robbo, you are a respected voice, people can unite when needed,? i think part of the problem is people dont truly believe there to be a need for the sport to move forward! they would like it to, but if it stays as it is alot of people are happy with that! Now if there were no tournements available say or really low par ones and the fed had stepped in then i believe everybody would of been behind it full force! i am all for the fed and moving forward, i supported both fed cups and enjoyed them both but again it to people that didnt see what went on behind the scenes it was just another event with another name!
For this sport to really move forward in this country there needs to be clubs, and players represent there club, etc like most other sports in this country, karate,rugby,tennis,athletics, i believe this would give us the stabilty etc, just my 50p from convos i have had maybe people dont like this idea and thats why it has never really happend. think that would make the diffrence between a hobby and a sport!
I think that's a great point because in essence, the whole UK situation was one of perception in that from the outside, the UK tourney scene was dying.
The leagues were hemorrhaging teams all over the place and the subsequent UK retail market wasn't so much down, as clinically depressed.
All in all, the prognosis wasn't good .... it wasn't fatal but close enough for us to wanna do something drastic.
But .. from the inside i.e. for you guys actually playing in the leagues, as long as the people who wanted to play had some form of event to attend then they wouldn't have seen much wrong with the situation because the team leakage had been incremental over a fair period of time .. this probably explains why you guys out there hadn't really realized what the fuhk was going on ..... And remember here, the industry people have a better handle on trends and situations because they have balance sheets to help document just how many teams and players are around .. and buying.
This was why the Fed was mobilised.. we had to try to staunch the flow and the only way we could approach that was by grabbing a hold of the events and making them a better product and I think we can all agree the NSPL and the CPPS are shining examples of this ... that is not to suggest that we [The Fed] should take any credit for that, Chris Pelling [NSPL] and Rich and Mark [CPPS] are the guys who made the changes and all credit to them.
And so what does this all tell us?
It tells us education lies at the heart of any initiative, as it does with most things in life it seems .... but that will only achieve half the job ... we have to have players with a sense of responsibility that relates to things outside of their own enjoyment.
We need to feel more a part of something, a sense of belonging and then, and only then,. will an emergent property of 'togetherness' be seen.. sounds a bit cheesy but it's true.
If we don't feel part of the whole then we got no chance, and as I said above, it seems ironic to me that it took a thread about a thief and a bully to bring us all together with one voice and one direction.
I had more than a few offers I can tell ya to go around breakwell's house with me, some were maybe hollow gestures, others half-hearted but a lot of them would have been sincere.
I'm not really bothered about that because I would have always gone on my own anyway but the important thing was, the feelings of a community and its protection were evidenced everywhere ... it just took a little squeeze and it was there.
I wish the Fed could find a way to get the same effect when trying to help improve our tournament circuits
