tournaments should be 1.5 pitches per 4 teams or 12 pitches for a 32 team B tour. With 12 pitches you can schedule the tournament so that each game is at least 60 minutes and probably 75 minutes or better. Why does the UKU not insist on such minimum standards when accepting bids? If part of the purpose of the B tour is to determine the teams to be promoted to the A tour shouldn't the later stage B tour games (at a minimum) be similar if not the same in length as the A tour games the promoted teams will play at the next event? If the UKU is going to accept bids where the pitch time for the A tour is so much more than for the B tour shouldn't they insist that the A tour teams pay for that privilege? Can we expect a similarly shocking lack of pitch time at the B tour events in the future? Can they UKU or the TD's of the remaining three tours inform us how many pitches they have for their events and what average length of games can be expected? JP __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list BritDisc@near.me.uk http://zion.ranulf.net/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/informed.asp This Email is confidential and is for the intended recipient only. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the author and you must not disclose or use the contents in any way. The author bears responsibility for any legal action or disputes arising from views or professional advice expressed which do not relate to the business of Faber Maunsell Ltd. __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list BritDisc@near.me.uk http://zion.ranulf.net/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/informed.asp
