A Thankyou to Patrina & all involved!

[SiXplicit]

Over the last 12 months, there's been a lot of highs and a lot of lows involved with the M25 league. After every leg you could guarantee that there would be posts on this very forum from happy, smiley people (probably because they won something!), but on the flip side there were always those that are harder to please (normally because they hadn't won anything all day!!!) that would start the attack on Sparklie, Liz, the Marshals, and anyone else involved with the organisation of an M25 leg.

I will admit that I myself have had a few problems with the series so far, but I am not going to ressurect any bad feelings that I, or anyone else have had over the last twelve months.

Everybody who has taken part in the organisation and playing of the M25 league, I thank you. We all get out what we put in, and if nobody put in, we would have no southern series at all. Yes, it has been hard but improvements have been made each and every leg.

Patrina has done a fantastic job with this series, sometimes paying out more than she's taken in to give us a tournament we can play without the need for a pair of wellies in knee high grass and a Goggles On sign at the toilet entrance!

Special thanks also to Liz for all her help throughout the year. Your hard work and dedication has shown and we will miss you. Make sure you pop your head in once in a while to say 'hi'!

Thanks to all the teams who have helped setup and closedown each leg, to H-Pac for their services throughout and to Chris and Peter for the photography they have done.

Big thanks to all the teams that have played and supported the M25 as without us they would be no M25 league, and finally..........

MASSIVE thanks to Patrina, for having the dream and the balls to put it all together. We have given you no end of **** throughout but you have worked with us and through it all to keep these tourneys coming. You can't please everybody at each and every leg, but looking back over the first summer series (and there's still 1 leg to go) I hope everybody will agree that it has been a fantastic start to a potentiall excellent series. Please don't give up Sparklie, keep ironing out the creases and things will only get better.

See you Sunday, and all the best for the future,

Simon

 

[Sean]

I will Second that!

To me the tournament and all the teams have been a pleasure to play all year!

The venues have been amazing and everything has been properly organised!

Sure there have been teething problems, but even the established tournaments have problems still! This has raised the bar for uk tournaments

More of the same next year please.......

and to all the people who just dont shut up moaning about one thing or another!

Would you all rather go back to playing Temple? Didnt think so!

I unfortunataley cant make sunday so good luck so all the teams there, and have fun!

 

[Red_Merkin]

I played at the temple, and believe i'd never go back. Patrina has run a top notch event, month after month, and although she's got a lot of praise there have been some people who give her stick about things.
Now constructive critisim is a good thing, but moaning isn't and there's a big difference. You moaners, (and you know who you are) sort yourself out or shut up. Realise that it's really hard to put on these events, and Sparklie does them because she loves doing them, not because they make her a fat pile of money, 'cause i assure you they don't.


Ok, the things that stand out for this series.
1. overall everything has improved. If there was a problem, Sparklie dealt with it. Good job!
2. The venues have all been very good. I enjoyed playing on astro turf, and i enjoyed playing the whole venue at Cobham.
3. The locker rooms at Cobham were great. This venue totally rocked.
4. The Marshalling has generally been quite good. It's not to Millennium standard, but then again it's not a Millennium event. It's a million times better than the Temple Marshalling!
5. Locations have been great. It's nice to finally have a series of events that we can drive to on the day! The M25 concept is a great idea.
6. The netting is getting much better. I think they've got that one sorted now. And the food too, it was better this time.
7. HPAC. These guys are awesome. Good job getting these guys, this is one area of the event that is actually ABOVE millennium standard (until Campaign Cup anyhow).

There's a bunch of things that can still be improved (i'm going to attempt to be constructive here)

1. Organisation; it's really good, but a few things would help the players out a bit;
a score board, millennium style so you can see how you're doing during the day without having to bug Liz. All you need for this is a big white board and some black tape.
2. Information on the Location really needs to be given out more than a week before hand. I realise it's really hard to secure locations, so maybe focusing on 3 locations for 6 tourneys instead of trying to get different locations each time might help. I really wouldn't mind playing any of the venues from this year twice in a season. I understand that this one is very difficult to tackle.
3. It's not a proper league is it? Maybe next season we could play it as a league?
I've got a few ideas about this but i'll put them in a different thread.
4. I don't think there's enough of a trade presence at M25. I mean where are Smart Parts UK at these events? Draxxus is there, but they rarely sell anything, Martin and Kitch are there but how come there is no WDP stand proper? Even a mini Angel Heaven would be great. This is a critisim more to the Traders than Sparklie; Support this tournament, because this is where your customers are!
5. Fields. Cobham was great, loved the fields. The last one the fields flet a bit small. In every game we played we shot at least two players were shot on the break, sometimes more!
Ok there's two options,
first, if you're on the grass make the fields a bit bigger. The field size at Cobham was better than the last ones. If you've got open ground this is definatly the way.
second you can design the bunker layout to put more large bunkers in the middle to block sweet spotting lanes and create blind running alleys. The blue field with all the cubes on it was cool to play if you made your bunker but it was so easy to get shot off the break. This field would never have been alowed at a Millennium Event. A few extra tall bunkers in the middle works wonders. Like the RPS field! Big bunkers on the 50s makes the games really exciting, and promotes agressive ball! If it's going to be a Mini millennium series, then the fields have to be similar!


Anyhow, i hope this helps recap the M25, we have played 3 events and i look forward to playing more! Sparklie, you have accomplished what many thought couldn't be done, so great respect to you from the Campaign Crew, and we look forward to playing your events in the future.

 

[L J]

col, the reason why the fields were so small was because the marquee wasnt actually set up in the right place, and it cut a bit of our estimates it was also in jiggys field plans for some small fields...
i actually have a use for the smart part trade stand as i have an impy now...would be nice to have them.

apart from alot of people, 'cept me and colin it seems, i liked the astro turf and would love to play it again, although maybe not dunstable (tsunami and the berks will know what im talking about )

without this series i wouldnt have played any tournaments as i cant possibly travel to MM,S2003, SWPL as im only 16.i thought even the first one was amazing but that was my first tourny so i would , every leg improves over the previous leg, hell, last leg actually ran on time!!!


thank you sparklie, and no matter what anyone says, your doing a great a job alot of people rely on you and your great tournies

 

[Red_Merkin]

it was also in jiggys field plans for some small fields...

Small fields are great, but you need to block off running lanes so tons of players don't get shot on the break.
If the tent was put in the wrong spot, you just make the netted area longer on the other end.
But like i said before small fields are fine if you use the bunkers properly. It's wierd that Jiggy did all the other fields and they were fine, but that field sucked big time.
Hopefully there will be none of that this sunday.