JP said: >>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?
I would severely doubt that they can answer the second part of your question, as they have no idea of numbers of teams. I would think that it will be harder than ever to predict numbers of teams for Tours 2-4 this year because of exams, EUCC interruptions, and the lack of having to go to Scotland for Tour 4. (I am not saying that is an acceptable reason, but just one of the realistic reasons why Edinburgh is always a bit quieter) Most people I spoke to before Tour 1 were amazed at how many teams were going to play, which couldn't have been predicted at bid stage. (49 teams to 60 teams is a fairly big jump from last year) When the initial invites were sent out, I am guessing that Adam & Matt didn't worry about limiting numbers, as that has never been a problem, and after that you can't refuse people entry. Once that number of teams have entered, it is obviously far too late to do anything about finding a second venue. Then couple that with a loss of pitches for the weekend, and you have the problems with scheduling as we saw at the weekend. I think that we have got to the stage now where the need for the preparatory work from last year (formulating the split in the tours) has become obvious, and ideally this years events would have had split venues to provide more pitch time. However, I think a lot of people over the close season looked at the fact that last years venues coped with joint events, and didn't expect anything different for the coming year. Now that we have seen that a combined tour event stretches the venues to the limits, TD's and prospective TD's can scout around for more venues for smaller events. Hopefully next year the sport will grow even more, and make sure that we have some excellent events at excellent venues. Lets hope you can find a good venue in Oxford for next year. (It is much closer to Birmingham) Andy UTB __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list BritDisc@near.me.uk http://zion.ranulf.net/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/informed.asp
