the marshalling was crappy and the major faults of the marshalls were they're lack of experience, lack of knowledge of the rules and restictions and the inability to make a decent on the spot decision that they didn't go back on!
So:
Lack of experience - how do you get experience marshalling without marshalling tournaments? If you get shouted down with every decision you make and then at the end of the tournament have people bitching about your level of skill are you going to want to do it again. Monkey Love marshalled the first and second legs. I marshalled at the first and didn't want to do it again due to the same amount of crap that flew around then as is flying around now.
Knowledge of the rules - unless you do what Heidi did and sit down and learn the ruels you aren't going to know them. Room for improvement here i guess. Maybe a test as suggested for the Millenium series previously might work... The night before or the morning of the tournment Ralph sits down with the marshals and goes through the rules... Only problem with this is that very often, the marshals end up setting up the fields - not just at M25's either - it happened at Huntingdon Beach - so there is a lack of time.
Inability to make an on the spot decision - lack of experience (see above).
A decision that they didn't go back on - responsibility of the players - if you are a 10stone teenager and are faced with a 16stone 6'2" guy with a gun and a bad temper what are you going to do... Comes down to what Mr "Godlike Player" says - this is up to the players to deal with whatever decision comes up. People seem to like comparing football refs and paintball marshals - my only problem with this is that to ref a Premiere league game you have to sit exams and go through a heap of training and lower league matches... Most of the guys and gals there on Sunday turned up to help out the series by marshalling.
Sam - you say you'd rather they didn't bother turning up... I'm sure that you don't really believe that's true?!?!
This series is the best thing to happen to paintball in the south since some one came up with the concept of the Home Counties League quite a few years ago.
Each leg has run smoother with better facilities and better weather (thanks Sparklie) don't complain about the marshalling - deal with it. If the marshalling is so bad that you don't want to play you haven't really got anywhere else to play so come back and marshal.
There were approximately 300 players there on Sunday and about 10 are whinging...
I'm just hoping that we get to use those facilities again next year.
