For my own peace of mind and at the very least, to put pay to a few rumours that are beginning to circulate about the recent changes Nexus have undergone, I am gonna put the record straight.
My team Nexus (in my head) was 100% identified with the original guys who came with me on that 2003 rollercoaster and with the exception of Mark Toye, Jack Wood and Chrissie Edwards, the remainder still played for the team.
Mark, Jack and Chrissie left over a protracted period and so the effect of their absence was somewhat cushioned mainly because I still had the others around me.
When Ledz decided he was going to retire at the end of this year coupled with Tommy off to seek his fortune stateside, I soon realized the heart of our Nexus was being ripped out.
Whatever we achieved as a team, NONE of what we did would have been achievable without Ledz, the prospect of going into 2006 without him was daunting for me.
For those of you who know how we work on Nexus, Ledz was my conscience, my advisor, my close friend and the heart of Nexus.
I always likened Nexus to a fighter, I was its head, Ledz was its heart, my sponsors its lifeblood and my players it’s fists.
‘All good things come to an end’ some say and no truer words may be spoken when I decided upon the new road Nexus must follow.
I have had to come to terms with the notion that the ‘team’ is most important in that most should be sacrificed for the sake of the team.
Results are one of the most important indicators as to how a team is performing, of course Nexus’s media coverage is somewhat assured and our sponsors were always gonna be quite pleased with the degree of branding and media presence we attracted but somewhere along the line, we have to factor in a team’s performance on the field of play or the stack of Nexus cards begins to fall.
In 2003 our Nexus set the world alight, the guys were a mix of 3 pros and 7 amateurs and novices and what they achieved in that first year was truly phenomenal and I am soo proud of them for that.
Our Nexus revitalised Brit paintball and I’m sure Pete Martin (Tigers) and Russ Steele (Shockwave) will agree thru gritted teeth, if it weren’t for Nexus, they wouldn’t have gotten their asses into gear to try and stay up with us after that first year.
The effect of Nexus in the UK after that first year was profound and we are still benefiting from that legacy to this day.
We have played indifferently since then with a second place in Germany coupled with some pretty indifference performances stateside made this year frustrating to deal with as a coach.
We go to Denver and bash the cr@p outa XSV and Oakland and then lose to Sedition (no disrespect to Sedition) and it was that kind of inconsistency in our performance that bought about a mediocre end to the last two years.
We played abysmally really over the last year, NEVER once used cheat guns and still managed to finish 12th place in the hardest 7 man league in the world.
But in saying all this, these past two years have exposed fracture lines in the team and these had to be addressed if the results were to change.
As for responsibility for all this, it may well seem as though it was the players because it is they who have left and yet, for the most part, and so frustratingly, it was those self same players who set the paintball world alight in 2003.
After I got back from Miami, I had to realize the situation wasn’t going to change much if I kept the arrangement of players and coach the same because self evidently the last two years had failed to reproduce the success of the first.
The choice was simple bearing in mind I was facing up to the fact I was a cr@p coach because if I am honest about all this, I ain’t the best coach in the world, far from it in fact, and this whole situation could have and probably was bought about because I hadn’t managed the last two years professionally or effectively enough.
So my choice was simple, either I leave or some of my players leave because the chemistry wasn’t working and I couldn’t afford to let it continue if I wanted the team to survive in the NPPL next year.
As owner, it was gonna be quite difficult to leave and thus I defaulted to the other decision.
Our Nexus died last Sunday when the players were told, that task alone was probably the most sickening thing I have ever had to do in my paintball career, in one day I had lost all but Jamie Abbott from our original Nexus.
My Nexus died that day, and this ain’t no sentimental clap-trap here (coz in no way am I like that) but a part of me died with it.
They say that no player(s) is bigger than the club and that pretty much implies the team is everything, but I have come to learn Nexus is just a name that's all, and the team are its players, my players, Ledz, Ju, Nicky, Bo, Jay, Tommy, Mark, Jack and Chrissie.
When they took that podium position at Campaign 2003 alongside Dynasty and Co in that first year; that there, was the proudest moment of my paintball career, right there..no arguments.
The name of Nexus lives on and we will do our best to represent our sponsors and the UK but I will never lose sight of what my original guys achieved.
Jamie Abbott, Clint Moore, Leigh Digard and Dunny are the new genesis for the new Nexus; we have picked up Chris Schooling from Shockwave and have a couple of big names sniffing.
This all may sound indulgent, and I suppose it is but I honestly don’t care because what seems important to me is to make clear what happened, why it happened and to recognize what the original Nexus did for all of us in UK ball.
To all my guys, I’m sorry, I fcuked up soo many times but it was one helluva ride.
My team Nexus (in my head) was 100% identified with the original guys who came with me on that 2003 rollercoaster and with the exception of Mark Toye, Jack Wood and Chrissie Edwards, the remainder still played for the team.
Mark, Jack and Chrissie left over a protracted period and so the effect of their absence was somewhat cushioned mainly because I still had the others around me.
When Ledz decided he was going to retire at the end of this year coupled with Tommy off to seek his fortune stateside, I soon realized the heart of our Nexus was being ripped out.
Whatever we achieved as a team, NONE of what we did would have been achievable without Ledz, the prospect of going into 2006 without him was daunting for me.
For those of you who know how we work on Nexus, Ledz was my conscience, my advisor, my close friend and the heart of Nexus.
I always likened Nexus to a fighter, I was its head, Ledz was its heart, my sponsors its lifeblood and my players it’s fists.
‘All good things come to an end’ some say and no truer words may be spoken when I decided upon the new road Nexus must follow.
I have had to come to terms with the notion that the ‘team’ is most important in that most should be sacrificed for the sake of the team.
Results are one of the most important indicators as to how a team is performing, of course Nexus’s media coverage is somewhat assured and our sponsors were always gonna be quite pleased with the degree of branding and media presence we attracted but somewhere along the line, we have to factor in a team’s performance on the field of play or the stack of Nexus cards begins to fall.
In 2003 our Nexus set the world alight, the guys were a mix of 3 pros and 7 amateurs and novices and what they achieved in that first year was truly phenomenal and I am soo proud of them for that.
Our Nexus revitalised Brit paintball and I’m sure Pete Martin (Tigers) and Russ Steele (Shockwave) will agree thru gritted teeth, if it weren’t for Nexus, they wouldn’t have gotten their asses into gear to try and stay up with us after that first year.
The effect of Nexus in the UK after that first year was profound and we are still benefiting from that legacy to this day.
We have played indifferently since then with a second place in Germany coupled with some pretty indifference performances stateside made this year frustrating to deal with as a coach.
We go to Denver and bash the cr@p outa XSV and Oakland and then lose to Sedition (no disrespect to Sedition) and it was that kind of inconsistency in our performance that bought about a mediocre end to the last two years.
We played abysmally really over the last year, NEVER once used cheat guns and still managed to finish 12th place in the hardest 7 man league in the world.
But in saying all this, these past two years have exposed fracture lines in the team and these had to be addressed if the results were to change.
As for responsibility for all this, it may well seem as though it was the players because it is they who have left and yet, for the most part, and so frustratingly, it was those self same players who set the paintball world alight in 2003.
After I got back from Miami, I had to realize the situation wasn’t going to change much if I kept the arrangement of players and coach the same because self evidently the last two years had failed to reproduce the success of the first.
The choice was simple bearing in mind I was facing up to the fact I was a cr@p coach because if I am honest about all this, I ain’t the best coach in the world, far from it in fact, and this whole situation could have and probably was bought about because I hadn’t managed the last two years professionally or effectively enough.
So my choice was simple, either I leave or some of my players leave because the chemistry wasn’t working and I couldn’t afford to let it continue if I wanted the team to survive in the NPPL next year.
As owner, it was gonna be quite difficult to leave and thus I defaulted to the other decision.
Our Nexus died last Sunday when the players were told, that task alone was probably the most sickening thing I have ever had to do in my paintball career, in one day I had lost all but Jamie Abbott from our original Nexus.
My Nexus died that day, and this ain’t no sentimental clap-trap here (coz in no way am I like that) but a part of me died with it.
They say that no player(s) is bigger than the club and that pretty much implies the team is everything, but I have come to learn Nexus is just a name that's all, and the team are its players, my players, Ledz, Ju, Nicky, Bo, Jay, Tommy, Mark, Jack and Chrissie.
When they took that podium position at Campaign 2003 alongside Dynasty and Co in that first year; that there, was the proudest moment of my paintball career, right there..no arguments.
The name of Nexus lives on and we will do our best to represent our sponsors and the UK but I will never lose sight of what my original guys achieved.
Jamie Abbott, Clint Moore, Leigh Digard and Dunny are the new genesis for the new Nexus; we have picked up Chris Schooling from Shockwave and have a couple of big names sniffing.
This all may sound indulgent, and I suppose it is but I honestly don’t care because what seems important to me is to make clear what happened, why it happened and to recognize what the original Nexus did for all of us in UK ball.
To all my guys, I’m sorry, I fcuked up soo many times but it was one helluva ride.
The only things that happen to them should be good things! 
