I love these interviews they open my eyes give me an insight and get me thinking about something I love and that is paintball thank you pete.
Keep them coming.
Interview with Marcus Davis - One of the Most Successful Brits of All Time !!
- Thread starter Robbo
- Start date
Keep them coming.
I've just started to watch these now that " 'er indoors 'as gawn ou shoppin"
F*ck me, where's the subtitles? The yanks'll never decipher you two!! It puts me in mind of a modern day version of the Krays
F*ck me, where's the subtitles? The yanks'll never decipher you two!! It puts me in mind of a modern day version of the Krays
I've just started to watch these now that " 'er indoors 'as gawn ou shoppin"
F*ck me, where's the subtitles? The yanks'll never decipher you two!! It puts me in mind of a modern day version of the Krays
Dusty, I must admit to thinking it would come across as maybe a tad thuggish looking but I was more fearful of myself and Marcus looking like Waldorf and Statler from the Muppet show ... two old geezers reminiscing about bygone days ... which I suppose it was.
As the interview was unfolding, a lot of the memories and emotions from those times came flooding back and I began to once again experience what it was like to live and die our beloved sport; to myself and Marcus, it was the most important thing in our lives and our relationship was like a war.
It may well be we both had a skewed perspective on paintball almost to pathological status, and I'm pretty sure our love/need for the game became an unhealthy indulgence.
But maybe it takes that sort of commitment to get to the top of any sport ..... a sobering thought indeed.
Marcus touched upon the domestic sacrifices he had made because of his devotion to paintball and when articulated, it brought home to the pair of us just how much we had lost or at least compromised in pursuit of our goals.
A great football manager called Bill Shankly once stated something like, 'Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more important than that'.
For some people, paintball has that same meaning .....
I did have to chuckle at him talking about Bob Long asking him not to play the Ironmen,
"Who the fack are you, go on then, fack off"
Didn't come across as thuggish, more like the Godfathers of paintball reminiscing about when men were men, none of this pinny wearing poncing around complaining about getting shot.
Bring back the days when paintball was the reserve of those who could actually afford to put the required time and finance into it.
Now you've only got scrotes who'll bemoan 30 or 40 quid for a days playing.
"Who the fack are you, go on then, fack off"
Didn't come across as thuggish, more like the Godfathers of paintball reminiscing about when men were men, none of this pinny wearing poncing around complaining about getting shot.
Bring back the days when paintball was the reserve of those who could actually afford to put the required time and finance into it.
Now you've only got scrotes who'll bemoan 30 or 40 quid for a days playing.
It was an excellent insight into what was once great about the sport long since passed unfortunatly, the days of the greats and the charecters and how our sport used to be but not just that, how it could be once more if people want it to be.
I pretty much grew up reading about the exploits of marcus and robbo through the mags and it was an inspiration to myself to play harder for the team i played and trained with for the few years i could afford to do it way back when.
Watching that interview brought back feelings of how things once were for myself and the sport, and hopefully it can maybe return to those heights one day.
I pretty much grew up reading about the exploits of marcus and robbo through the mags and it was an inspiration to myself to play harder for the team i played and trained with for the few years i could afford to do it way back when.
Watching that interview brought back feelings of how things once were for myself and the sport, and hopefully it can maybe return to those heights one day.
Just finished working through the 12 videos. A superb trip down memory lane
The mid 1990's tournament scene is sadly missed by players of my vintage. I've dabbled with X-ball a few times but it's just not my bag. Give me a day of crawling in the bushes anyday of the week. Once a woodsballer - always a woodsballer in my opinion
The mid 1990's tournament scene is sadly missed by players of my vintage. I've dabbled with X-ball a few times but it's just not my bag. Give me a day of crawling in the bushes anyday of the week. Once a woodsballer - always a woodsballer in my opinion
thank you robbo and marcus for a great trip down memory lane,
miss the good old days, playing against the nam, preds
and all the other teams in the uk,
are you going to do more interviews with the pioneering
paintball captains from the past?
Dickie, bad company uk.
miss the good old days, playing against the nam, preds
and all the other teams in the uk,
are you going to do more interviews with the pioneering
paintball captains from the past?
Dickie, bad company uk.
Thanks for this interview Pete; it was great to hear Marcus and you talking about those great days, I had forgotten how potty mouthed you both are!!
I would love to see more interviews like this from the top players/team captains and even some of the industry figures from the 90’s. I think it would be great to get someone to interview you Pete.
I had the pleasure and privilege of being part of the height of PB in the Uk, playing with Bad Company against Nam and Preds many times. Those days are sorely missed that is for sure.
A couple of years ago a group of us old guard got together and tried to get a uk woodsball tournament scene going again, in fact Pete you came and played one of the Holmbush tourneys. We even did a training day and shared out some of what we learnt back in the day.
Although many players out there would love to see a more competitive woodland scene again the sad fact is that site owners and industry are just not interested and without the backing of theses guys it is just a non-starter.
Perhaps though Pete if respected players such as the likes of you and Marcus were to lead a resurgence of tournament woodsball we may get the industry on side again.
I would love to see more interviews like this from the top players/team captains and even some of the industry figures from the 90’s. I think it would be great to get someone to interview you Pete.
I had the pleasure and privilege of being part of the height of PB in the Uk, playing with Bad Company against Nam and Preds many times. Those days are sorely missed that is for sure.
A couple of years ago a group of us old guard got together and tried to get a uk woodsball tournament scene going again, in fact Pete you came and played one of the Holmbush tourneys. We even did a training day and shared out some of what we learnt back in the day.
Although many players out there would love to see a more competitive woodland scene again the sad fact is that site owners and industry are just not interested and without the backing of theses guys it is just a non-starter.
Perhaps though Pete if respected players such as the likes of you and Marcus were to lead a resurgence of tournament woodsball we may get the industry on side again.
Lets not get too tearly eyed, and remember why we came out of the woods, ...
1) Too many draws - the weaker team would always 'dig in' against the stronger team. The vast majority of woodland tournament games would be a tedious attempt to 'dig out' players, usually ending in a drawer. If I remember right, a team could place first at an event by winning just 2 or 3 games out of 10, with all the others being drawers.
2) Not enough woodland sites wanting to host tournaments.
3) A result could be decided on the flip of a coin when choosing ends of the field (woodland is not symetrical).
4) Supair is hard to marshal properly - the woods is impossible.
There are reasons why we moved on, ...
1) Too many draws - the weaker team would always 'dig in' against the stronger team. The vast majority of woodland tournament games would be a tedious attempt to 'dig out' players, usually ending in a drawer. If I remember right, a team could place first at an event by winning just 2 or 3 games out of 10, with all the others being drawers.
2) Not enough woodland sites wanting to host tournaments.
3) A result could be decided on the flip of a coin when choosing ends of the field (woodland is not symetrical).
4) Supair is hard to marshal properly - the woods is impossible.
There are reasons why we moved on, ...
There are elements of truth in all you say.
Certainly from the mid 90’s some lower ranked teams did employ the ‘dig in and rain paint’ tactic. This was inevitable with so few teams dominating the scene at the time but that would have been overcome at some point in someway, taking the sport out of the woods actually benefited the top teams not the lower ones as it gave them less opportunity to ‘Dig in’ and hide.
The disparity in levels of sponsorship didn’t help the sport at the time either; let’s not forget just how expensive everything was back then.
True there were not enough good tournament sites and a lot of fields were one ended, but wasn’t that all part of the skill.. to win from the bad end was always an even bigger buzz.
I have seen all the same ‘tactics’ employed play players to stay in the game used in sup-air as in the woods, so I’m not really sure that one is any better than the other in terms of marshalling. Sure the woods is much harder work for the marshals but a good switch on marshal can read the game in the woods and marshal pretty effectively (I marshalled extensively both in the woods and at arena ball events throughout those years).
In fact the biggest driver for taking the sport out of the woods was the industries attempts to encourage outside sponsors. The only way to do this was to make the sport more spectator friendly and hence the first showing of Hyper-ball for the semis and finals up in Birmingham, where it could be videoed and spectators could watch the action. If you speak to any of the guys who were responsible for the introduction of Hyper-ball, (Cough… Rafe… ) they will confirm it was not based in anyway on what was best in terms of the teams/player experience, purely a way of making the sport more available to the masses and making the identity of paint ball a less ‘war’ based sport in the eyes of big business.
Let’s not forget that Speedball/arenaball had been around for a very long time already, so wasn’t so much a move paintball out of the woods as dropping the woods side of things.
This is all just my opinion of cause.
Certainly from the mid 90’s some lower ranked teams did employ the ‘dig in and rain paint’ tactic. This was inevitable with so few teams dominating the scene at the time but that would have been overcome at some point in someway, taking the sport out of the woods actually benefited the top teams not the lower ones as it gave them less opportunity to ‘Dig in’ and hide.
The disparity in levels of sponsorship didn’t help the sport at the time either; let’s not forget just how expensive everything was back then.
True there were not enough good tournament sites and a lot of fields were one ended, but wasn’t that all part of the skill.. to win from the bad end was always an even bigger buzz.
I have seen all the same ‘tactics’ employed play players to stay in the game used in sup-air as in the woods, so I’m not really sure that one is any better than the other in terms of marshalling. Sure the woods is much harder work for the marshals but a good switch on marshal can read the game in the woods and marshal pretty effectively (I marshalled extensively both in the woods and at arena ball events throughout those years).
In fact the biggest driver for taking the sport out of the woods was the industries attempts to encourage outside sponsors. The only way to do this was to make the sport more spectator friendly and hence the first showing of Hyper-ball for the semis and finals up in Birmingham, where it could be videoed and spectators could watch the action. If you speak to any of the guys who were responsible for the introduction of Hyper-ball, (Cough… Rafe… ) they will confirm it was not based in anyway on what was best in terms of the teams/player experience, purely a way of making the sport more available to the masses and making the identity of paint ball a less ‘war’ based sport in the eyes of big business.
Let’s not forget that Speedball/arenaball had been around for a very long time already, so wasn’t so much a move paintball out of the woods as dropping the woods side of things.
This is all just my opinion of cause.