Millennium Apathy !
- Thread starter Russell Smith
- Start date
Nick, perhaps a less arrogant tone would provoke a better response.
Starting off posts like this :-
'People are wrong'......... and this :-
'Hmm - either I did not make that clear enough, or you are misunderstanding it on purpose' ? ...or maybe even this :-
'I think you guys are going at this the wrong way'
tends to make me knee jerk, 'Who the fu-kk are you to tell anybody anything, especially (though not specifcally) when you are getting involved in a domestic thread and you ain't got a direct involvement here?
You need to throttle back the arrogance and try, just try to embrace the notion that maybe your word isn't sacrosanct, maybe you don't have all the answers, maybe you are not the brightest guy in here and so on.....
A touch of humility wouldn't go amiss.
Get the picture?
Good...continue ....
Oh and before you come back at me with, 'Oh well that's frikkin ironic coming from you Robbo'.....well that may be the case and I hold my hands up but it does nothing to undermine the vailidity of what I just said.....not one thing.
Starting off posts like this :-
'People are wrong'......... and this :-
'Hmm - either I did not make that clear enough, or you are misunderstanding it on purpose' ? ...or maybe even this :-
'I think you guys are going at this the wrong way'
tends to make me knee jerk, 'Who the fu-kk are you to tell anybody anything, especially (though not specifcally) when you are getting involved in a domestic thread and you ain't got a direct involvement here?
You need to throttle back the arrogance and try, just try to embrace the notion that maybe your word isn't sacrosanct, maybe you don't have all the answers, maybe you are not the brightest guy in here and so on.....
A touch of humility wouldn't go amiss.
Get the picture?
Good...continue ....
Oh and before you come back at me with, 'Oh well that's frikkin ironic coming from you Robbo'.....well that may be the case and I hold my hands up but it does nothing to undermine the vailidity of what I just said.....not one thing.
to defend Dusty here:
Using the same logic as that statement, I could write something like "I'm a muslim, all you christians have got it wrong, and are holding back the progression of our religion taking over the world".
Dusty wouldnt have to be Christian, or indeed any religion whatsoever, to take offence to that statement.
Much the same as you dont have to be a seasoned tournament veteran to take offence to the rhetoric on these forums surrounding "casual players are holding back this sport...bla...get serious or get out". paraphrasing of course.
Nick actually I find most of what you have implied in your statements to mean that the rest of us mere ordinary working men aren't good enough.
The general tone of, you either want to or you don't attitude doesn't exactly endear me to your way of thinking.
Yes you may or may not have played pro in your time. Good for you, whoopy do. I consider myself average in most respects. Average income. Average height and weight. Average ability.
Therefore a fair and decent representation of the "average" Uk baller. I play for fun. If the millenium moves away from England will I be gutted?? No not really to be honest.
Every year after the Campaign cup there are the usual responses from the paying customers. parking was crap. this was crap. that was crap. could have done this better. I don't remember a single instance of anyone saying they couldn't wait for it to return.
The millenium series is screwing its paying punters over every single time. who wants to pay stupid amounts of money to go and face the best in Europe?oh yeah, and get their arses kicked. most of the uk bread and butter ballers will be playing in the M5 and div 2 anyway. a small proportion will be playing SPL and CPL.
oh yeah, 8 games, oh hold on till i start waving a celebratory flag. used to be 10 did it not? has the entry fee dropped? didn't think so......
if it doesn't come back, most of the uk won't give a sh!t as they will continue to go to their local series anyway.
I said before that the Millenium holds a monopoly. What it needs is someone with half a brain and the money to do it, to start a decent tournament to rival it. Then maybe they will sit up and start to treat its customers better, which in turn will make more people want to play.
The general tone of, you either want to or you don't attitude doesn't exactly endear me to your way of thinking.
Yes you may or may not have played pro in your time. Good for you, whoopy do. I consider myself average in most respects. Average income. Average height and weight. Average ability.
Therefore a fair and decent representation of the "average" Uk baller. I play for fun. If the millenium moves away from England will I be gutted?? No not really to be honest.
Every year after the Campaign cup there are the usual responses from the paying customers. parking was crap. this was crap. that was crap. could have done this better. I don't remember a single instance of anyone saying they couldn't wait for it to return.
The millenium series is screwing its paying punters over every single time. who wants to pay stupid amounts of money to go and face the best in Europe?oh yeah, and get their arses kicked. most of the uk bread and butter ballers will be playing in the M5 and div 2 anyway. a small proportion will be playing SPL and CPL.
oh yeah, 8 games, oh hold on till i start waving a celebratory flag. used to be 10 did it not? has the entry fee dropped? didn't think so......
if it doesn't come back, most of the uk won't give a sh!t as they will continue to go to their local series anyway.
I said before that the Millenium holds a monopoly. What it needs is someone with half a brain and the money to do it, to start a decent tournament to rival it. Then maybe they will sit up and start to treat its customers better, which in turn will make more people want to play.
Dusty, the problem seems to be that, the Millennium Board, like Nick, think they know better when the truth of the matter is..they don't, nowhere near it.
And if any of the Board read your post above (and they will, I know), they won't think, 'Oh my, what can we do to make things right' their response in my extensive experience is always, 'That Dusty (Robbo or whoever) guy has an agenda, he is attacking us, what's his fackin problem anyway, why's he doing this' and so on.
You get the picture? they have never in my experience just accepted that what they do is flawed at some level.
Like Nick, it's arrogant beyond belief and I don't think it's ever gonna change because it's really hard to change people's characters and when we mention the words 'Millennium Board' we are really objectifying it when the reality is, we are referring to certain people and the way they are.
It would be oh so easy for them to just kick back a bit, take a deep breath and say, 'OK, guys, let's have a meet, what do you want, how do you think we can imporve..blah , blah, blah .. I know of course they have gone through the motions of this before but I'm afraid it's just that, they need to do actually do something.
They can start by sacking that fackin imbecile ulrich but of course they won't....and I hope they take a long, hard look at themselves after reading this, and if they do, they will then confront the very reasons why threads like this erupt and they have nothing to do with anybody else's agenda and everything to do with their own shortfalls .....
I have offered to help them many times and believe me, they have called me many times to reference certain situations or help out but it's always what they wanna do and getting a fair decision out of them when they don't wanna is like extracting blood from a stone, it shouldn't have to be that hard, it just shouldn't
And if any of the Board read your post above (and they will, I know), they won't think, 'Oh my, what can we do to make things right' their response in my extensive experience is always, 'That Dusty (Robbo or whoever) guy has an agenda, he is attacking us, what's his fackin problem anyway, why's he doing this' and so on.
You get the picture? they have never in my experience just accepted that what they do is flawed at some level.
Like Nick, it's arrogant beyond belief and I don't think it's ever gonna change because it's really hard to change people's characters and when we mention the words 'Millennium Board' we are really objectifying it when the reality is, we are referring to certain people and the way they are.
It would be oh so easy for them to just kick back a bit, take a deep breath and say, 'OK, guys, let's have a meet, what do you want, how do you think we can imporve..blah , blah, blah .. I know of course they have gone through the motions of this before but I'm afraid it's just that, they need to do actually do something.
They can start by sacking that fackin imbecile ulrich but of course they won't....and I hope they take a long, hard look at themselves after reading this, and if they do, they will then confront the very reasons why threads like this erupt and they have nothing to do with anybody else's agenda and everything to do with their own shortfalls .....
I have offered to help them many times and believe me, they have called me many times to reference certain situations or help out but it's always what they wanna do and getting a fair decision out of them when they don't wanna is like extracting blood from a stone, it shouldn't have to be that hard, it just shouldn't
Pete, they will be solely responsible for their own demise as slow as it may be.
You are right of course and I think that everyone who follows the Millenium at all also knows what they are like. I don't particularly care if they read my post and think I (or anyone else) is attacking them.
Like i said, it will only take one more half decent tournament series to open up in Europe and then they won't know what hit them.
You are right of course and I think that everyone who follows the Millenium at all also knows what they are like. I don't particularly care if they read my post and think I (or anyone else) is attacking them.
Like i said, it will only take one more half decent tournament series to open up in Europe and then they won't know what hit them.
The Dynasty vs a Premiership football team comparison is not really a fair one. Sure, if you make me play a game of football, I would probably be dead at the end of the 90 minutes. However, if I take Manchester United or whatever with me to one of my American football practices, they would all be gasping for air (and bandages) at the end of it. I've seen the Dutch national football team play paintball, the were exhausted at the end. Different sports require different kinds of fitness.
I'm willing to bet that the Dynasty kids are in better paintball-shape than most of the people that read this. I bet that they are panting a lot less than you and I after a game.
That said, I also bet that even they can improve. Just look at the Russian Legion for the right example. If paintball ever gets serious, we need to get rid of the skateboarder mentality and look more at the Russians and what they did.
I have no problem with people not being fully committed to just playing paintball, that's every man's choice to make. What ruffles my feathers though is that on every thread about striving to up the level of paintball, we got people coming out the yin-yang claiming to be fully committed, but when push comes to shove, they are nowhere to be seen.
Now like I said, it's fine if you are not willing or able to devote your life to a sport, just don't claim you do if you don't, that's all. It's kinda like claiming to be a formula one driver if all you do is commute to work and back in a Vauxhall.
Hopefully that made my feelings a little more clear. I have always looked at the hobby-player as the grassroots of this game.
This can only be resolved by promoting sup-air / punter ball as one of the same.
I know a lot of rec ball sites now have a sup-air site attached or nearby. Unfortunatly it is not often that the punters will get to play on it, possibly even see it.
Also if rec sites provided better maintained markers with semi decent paint then both rec ball and potentially sup-air would be a much improved first impression for the virgin baller.
I hope I'm not being included in "the board" as I am only trying to assist the MS with this latest venue because I feel it has a lot of potential to bring back some of that missing atmosphere.
In respect of comments regarding being Super Athlete to play - it matters not what size you are, how many times you train, if you want to be at the top of the sport or just competing & enjoying the experience (dare I say having fun - it's only a game). We are paintballers and no one should be telling anybody who is capable or what they should be doing. Everyone has an input however small their contribution.
I've been thinking about the Apathy issue over the last day or so and I realised something - it isn't just the Millennium and it's not necessarily apathy.
In the UK we have seen a reduction in the number of regular tournaments and an increase in the number of training venues. Now lets suppose a team that affords to play one event every other month - may be able with the same money to train against other teams using a training quality paint for 2 or 3 sessions in the same period.
They are getting to play ball more often at a cost effective price without forking out entrance fees. This might not be the case for all but I can see the situation arrising where some who are having to meet team training schedules are playing more weekends regularly and then cannot afford a Millennium Entrance or the added travel costs and choose to play a smaller 1 or 2 day event. Or they say why pay an entrance fee to play Team X when they train on the same site and we can save £5 a box on paint too as we don't have to use a quality tournament ball.
I'm not saying training venues are to blame. Hell I rarely get to play Millenniums now as I'm too busy working at them - so I welcome the opportunity to lock heads when ever I want, but this could answer in part why we seem to have a lack of people who want or can afford to compete at these high cost / profile events.
Spike, i didn't include you in that comment because you are not on the board, hold no power and have no decision making input with respect to voting opportunities but trust me, if you had been on the board then I would have included you no problem 