Reball
Hi all.
Nice to see Reball still being debated. Nice first post Pete
I think some people are not seeing the true value/point of Reball.
You don't need massive warehouses, with full fields set up!
These are intended for drills, to hone/improve skills and after about nine months of regular use, my guys will all testify they work. They were never designed for full on games on full size fields, and this is where I feel a lot of U.K. teams get confused about what training really is all about....how many football teams play full 90 minute games at training (not an ideal comparison, but sorta works for me).
We hire a medium size sports hall, capable of running drills for the day and holding approx 10 to 12 bunkers.
I hope some of the info I post below helps, and if it means one more team starts using them, then it would be great.
We use a school sports hall. All over the country there are thousands of these halls sitting empty of a weekend. approch the schools, give them a copy of PGI and some dvd footage (I used the Sky coverage of the P.A.). Remember, they are a school, so avoid "in your face" heavy dvd footage, as you are trying to get them on your side, and they are a school
If they are still hesitant, try and get a one off trial period (like we did). Common sense is to leave the place clean and tidy after use.....always pays to get school cleaners on your side.
Hall costs vary so you need to gauge costs per player per session, most halls charge about £150-200 for the day.
Reballs are expensive but soon pay for themeselves. Ours paid for themselves in 3 weeks! We brought approx 500 reballs per player, which for most drills will last a while...and for snap shooting forever! We plan on upping this to 1000 per player in the near future, but it's not essential.
On average we shoot approx 28000 reballs per training session, which means regular clean ups. clean ups take about 15 - 20 minutes in total.Think about how much that would cost in paint!
Reball sessions cost only £15.00 for the whole day, now they are paid for. Initially, maybe you could include the reball costs into the session costs until they are paid for.
We use several dive tanks for air, the more the merrier.But remember, you are only running at approx 180fps and adjusting the dwell means you will not be using a lot of air.
You will need some bunkers as well. for teams on a tight budget you will only need a few to start with.
If anyone needs further help/advice, get in touch and I'll see if I can help. Be warned, I'm not gonna hold your hand and do it all for you....you will need to get off yer backside and actually work to make reball happen for your team.
Remember as it gets dark on the 17th December, we will be half way through our teams first 12 hour reball session from 10am to 10pm in a loverly heated hall.....looking out at the rain