UK National League Champions 2005

[luke kelly]

RE - Luke - what do you mean about feedback?

I mean that it seems to me that many people are afraid to sing the praises of some of our top teams due to concern about being perceived as a brown nose.

Also, when at domestic tournaments, I hear these teams being slagged off whilst they are out of ear shot. It seems to happen a lot.

These comments are just based on my experiences, there's every chance that other people have experienced other attitudes.

Robbo - How do you feel about the feedback you receive regarding Nexus from us Brits?

 

[H]

Nexus rule!

 

[Robbo]

Originally posted by luke kelly
Robbo - How do you feel about the feedback you receive regarding Nexus from us Brits?

Some of it pisses me off, the rest is pretty cool.
The contrast between here and the US is phenomenal, over there we do autograph sessions, photo sessions and so on.
Over there, top teams attract respect, not ass licking, respect.

I think the guys on the team are pretty well respected over here by many players for what they can do as paintballers and yet there are some who will put Nexus down for no other reason than jealousy, ignorance or they don't like me.

I suppose the fact that the reception we get in the US is in such stark contrast to what happens over here sometimes that it leaves an indelible impression on us when it comes to assessing relative feedbacks.

We don’t want ass licking, we don’t even expect respect from UK ballers but I tell you this much, the guys on my team have done soo much in putting UK ball on the international map that it beggars belief some of the **** we hear from people.
The guys have certainly earned respect from everybody for what hey have achieved and can do, whether they get it, is down to other factors sometimes.

But, when I really think about it, I am probably over-reacting to an extremely small minority here and the reality is that it’s probably only a vocal minority who are doing this **** and the vast majority of UK ballers do in fact respect what the guys on Nexus have achieved and continue to work toward.

At times like this, I generally call Ledz and get his take on things coz he is more level headed than me and sees things from a slightly different angle than me, a saner angle.

In fact, I will call him up and ask him to post here

 

[JoseDominguez]

Nail on the head Robbo
It's the British way, really quick to bitch and moan, but try and praise someone and they are watching their backsides.
It's always the same names no matter what, or the same people under a new account who do the majority of the bitching.
As for the respect thing..... paintball in general gets more respect in the US, so what do you expect? As a rule, the only time you hear from a UK baller is when they are complaining about something anyway. Same any time someone tries to do something new or different, the jealousy and the insecurity takes over and the slagging starts.

 

[Ledz]

Your wish is my command master.

Before I start I haven't been following this thread. Robbo just spoke to me about it and asked for my opinion so I jumped on and had a read. Nearly fell off my seat at 17 pages, so I’ve just read the last two (That took like 30 minutes).

So how do I feel about the feedback from Brits?

It's weird, it so different from the states. In the states I have players of all ages coming up to me and talking to me just to say hello, I have div 2 and 3 team players that are at events to play not just watching, making the effort to come over and tell me that Nexus are there favourite team. They might say that to every pro team they come across but it feels very genuine. We have all sorts of different people begging to pit crew for us. God only knows why. When you walk onto the playing field people that I’ve never met or spoken too are screaming 'Come on Nexus'. These people don't ever ask me for anything (except signatures), they just like Nexus. I suppose it's like picking your favourite football team, once it's picked you pretty much stick with them through thick and thin.

In England there are a lot of people that seem to want Nexus and other teams like Shock and Tigers to fail. I'm sure there are loads of people now laughing that Shock are bottom of the NPPL standings with smug smiles on there faces saying I told you so. Where what they should be saying is ' I really hope Shockwave cut pull themselves out of the relegation zone' but that never seems to happen in the UK. I would say that the next bright thing to happen in the UK is the Kelly's. At the moment I hear a lot about them and I’m sure there are a lot of people that want the Kelly's to beat the 3 Pro's every time they meet. But as soon as the Kelly's step up they will become the evil devils just like the rest of the UK pro's. Is it that we Brits like the underdog so much? I watch a lot of sports and we all get excited about stuff like England at football, but as soon as they lose or get knocked out it the same old same old, I told you England are crap. Like Robbo said we don't want brown nosing. What we want is to be respected for what we do....While I’m typing I’m also thinking about this issue and this came to mind. Are we resented because we are 'Famous' and because we are getting free paintball? If that's the case then I could understand it, but let me set that record straight right now. We play 5 x NPPL events this year £10k per event. 5 Millennium Events about 5K per event. (Total 75K) We have currently shot more than 2 million paintballs at PRACTISE. We train nearly every weekend both Saturday and Sunday and stay in a hotel at our expense. I have had two weekends off in the last 3 months. A lot of the Nexus players have to take unpaid leave off work adding up to about 40 days off work total a year. This money we spend pretty much comes from the players. Yes, we get a lot of sponsorship but the hole isn't bottomless. The sacrifice isn't just the money it's the time, the friends outside of paintball you lose, the girlfriends we have ALL lost, the energy, the lack of promotion at work due to poor attendance. We put a lot in. I'm not asking for sympathy because that's what we choose to do and we all love it. I just wanted to make the point that if you are a hater for this reason I think you need to re-think.

OK back on track. Some people in the UK are fantastic and some are pretty bad. In the states I very rarely hear anything bad against the team in contrast to in England hardly ever hearing anything good.

To all the people that come on these forums and support Nexus thanks, it's a real boost we all love to read those posts. For everyone that's comes on here and tells us that we are all doing it wrong, Nexus are crap, Etc. Then try putting yourself in our shoes. We try damn hard to represent England around the world. Like it or not your have 3 UK Pro teams and we should all support them.

My last comment isn’t relating to Nexus but just the UK player base in general. Nexus hold the odd Seminar from time to time. They have had mixed attendance but most recently quite poor and in fact a waste of time (Financially) doing. Also Markie C has put his hand in his pocket to bring some of the XSV guys over early to hold a clinic. By all accounts the take up on this hasn’t really been what it should be. Why is this? Are the Brits so arrogant that they can’t learn from the Pro’s? Having XSV over in the UK to teach there skills for what £49 a day, its nothing. They charge something like $250 in the states!!! We need to embrace these chances not turn our superior noses up at them.

LEDZ

 

[Sid]

Holy $h1t.....Ledz and I agree on something.....

Read my post.......I'm going for a lie down.....

oh I think it's on page 2,278,298.5 third from the top....hehe.

Sid

 

[Robbo]

Jose, clever post

I will roll back my cynicism for the moment regarding you and take what you posted as a truly held belief instead of what I first thought, a Trojan horse of a post to back door in an explanation of why myself and others would criticise hatts.

If I ignore your PA connection for the moment, then I think what you say has some merit, I just hope I am not afflicted with what you suggest because I would hate to think I’m standing in the way, or being critical of true progress in Paintball because of some trivial dislike.

Ledz Good post, I always knew you were better balanced than I

And ya know what Ledz after seeing in writing what our guys do in terms of commitment to our team, it beggars belief that some people dig the pros out.
Our guys live Nexus and I mean LIVE it, they give up nearly everything to play for us.
All the relationships (and there have been four to my knowledge on Nexus) that have gone down the paintball plug hole directly because of their Nexus involvement.
Guys on the team can't take holidays because they have used them all for tourneys, the list of sacrifices goes on and yet..even after reading this, I still know some idiots are gonna say ' frikkin prima donna w4nkers, that Nexus are cr@p...they get it all given to them'.

I think you nailed it in that post mon capitano

 

[Goatsling]

To be completely blunt, the majority of regular UK paintballers are not the types to treat the game seriously as a sport. It is a hobby, a diversion...who are we kidding when we try to pass them off as athletes? I've seen snickering and snide comments about teams who take the time to warm up and stretch before playing, which I think sums it up.

These guys don't really do anything to harm the sport, I mean its just like Sunday legaue footy or any other hobby, but the problem lies in the fact that there's only a trickle of new-blood, the young stars of tomorrow who a) have the cash, and b) even know that the sport exists.

Site owners are definitely partly to blame, as tournament ball is kept well under wraps from punters. It would be a disaster for them to reveal just how cheap paint really is, and its going to stay that way for as long as they can make money out of their punters and hope they might come back for a second time later in the year. Now I don't want to tar all sites with the same brush, as I know there are those out there who do promote the tournament angle, but on the whole, people have to stumble into it rather then be lead in.

Without the fresh faces, we lose out twice because the top teams have less talent to pick from, and the bottom teams whose purchases pay for the top teams are in shorter supply. Combine all this with the general apathy of the typical baller and its a bloody miracle that we have 3 teams in the Top 18! (Well done lads, by the way).

We really need some kind of noob-magent. We already have the Ion that gives newbies some kind of level tool for a cheap price, but only us ballers know about it!

I dont know what can be done to rectify this, I don't hold the answer as I myself am a small-fry but it must be possible. Maybe promotion through lad's mags, at go-karting sites or skate shops and other "extreme" or alternative sports, or maybe brainwashing all of the site owners into seeing beyond the next weekend's punter load.

 

[Rosie]

site owners are slightly to blame yeah, as i would never have got into tourney ball if out of the blue i hadnt have been picked up by a supair team, straight out of the woods, having never even seen a supair field.

i read PGI a couple of times (not that i understood it much (lol it was American, I thought people only played supair in the US)), but if I hadnt have been picked up by a team, then I wouldnt have known how to make that jump between woods & supair because you cannot make it on your own. (although there is some help now, like KOTH or our SupAir Sunday or like what JoseDominguez mentioned, but you still have to have realize that tourney ball exists before you can enter them, right?)

even in some other sports you can go up to a club or something and ask to train with them if you feel you're ready to step up, but with paintball you need to 'network' to get anywhere, but the only constants were the field staff, you never saw the same players again it was so random, everyone I saw/knew was at the same level as I was, i didnt know there was anything higher or better than 3-man tourneys in the woods, or maybe the Big Game or something

I bet there are brilliant young new players just coming into the sport, but there arent enough like...talent scouts or whatever LOOKING FOR the new talent, picking them out, bringing them up from the woods or even just bringing kids straight into tourney ball

unless you look at some of the bigger sites that have a site team, like Warped (Ok, 3 site teams) but hey that didnt exist when i was there i dont think. and im sure many of the smaller fields like National Paintball Games next to where I work dont have that next step option, the players i speak to have no idea, not an inkling that there is even a next step

Someone said how the cost for new tourney players was around £80, and how this discouraged players from stepping up, well tbh i have paid that for a full days play in the woods in the past, and i was using a f'ing spyder on CO2 for Gods sake

so lets round up the issues:

small pool of players to start with ergo small talent pool (too few players could be improved by more media coverage, spectating at tourneys, paintball being recognized as a sport)

not enough players making the jump from woods to supair (partly caused/not helped by site owners, or just not enough media coverage?)

commitment issues ie: its just a hobby for most. we are not athletes, and 95% of us (brits) if not more will never be prepared to spend the amount of time and money and make the sacrifices that teams like Nexus, Tigers etc have made

infighting, bitching and issues such as cheating ramping and such do not help the advancement of the sport

the cost is inhibitive (but there isnt anything definitive we can do about this, it would solve itself if the other issues were resolved

people are oddly resentful of larger teams successes "they had it handed to them", largely through ignorance

 

[Rosie]

Originally posted by Goatsling
I've seen snickering and snide comments about teams who take the time to warm up and stretch before playing, which I think sums it up.

Yeah i have, i remember laughing at RL at Campaign last year, watching them warm up doing their bunny hops and jogs and stuff.

Then I watched them win almost every game.

We arent athletes. 50% at least of paintballers smoke and drink heavily, and dont eat well.

They might say "I love paintball its great" but arent then willing even to give up smoking a bit or to eat a bit better, or not to drink a lot/take drugs before a tourney or training, let alone stretch. and then come to the tourney and complain and feel cheated that they didnt win or even do well.

some of us arent even willing to do the little things, that do actually count, let alone do the BIG BIG BIG things like taking time off work to play, or even having NO time off because youre playing every single weekend and need the money, or putting the sport before your relationship because you're THAT committed

Im VERY happy that we've got 3 teams in the world top 18.

WELL DONE i applaud you and know no matter how much i enjoy it i couldnt put in the same time effort or money to get good enough.