It’s amazing what falls out when you rattle a few cages and I ain’t talking about our site owners somehow acquiring a conscience or business brain, I am talking about our player base being galvanized into action.
I think some of my comments stung a little, and that’s exactly what they were designed to do; I don’t wanna be embarrassed every time I go watch a local tourney somewhere because the standard of play is low, I wanna be inspired, I wanna see young players ‘walking the walk’ and not just’ talking the talk’.
Over the past few weeks I have had a lot of people get in contact and what seems to be happening is a response from the player base filtering through to people, people like Wendy who runs her tourney circuit, people like Chuck from the Jags who runs his site and wants to inspire young players to compete, people like Syd and Mel from down there in the South West and soo many more.
I have now a flicker of optimism running through my head because what this all means is, it's not just me who is pissed off with the way things are at the moment.
As I said previously, we cannot wait for the average Del Boy site owner to help anybody out apart from themselves; their event horizon is inextricably linked to the depth of their back pocket.
We have to do this ourselves, and when I say ourselves, I mean real ballers, those among us who want to improve, who want to see the UK back on its feet in European tourney ball instead of lying prostrate at the feet of mediocrity.
What form is this response taking?
Well, players are now realizing they can make a difference if they reorganize themselves, if they re-emphasize the way they look at playing ball, Syd and Mel from SW are organizing a paintball academy, and so is Cluck in Colchester and so is Wendy up north.
I think Syd and Mel are also organizing some sort of trial days whereby I will go down and select a team and then give them a training day or whatever. I am talking to Dye now to see if they can help.
I’m also gonna ring Piper at PMI, but he don’t know it yet to see if he can help also.
I think the lessons to be learned here are, the industry people don’t mind helping out if they see people putting the effort in.
If you wanna a free ride, then you get nothing.
If you want to improve and are prepared to work hard and commit, then the chance of help will come.
I will help out as much as I can by visiting these places for a weekend to try and show people what we need and in which direction they should take but we have to keep this momentum going or like most things in life, it will just end up going nowhere.
I may have pissed a few people off with some of the things I have written lately (I don’t give a **** about any site owners by the way) but I do care about our players and what they aspire to.
There is absolutely no reason why UK ball can’t get back up there; it’s all about pride and a consequent commitment to our sport.
Like most things in life, if you want something, then work for it but you gotta really want it first and the genesis for all this is to take pride in yourselves as UK ballers.
If you do not posses that, then you have nothing.
I think some of my comments stung a little, and that’s exactly what they were designed to do; I don’t wanna be embarrassed every time I go watch a local tourney somewhere because the standard of play is low, I wanna be inspired, I wanna see young players ‘walking the walk’ and not just’ talking the talk’.
Over the past few weeks I have had a lot of people get in contact and what seems to be happening is a response from the player base filtering through to people, people like Wendy who runs her tourney circuit, people like Chuck from the Jags who runs his site and wants to inspire young players to compete, people like Syd and Mel from down there in the South West and soo many more.
I have now a flicker of optimism running through my head because what this all means is, it's not just me who is pissed off with the way things are at the moment.
As I said previously, we cannot wait for the average Del Boy site owner to help anybody out apart from themselves; their event horizon is inextricably linked to the depth of their back pocket.
We have to do this ourselves, and when I say ourselves, I mean real ballers, those among us who want to improve, who want to see the UK back on its feet in European tourney ball instead of lying prostrate at the feet of mediocrity.
What form is this response taking?
Well, players are now realizing they can make a difference if they reorganize themselves, if they re-emphasize the way they look at playing ball, Syd and Mel from SW are organizing a paintball academy, and so is Cluck in Colchester and so is Wendy up north.
I think Syd and Mel are also organizing some sort of trial days whereby I will go down and select a team and then give them a training day or whatever. I am talking to Dye now to see if they can help.
I’m also gonna ring Piper at PMI, but he don’t know it yet to see if he can help also.
I think the lessons to be learned here are, the industry people don’t mind helping out if they see people putting the effort in.
If you wanna a free ride, then you get nothing.
If you want to improve and are prepared to work hard and commit, then the chance of help will come.
I will help out as much as I can by visiting these places for a weekend to try and show people what we need and in which direction they should take but we have to keep this momentum going or like most things in life, it will just end up going nowhere.
I may have pissed a few people off with some of the things I have written lately (I don’t give a **** about any site owners by the way) but I do care about our players and what they aspire to.
There is absolutely no reason why UK ball can’t get back up there; it’s all about pride and a consequent commitment to our sport.
Like most things in life, if you want something, then work for it but you gotta really want it first and the genesis for all this is to take pride in yourselves as UK ballers.
If you do not posses that, then you have nothing.
