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13.03.2007
Tour 0 2008 schedule
If you're looking for the latest Tour 0 2008 schedule, .
03.03.2007
SE Uni Open Outdoor Regionals 2008 results
1. LSE
2. Brunel
3. Mohawks
4. Sublime
5. Thrown
6. Surrey
7. Chichester
8. UCL
9. DiscDoctors (Plate Winners)
10. Kent Touch This
11. HU?
12. Thrown 2
13. Mohawks 2
14. Sublime 2
15. Kent 2
16. DD 2
17. Surrey 2 (Spoon Winners)
18. Brunel 2
19. HU? 2
20. RUF
21. LSE-UCL
23.11.2007
SEUOIR2007 results
1. Brunel 1 (Winners)
2. Surrey Scorpions 1
3. Sussex Mohawks 1
4. Sublime 1 (Portsmouth)
5. Disc Doctors 1 (Imperial)
6. UCL 1
7. Scorpions 2 (Highest Increase on initial seeding)
8. Mohawks 2
9. Kent Touch This 1
10. Sublime 2
11. Disc Doctors 2
12. HU? (Royal Holloway)
13. Thrown 1 (Kings College) (Plate)
14. Mohawks 3
15. Brunel 3
16. Essex Disc Devils
17. UCL 2
18. RUF 1 (Roehampton)
19. Brunel 2
20. Kent 2
21. RUF 2 (Spoon)
22. Surrey 3
23. Disc Doctors 3
24. Thrown 2
Spirit went to Mohawks 1 with Kent 2 and Sublime 2 the runners up.
23.11.2007
SEUMIR2007 results
1. Mohawks 1
2. Sublime 1
3. Brunel 1
4. Chichester 1
5. UCL
(1-5 qualify for mixed indoor nationals)
6. Roehampton
7. Kent (spirit winners)
8. Chichester 2
9. Brunel 2 (plate winners)
10. Scorpions
11. Thrown
12. Disc Doctors
13. Sublime 2 (spoon winners)
14. Mohawks 2
15. Mohawks 3
16. Sublime 3
05.07.2007
SE at Tour
Thought I'd give a little bit of a news update regarding South East teams performances at Tour (after all, this is seultimate.org).
Clapham continued their dominance at the top of the A Tour, dispatching Scotland's Fusion relatively easily in the Tour 1 Final (though Fusion must have been exhausted after their epic sudden death semi final battle against Fire). Now with Si Hill and Scando back in the ranks, plus US Callahan nominee Aaron Bell, we should be seeing some exciting Ultimate for the rest of the season. Biggest scorer was Colin Shaw, a relatively new recruit coming from Mythago, the Bristol Uni team.
Fire of London missed out on a place in the final in a sudden death battle mentioned earlier. See a couple of clips from the final point here: . They finished 4th, losing to Chevron in their final game.
Next SE team was Brighton, with a good finish of 6th place, just behind Leeds. They have a few new faces on the team and are hoping to upset one of the top 5 teams this season, their eyes on a semi-final.
Discuits from Reading broke into the top 8 by defeating Clapham 2 in sudden death, finishing 8th and 9th respectively. Fire of London 2 finished 11th, meaning Clapham 2 face Fire 2 in the group stages of Tour 2 - definitely one to watch. One of these teams may well then face Brighton to break into the top 8.
In the B Tour, ABH narrowly missed out on A Tour qualification, losing to Devon in the 3/4 game to go. Flump and Brighton 2 played off for the plate, Flump coming out on top. These two teams will be trying to break into the top 8 at B Tour 2.
New team Kent Open had a good showing, finishing 14th, just above ABH2, London Revolution and Discuits 2. Top of the bottom lot were Lucky Huckers, with their second team not too far behind.
In the Women's division, Iceni continued their domination, now without rivals Bliss to challenge them in every Final - instead they dispatched Bristol for the #1 spot. Iceni 2 (or 1.49 and 1.51 respectively as they liked to be known) lost their semi-final to Bristol but beat Leeds to finish 3rd.
Brighton were the next SE team in the Women's division, beating their seeding but losing a tough crossover for the top 8 to MU, they finished 9th with very good prospects of breaking into the top 8 at Tour 2.
Discuits won their last game to finish 11th, they'll face Brighton in the group stages of Tour 2, and then either Strange Blue or Biddy Murphy for a place in the top 8.
So, the SE matchups to watch at Tour 2 will be Clapham 2 vs Fire 2 in the A Tour, Brighton vs Discuits in Women's, and in the B Tour look out for ABH, Flump, and Brighton 2 fighting for a qualification spot.
28.06.2007
UNO2006 on sale now
The time has come - UNO2006 is officially on sale, the DVDs are all here and ready to be delivered as soon as you place your order. It's taken hundreds and hundreds of hours for me to finish this DVD, I really poured everything I had into it, so I hope loads of people get to see it and I don't lose too much money from it (at the moment I'm just a little short of breaking even).
I'm hoping I can continue making productions for the next few years - UNO, EUCF, and Tour DVDs at least. In reality, if UNO2006 sales don't pick up dramatically then future productions might be much simpler jobs - slightly edited raw footage of the Finals released a couple of weeks after the event, say. It's a shame because I enjoy making the highlight reels and syncing them with the music, and I believe there are hundreds of people in the UK who would love to watch them & who would be very happy with an UNO2006 purchase, but for some reason, no matter how low I price the DVD, how many emails I send to BritDisc, or how many times I ask people to spread the word, there seems to be a gap between the product and the people...
At the end of the day I've still got a sweet Uni Ultimate DVD I can watch anytime, plus it has my name in the credits! Thanks to all the people who have given me encouragement along the way. Hope you enjoy the finished product.
19.04.2007
UNO2006 status update
It's getting a bit ridiculous now, but it seriously is almost almost done. I'm literally watching the chapters and noting down when there's a slight crackle in the sound, or a caption coming in too early, or the syncing with the music being slightly off, and then making the relevent edits to the chapter and re-exporting it. I've done this four or five times for each chapter, so as you can imagine, they are looking pretty damn finished by this point.
Last two big modifications I made were to add music for the Division 1 semis, with OW, Haze and Mythago - the OW vs Haze sudden death quarter final point is included in full, as are all the important plays from the Mythago-Haze semi final of course - and to change the first bit of music for the Women's semis, so now it's a better song, better synched with the action.
Last time I checked, the DVD was looking to be about 2hrs 30min in length, with the longest clip of action probably being the OW-Haze sudden death point mentioned above. It's all highlights, it's all to music, and it's taken over a year to make. If I don't run into any big problems it should be on your doormat before May is out. Time to get excited.
19.03.2007
UKU Competition Structure #2
The aims of the UK Ultimate competition structure as I saw them a few weeks ago:
(a) provide top-level competitive ultimate to elite clubs
(b) provide medium-level clubs with competition & opportunity to progress
(c) provide opportunities to all low-level/casual clubs for competitive weekends of Ultimate.
My suggestion for improving (c) was to hold a Regionals tournament before Nationals. I now think this would be too much of a jump, and so many spots are sure-fire things that running through the motions for the top teams would be tedious for them. I also think we need to look closer at the differences between US and UK Ultimate in order to find our answers.
As it is, plenty of teams are happy to travel anywhere in England to play in the B tour. Each B tour attracts 24-32 teams, and I checked out the stats and can confirm that more teams turn up if the tournament is near to them (so, there are some teams for which travel is an issue). Instead of making the jump to having five regional tournaments, which has many problems (an extra date on the calendar, extra committment from the A Tour teams, lack of competition in small regions, many more tournaments to organise), it makes much more sense to expand on the current fucntion Tour structure, and partially regionalise the B Tour.
To start, this would mean a North and a South B Tour, in (for example) York and London. More teams would participate than if the Tour was in just one of those locations, meaning each tournament could be open to 16-24 teams. The winner of each of these tournaments then gets promoted to the A Tour, and the 2 lowest finishers at the corresponding A Tour are demoted to the B Tour - note that they could potentially both be from the same region.
Assuming Tour 0 has happened, the top level of B Tour is going to be fairly level, and the divide between A & B will already be roughly accurate, so I don't think just qualifying the winner of each B Tour is a problem. The B Tours will be given more consistency, as you see the same faces popping up time and again in the finals. The obvious question is about teams choosing to enter the North or South B Tour depending on which is weakest, and although this is technically an issue (could be that every time a team from the North qualifies for A Tour by winning the B Tour, they lose all their games & drop back down immediately, but the Southern team that drops down with them has actually done much better), I don't think its effects are negative enough to worry about.
For the following statements I'm using the South being stronger than the North as an example (or, rather, there being a big gap between A-standard and B-standard teams in the North).
From an A Tour perspective, the competition is kept consistent and high-level, and if a Southern team enters a Northern tournament & wins it, it simply means the competition level is raised higher than it would've been otherwise.
From a Southern Tour perspective, they have a tough time getting into the A Tour, but if they properly deserved their place then they would've qualified at Tour 0, so their opponents in the Southern B Tour are their close rivals, and a tournament where a place in the A Tour is up for grabs will be an intense weekend indeed. On the other hand, some teams will have the option of travelling further in order to risk it against the Northern teams, but it's possible one of their Southern counterparts has had the same idea, meaning it'll be a tough matchup anyway.
From a Northern Tour perspective, they may have occasional visitors from the South who'll try to take their qualification spot, but it's a challenge to the Northern teams to fend them off and improve themselves so that the Southern teams will think twice about travelling the extra distance next time. If another team comes in and wins the tournament, then it can't be argued that they didn't deserve that spot in the A Tour...
This also solves another problem, of us running out of venues big enough to host an entire B Tour. Now the B Tour can be spread over two 16-team tournaments and accomodate just as many teams as it does now. A & Women's can be hosted at the same venue, or also spread over two. The flexibility is great - if we have one big venue and three small ones then we can host either A&B, A&W or B&W at that venue, depending on location/quality/logistics etc.
It also paves the way for further regionalisation - 3 B Tours could follow, perhaps with team region restrictions, then four and five parallel events as the number of teams increases - at this point, the B Tour could be upgraded to be a 16-team National event like the A Tour is now, and the regional C Tour could be brought in to fill the space... If there's scope for such future growth without impacting the quality of games A Tour teams have to play, as well as regionalising the sport, it must be a good thing.
13.02.2007
UNO2006 update
Hey folks,
I figured I'd keep you up to speed on Push Pass Productions developments. As you probably know, I've been talking about UNO2006 (Uni National Outdoors - Open, Mixed & Womens - 2006) for many months now, and I'm happy to say it's taking shape. It's been a mammouth task to go through the 25 hours of raw footage, extracting all the good bits, and editting it all together, but it feels like I'm at the beginning of the end. Considering how long the rest of it all took, the end is likely to be fairly time consuming also, so don't expect to be watching the DVD in a matter of days.
Yesterday I spoke to Sam Herlihy, the frontman of the now disbanded Hope of the States. I asked about the possibility of him helping out with the music side of things, and he seemed enthusiastic about getting involved - he's currently in a band called Troubles, touring next week, and on the side is creating some electronica under the name 'Blocks' - which you can check out - I'm looking forward to him running with the UNO footage and seeing where he takes it.
If anyone else out there has some (unpublished) music they think might go well, get in touch! We need music.
Actual footage wise, I've aimed to include everything which is great/cool/impressive/scary/funny, so was hit with the task of categorizing it somehow to give it some kind of consistency. My solution has been to introduce all the teams one-by-one, with a highlight reel of their best action, crediting (and grouping the clips of) the players which crop up time and again in the big plays. So for example you'll see a big "From The Mohawks...", some clips will start, then you might see Mac do something awesome and it'll say '# 30 James "Mac" Macdonald', followed by a bunch more clips of him doing awesome things. Then he might huck it to Nick and it'll transition into Nick's personal highlight reel, which might include a few soundbites of him talking to the camera...
Anyway, it'll go through all this for practically every single team that competed. And that's just the start. All the semi finals for the 4 divisions will be played in inbetween the team highlight reels - of course the teams & players from each semi will be introduced just before the game is played so you know who to look out for - I've cut them down to about 3 minutes each of highlights of the biggest points, most influential D's, turning points, silky offences, controversy, celebrations, and whatever else made the game.
Then we get onto the Finals, each of which is preceeded by the best-of-the-best highlights of either O bids, D bids, D blocks, O grabs, or just cool stuff I caught on camera. Each final has between five and ten minutes of highlights probably, depending on how much I need to cut out in order to fit the whole thing onto a DVD.
Expect the 'Clip of the Day's to start again soon - I'm going to need to find out a whole load of people's names so I can credit their play on the DVD, which is where I'm going to need your help! In total I'd estimate there are 30+ teams with unique highlight reels, and maybe 100 players who'll get credited. The chances are, if you were at Uni Mixed, Open or Women's Nationals 2006, you'll be somewhere on the UNO2006 DVD. There's plenty to look forward to, and it's getting closer every day...
01.02.2007
UKU Competition Structure
UK Ultimate competition structure (as I see it) aims to:
(a) provide top-level competitive ultimate to elite clubs
(b) provide medium-level clubs with competition & opportunity to progress
(c) provide opportunities to all low-level/casual clubs for competitive weekends of Ultimate.
I think the Tour structure suceeds at (a) and (b) very well, but I think as time progresses (c) will be neglected more and more unless a change is made. There are only so many venues / TDs in the country that can host 32+ teams, so even if Tour A and B are split, soon teams will be being turned away from the B tour regularly. It is also a fact that when a Tour is in a particular area, it draws in more teams from that area than if it were elsewhere, hence the distance of some of the Tours is restricting the number of tournaments low-level/casual teams attend. Not to mention the carbon footprint each Tour leaves as it drags players from all around the country to one location, unnecessarily I feel for the lower down teams.
So, what can be done to future-proof the above aims? I think it's only a matter of time before Regionals is introduced to the UKU competition structure around the end of July, about 8-10 weeks before Nationals. The benefits of this would include local (regional) competition accessible to all nearby teams, an exciting battle for qualification / seeding for Nationals every year, and the ability to accomodate an ever increasing number of players/teams. If Nationals is made an elite 16-team tournament, competition would always be fierce. Regionals would also bring the best out in teams - nobody has travelled far, everybody has something to prove against their local rivals, and an achievable aim to accomplish in the form of qualification for Nationals.
Regions are each different, so a different number of teams should qualify from each, and the West and Scotland may have just a handful of teams to compete at regionals - therefore these events can either be made one-day, or the qualifying teams chosen based on Tour results or something, but in the other regions (Midlands, North, South-East) I think there's a lot to be gained from an annual Regionals tournament offering qualification to Nationals.
Top teams may not want to be forced to play at Regionals, in which case a number of byes could be offered to the higher Tour finishers, and the remaining teams compete at regionals for the few remaining, almost 'wildcard' Nationals spots. This means if your team gets messed up by a weak Tour performance, you can still get to Nationals if you prove your worth within your region.
It'll get a whole load more teams out, playing, and getting to know t'other teams in their local area (which can lead on to some Ladder League events in the off-season). Something needs to change soon, it is only a matter of time...
12.12.2006
Yo,
That time of year again to take a look at how the strength of each
region compares. Last year, in 2005-6, outdoors division 1 looked
like this:
SW: 2,3,6 = 3.67
M: 4,5,11 = 6.67
Sco: 1, 8, 15 = 8
Ire: 9 = 9
SE: 7,10,14 = 10.3
N:16, 12, 13 = 13.67
And division 2 like this:
Ire: 1 = 1
SE: 2, 3, 8 = 4.3
SW: 4, 6, 9 = 6.3
N: 5, 12, 13 = 10
M: 7, 10, 16 = 11
Sco: 11, 14, 15 = 13.3
This year, indoors, the West had a strong showing as did Scotland,
between them getting the top 4 places in division 1 and the top 2
places in div2, but with the SE getting all their teams within the top
8 of each division, how do the calculations work out?
What I've worked out for 2006-7 indoors is:
Division 1:
5 Sco
6.33 SE
6.33 W
10.33 N
12.66 M
14 Ire
Division 2:
4.66 N
5.5 SE
8 Sco
8 W
9 M
And if add these two averages together and divide by two, you get each
region's average finishing position within their division:
Indoors 2006-7:
5.915 SE
6.5 Sco
7.165 W
7.485 N
10.85 M
14 Ire
Or, if you take 1st in division 2 to mean 17th (and so on, and then
average them all out), you get an entirely different set of results
(biased towards M, SE and Ire for missing a team in div2):
12.4 SE
14 Ire
14.5 Sco
15.16 W
15.5 N
17.6 M
Excellent results for the SE, who look like they've managed to change
things round in the last two or three years from being pretty much the
weakest region... Scotland & the West are close behind, with the North
and Midlands appearing to be on the ebb (North looking promising for
outdoors/next year after a great div2 performance though).
Of course this is all good and well, and indoors is fun, but we all
know Ultimate is really a game you play outside - so how will each
region fare when May rolls around and UNO takes centre stage once
more?
Felix
SE Uni Coordinator 2005-2006
12.12.2006
From :
Hey folks,
I've fully updated the seultimate UKU Calendar to include the Mixed, Open & Women's Tour dates, as well as every other UK Uni and non-uni, indoor and outdoors tournaments in 2007. Download your copy or just visit & click the link near the top left whenever you need to check to see if you're busy months in advance.
Progress is being made regarding the Uni Nationals Outdoors 2006 DVD (UNO2006), containing footage from the Mixed, Women's, and Open Div1+Div2 tournaments - about 25 hours footage in total will be editted down to an action packed DVD of the best action from the Uni year. Every single semi and final was recorded, so a beat won't be missed from them, plus hours and hours worth of random other footage from quarters, group games, etc.
Each team featured is getting a personal introduction, and the best stuff I have of your team will be shown. All the big players will have their own personal introduction too, and highlights from their most spectacular plays from each tournament. There'll also be a soundtrack playing over all this, so if you've got some music you or a friend recorded & you think it's suitable, get in touch!
Finally, it looks like the WFDF Ultimate rules have been updated for 2007! So, if you want to know what's changed, or you want to read the rules for the first time, now's a perfect opportunity:
SE's results from Uni Indoor Nationals Div1+Div2 to follow shortly!
Felix
Push Pass Productions
04.10.2006
From :
Hey all,
The NOW 2006 trailer is online & you can now order your copy of the DVD:
It's been quiet on the video front recently because I've been working hard on this project. September 3rd saw Clapham take on Fire and Iceni battle Bliss in the Open & Women's Nationals Finals; Push Pass Productions were in Mansfield with their cameras rolling, and we're now happy to present the fruits of our efforts in the form of NOW 2006.
Note that this is not a highlights video, this is the full footage - every score, every turnover, and almost every pass from both games - even the second point of the Open final that lasts longer than 10 minutes is included in full. There's some great action as all four teams battle hard against driving rain in the first half and then play some great Ultimate in the glorious sunshine of the second half.
Order your copy at the discounted price of £4.99 now, shipping date is provisionally 23rd October.
Felix
Push Pass Productions
26.09.2006
From :
Hey folks,
The Regional Ladder Leagues are now well and truly here - see the
current table standings for yourself:
There are 8 teams on the board, with Thundering Herd leading the pack
having played 3 and won 3. Iceni are close behind with 3 games
played, however their 2 narrow losses to Herd are reflected by how close
they are at the top of the table.
Region wise, looks like the South East is leading the way but there's
a good showing from the Midlands too.
I know at least one other game has been played and will be submitted
very soon, so bookmark regionalultimate.co.uk to see how things
progress, and get your home team involved!
With the University year starting now it's going to be interesting to
see whether the Club teams will be displaced from the top of the
National Open table by their activity...
Thanks to Mike Tonge,
Felix
14.09.2006
From :
NOW 2006 is happening. Push Pass Productions have been working around the clock, and the project is now 90% finished, barely able to contain itself...
The DVD will feature 130 minutes of raw footage from the 2006 Open & Women's Nationals Finals - the teams limbering up between each point, getting ready to pull, and then each and every point from beginning to end, with slo-mo replays of the good action after the score. This is raw National Finals footage, in full, with an amazing introduction which you will be able to see soon in the form of a trailer. Stay tuned.
For more info and to express your interest check out the page.
06.09.2006
From :
Word on the street is that Push Pass Productions have over two hours of footage taken from both the finals of this weekend's Open & Women's 2006 Nationals, and they are putting it all together onto a ~90 minute DVD with a few sweet slo-mo replays to be sold for £5 on eBay as quickly as humanly possible!
For more info check out the page.
25.08.2006
From :
Open Tour COTDs
Over the last couple of weeks, Push Pass Productions have been creating video clips from Open Tour II & III men's and women's finals amongst other games. This is just the start - there are exciting things on the horizon, but for now here's a summary of the COTDs to date:
Check out this huck from Rodders to Nick, finishing in a breakforce backhand by Muppet for Fire against Clapham in the Open Tour II 2006 Final.
A very nice box out & catch by Nick from Brighton against Mild Mannered Janitors in the UK Open Tour II 2006 9-12 semi final.
JJ gets a nice grab on a huck from Carthorse and an assist to French National player Nas in this clip from the Clapham vs Fire UK Tour II 2006 Final in Eastbourne.
Check out this point from the UK Women's Tour III 2006 Final in Cardiff, between London teams Iceni and Bliss.
Also don't miss out on this this 10 minute, fully editted Brighton Beyond video:
Brighton Beyond was held in Lewes in summer 2006 - this video conveys the atmosphere at the event in the beautiful Sussex surroundings, and also features action from the games including five minutes of clips from the Final between Shocker and Discuits.
And finally, the 22 minute long video is now easily viewable, and the video is released!
See you at the Copa & Nationals...
Felix & Mac
Push Pass Productions
25.08.2006
From :
GlaxoSmithKline 2006 Nationals
All,
I'm happy to present the long-awaited official followup video to the (other) frisbee game taking the world by storm - GlaxoSmithKline* 2006 Nationals!
At Brighton Beyond 2006, 14 teams competed in the first ever GlaxoSmithKline National Championships. This video highlights the best bits from the GlaxoSmithJam by the Mohawks, including a new GSK world record being set.
Enjoy!
Felix & Mac
Push Pass Productions
ps. check out the legendary original GSK video, featuring instructional sequence:
pps. rumour has it that GSK was played at a tournament in Asia a few weeks ago, and a GlaxoSmithKline team is signed up to a corporate Ultimate tournament in London! Get in touch if you have any more info. Let's hope they don't turn up with a disc, 4 players, a table and some washing up liquid...
* no connection to the company of the same name
23.08.2006
Future of UK Ultimate
So, it's looking like as well as hosting an abundance of videos, tournament pages, league pages, calendars, team pages, news, and information, seultimate.org will also be the home for random thoughts and revelations I have about Ultimate.
Where is Ultimate headed? We can start to answer this for the UK by looking at the more advanced Ultimate countries in the world, and we can answer it for regions, cities and towns by looking at the more advanced regions, cities and towns in the UK. Here's a quick thing I drew up on the train;
| Ahead |
Time difference |
Behind |
|
| USA |
10-15 years |
UK |
|
| South East |
2 years |
Midlands & North |
| Midlands & North |
2 years |
West & Scotland |
|
| London |
5-8 years |
Brighton, Leeds, Bristol,
Sheffield, Southampton |
Brighton, Leeds, Bristol,
Sheffield, Southampton |
2-5 years |
Edinburgh, Reading, Newcastle, Norwich, Cambridge, York, Loughborough, Birmingham, Exeter, Guildford, Nottingham |
It's very possible I've under/overestimated some cities here and their level of development - I mainly judged their development by how locally sustainable their geo/city team is, the connection they have with their students, and their ability to enter two or more teams into Mixed & Open Tours. I could breakdown all the reasons for putting those cities 2-5 years behind Brighton, Leeds, Bristol, Sheffield and Southampton, but I don't want to bore you.
Anyway, moving forward, we can look at the situation of the countries, regions and cities that are ahead of us, and put structures in place now which will support sustained growth in the right direction. In the USA they break the Ultimate down into regions and then sections, with national, regional, and sectional coordinators designated accordingly. There are a phenomenal number of Ultimate players in the USA, even relative to their population. They have untold number of leagues, pickup games, and teams lurking around every corner. I believe if we mimick their official tournament structure then we will be able to support the increase of competitive clubs for the next 15 years.
This means prior to Nationals, we should have five or six Regional tournaments held throughout the country. At the moment I believe we can support Open Outdoor Regionals, but not Sectionals yet. Once Regionals are in place, Sectionals will just be another step, following the logical progression of things. In the South East University Indoors division, 3/6 teams are qualifying from a pool of ~32, so this could be a sign of things to come in 2 years for the Midlands / North.
Don't get me wrong - we shouldn't abandon the Tour. Tour takes advantage of the fact the UK is so small to bring everybody together for fantastic weekends of Ultimate. But it is becoming apparent that changes of some kind will need to be made soon. I don't think the A Tour should be touched - it is vital for the top 16 teams in the country to be able to play against each other regularly in a structured environment. The B Tour however is getting overcrowded, and I don't think it's vital for the teams to play against the biggest pool of similar performing teams as they can, when travel and tournament size could be reduced if the B Tour was regionalised. At first just making it North & South would assure nobody has to travel a ridiculous distance to play competitively, yet teams would have similarly skilled opponents to play against, and something to work towards. 2 teams could graduate to the A Tour each time, and 4 teams drop from A down to B (although scheduling of the A Tour would have to be modified). It wouldn't matter if the A Tour became full of teams from one of the two regions, because that would just reflect the balance of things - the two best teams from that region's B Tour are still guaranteed to play in the A Tour next time.
But, I digress. We need to look at the regions and the cities with more developed Ultimate to see what direction cities like Reading, Norwich, Loughborough, and Birmingham should be headed. By more developed I don't mean better, I mean larger, more stable, and self-sustaining.
A History of Brighton Ultimate
Brighton Ultimate was created two years ago at a meeting between Waggle, Tom, Mac, Bob and Felix - the at-the-time Smash & Grab and Mohawks captains, with myself as the Mohawks non-student coordinator. Prior to that, Smash had been a force who would poach the good Mohawks players for Tour, much to the disappointment and detriment of the Mohawks. It all started when a few of Smash's London-based players (Voodoo, Ali Dray etc) moved to Clapham Ultimate, and it was decided that Smash practices should from then on be held in Brighton (~Jan 2002). Every Sunday during term a handful of the non-students would turn up to Preston Park to throw a disc with the freshers, and as a fresher myself during that time, I can safely say we loved having a few experienced hands who wouldn't turn the disc over and would be able to stick it deep to you if you were free. Sundays quickly became the freshers favorite practices, but they stopped completely outside of term time due to lack of numbers.
It took a year before we could sucessfully run a regular practice during the summer (~June 2003) - another huge turning point which accelerated the change. 2004 was a strange year - Smash & Grab were still competing, but practices in Brighton included all the Mohawks, the best of whom (including the captain for later tournaments) would be poached by S&G for the Tour. At the end of summer 2004, Waggle, Tom, Bob, Mac and myself sat down and decided something needed to change, and that it was best for us to become one combined geo team. Brighton Ultimate was born.
From there it was simply a matter of encouraging the students to believe they were a part of Brighton Ultimate, welcome them to train with us and play for us in the Winter League, and take things from there. We had a sucessful first year in the Tours, finishing 9th in the Open and (maybe) Mixed division, which improved to 6th & 7th respectively in 2006.
Every city is different, but that's how in 4 years Brighton changed from being two separate teams, one elitist and one neglected, to being one club ranked in the top 8 in the country.
How does this relate to anything and what am I talking about anyway, you ask? Well, basically, it's all about geo teams. I am hoping that the Ladder League will encourage players to stop abandoning their town in favor of hot conglomorate teams, and instead dedicate some more time to developing the Ultimate local to them, because in a few years time it will pay off hugely. So, if you're not training for Worlds, take a look at the University near you to see if they have an Ultimate team, then take a look at the players in your city to see if they're up for some weekend inner-city action, coordinate some people, and come together.
22.08.2006
From :
Ladder League thoughts
Nationals is approaching, and that means the 2006 season is coming to an end. Normally now teams would be left in some kind of a limbo, post-nationals and pre-university term, what is there to do? Okay, so a lot of people go on holiday, but what about the dozens (hundreds?) of UK Ultimate players who spend all their money on Ultimate and don't really care for holidays because they go away to different places every single weekend to have the time of their lives anyway? What do they have to train for if they're not students? Mixed Tour I in April? Winter league?
So, here comes the Ladder League. Starting on September 4th, immediately after the Tour / Nationals season ends, teams from here on in will be spending this time arranging friendlies, travelling around their region a bit, and generally playing slightly more relaxed ultimate and getting to know the people behind those faces who wouldn't let you get free for the dump in the quarter final, or who laid out to stop you breaking through the cup. Or, maybe you have scores to settle and there won't be any trip to the pub afterwards, just some hardcore Ultimate action.
Ladder League or Winter League? The problem with Winter Leagues include:
- The demand on organisation needed to run a Winter League is high - essentially one or two people have to coordinate all the teams, find & book the pitches, write schedules, set up websites, plan the events, sort out the finances, and fit it all into the slots in a calendar between the Uni indoor season. The London Winter League organisers are feeling the strain of this already, and it only stands to get worse over time. If more WL's are going to spring up then a city has to firstly be very large in order to be able to support the WL structure (8 teams able to turn up every single month), and secondly needs volunteers to commit loads of their time to organising it & making sure it works. Not many cities have volunteers willing to put this much time into the off-season Ultimate.
- Some teams have travel issues, such as Brighton and Boogie Knights, who travel for over an hour to reach the London WL and Midlands WL events respectively. As more clubs from all different areas get involved and need off-season Ultimate, this problem only stands to get worse with the current setup. Sooner or later, if we keep the WL structure, they will basically turn into one-day monthly regional tournaments, and teams will get fed up of having to travel to the same place every single month, but for the reasons above, more local WL's are unlikely to spring up. At the moment the LWL organisation is considering limiting entrants to London-only, due to overcrowding - where does this leave the other teams in the South-East?
- Clubs can sometimes struggle to make specific dates, especially if they have a strong Uni element and there's a calendar conflict, and if one date is missed, an entire club's non-student members could go without competitive Ultimate for two months.
- Clubs vary massively in size - some can only get together a team occasionally, whereas others have enough players for three teams each month. Aside from causing the WL organisers headaches & tempting them to impose much stricter rules, this restricts club's flexibility - some would like to get a team playing once or twice a season where they can manage it, and others would like to play every other week in off-season events which cater for their split of experienced, new, male and female players. If the only option for clubs is to send roughly the same number of players to travel to an event once a month, then they are being restricted unreasonably.
The Ladder Leagues - should they be adopted fully - will address most, if not all, these problems. Opportunities for flexible off-season Ultimate will suddenly be available to all:
-
Regular off-season club friendlies between nearby geo teams, such as Reading vs Brighton vs Portsmouth, or Liverpool vs Manchester vs Leeds or Nottingham vs Loughborough vs Birmingham.
- New clubs will have an easy way to register their team and get involved in UK Ultimate without having to commit to lengthy traveling, or a full day / weekend of Ultimate.
- High level competition between teams such as Chevron, EMO, Fire, Fusion, Bristol, BAF, Clapham, Leeds and Brighton, in the run-up to Tour, with events organised however, whenever, and wherever suits the participating teams. Possibly in a year we can make the scoring system different for these games - to reward performance entirely as opposed to activity - which will promote a more competitive environment, rather than one which primarily encourages development.
- New and 'trial' players will have more opportunities to play competitive ultimate outside of the Tour, as clubs will have more events available to enter a squad into, and don't stand to lose much from fielding a weaker team. Possibly top-level recruiting teams would use Ladder League to try out their new players in a competitive game environment before selecting their Tour team.
The major benefit of the Ladder League system is the organisational breakdown - events are not organised by a central group, instead they are organised by the teams wishing to compete, so the more players and clubs get involved, the more event organisers and events there will be to support them - it's a system of self-supporting growth. I cannot stress the impact and implications of this enough. Self-supporting growth means that the more ultimate players there are, the more ultimate teams there are, the more ultimate cities there are, and the more ultimate events there are. It is so easy to organise a Ladder League event that more and more will spring up as the player base increases and as the need for them increases. Self-supporting growth means the Ladder Leagues will survive for years to come, ever expanding and ever improving. It's like a virus which I'm unleashing onto the country, but the symptoms are not coughing and sneezing, they are grazed knees and elbows, muddy pint glasses, and frisbees stuck on roofs.
22.08.2006
From :
Beyond Brighton Beyond
The video of Brighton Beyond 2006 is here! It's a full ten minutes, features some excellent music alongside the tournament & ultimate action, and oozes the great vibe of the weekend throughout.
Also check out this very nice catch from Nick:
Felix & Mac
Push Pass Productions
18.08.2006
From :
Clip of the Day: Clapham vs Fire, Open Tour II Final 2006 - JJ's grab and assist
JJ gets a nice grab on a huck from Carthorse and an assist to French National player Nas in this clip from the Clapham vs Fire UK Tour II 2006 Final in Eastbourne, July 30th.
Felix & Mac
Push Pass Productions
17.08.2006
From :
UK Regional Coordinators & mailing lists
With the start of the UK Regional Ladder Leagues approaching, the time
has come for potential Regional Coordinators to step forward. If you
fancy chipping in a bit of your time for the upcoming 'off-season'
Ultimate then please read on.
Anyone who wants to get involved at the RC level and isn't already on
the regionalultimate yahoo group should get subscribed and
put your name forward to Felix. If we happen to get more than one
volunteer for any region, elections will be held within that region to
determine the coordinator. A Women's Coordinator position is also
available.
We have some guidelines for the role but it is essentially what you
make it. Some of the tasks include maintaining a central contact for
the ladder league in your area, keeping the organisers informed of any
changes which need to be made, helping your league run smoothly if any
help is needed, and promoting it to local clubs as you see fit.
A more detailed idea of what an RC can achieve is at the bottom of
this email. We have given you a start by ensuring every region in the
country has its own regional mailing list, which I recommend everybody
signs up to now to avoid missing out on any of the exciting
developments about to happen, and to get involved with playing and
organising local LL friendlies;
All are @yahoogroups.com
Scotland: scotdisc-subscribe
Northern: northernultimate-subscribe
Midlands: midlandfrisbee-subscribe
Western: westernultimate-subscribe
South East: seultimate-subscribe
Ireland: pookas-subscribe
A map of last years University regional divisions can be found here:
(nb. changes will be made soon: Midlands will shift to the right to
encompass East Anglia, Wales will be divided between the Western and
Northern regions, and Ireland will... exist).
Make sure some of your club are signed up to your regional mailing
list soon - I'd recommend thinking about who inside your team will be
up for managing your club's first Ladder League campaign; could be
perfect for eager folks not quite ready for Tour team organisation...
Cheers,
Felix & Sam
The current idea for the role of a Regional Coordinator is to keep the
Ladder League in their region active and running smoothly. This can
be done by contacting teams individually about hosting/attending
Ladder League events, keeping discussion rolling on the regional
mailing list, or more directly by arranging and hosting events
themselves to kickstart their season.
They are also encouraged to write or submit monthly news updates to
the website & mailing list, maintain a list of team contacts (ensuring
every team in the region is aware of the league's existence), check
over the fixtures & results on the website, and ensure good
communication is kept between the region and the organisers.
Maintaining strong connections between the University and Club scenes
in their region will be crucial if the league is to succeed.
Regional Coordinators are also encouraged to have a well balanced
calendar of events in mind, with sufficient attention paid to club,
uni, mixed, womens, beginner-friendly, junior, and highly competitive
events. Should the region have special circumstances owing to its
local ultimate history, geographical layout, attitude or any other
factors, the RC should communicate these with the rest of the Ladder
League committee and work together to create ideas for solutions if
they are needed. The committee will help the RCs in any way they
need, and provide ideas and guidelines to help make their job easier
and fun.
16.08.2006
From :
Clip of the Day: Iceni vs Bliss, Womens Tour III Final 2006 - Diana's score
Check out this video of a full point from the Iceni vs Bliss Women's Tour III Final.
More coming soon (including GlaxoSmithKline Nationals 2006, and Beyond Brighton Beyond).
Felix & Mac
Push Pass Productions
Stay tuned for news on the UK Regional Ladder League 2006/7
02.08.2006
From :
Brighton Beyond results
Hi all,
After an amazingly hot and sunny weekend of llamas, gurkhas,
cocktails, GlaxoSmithKline and Ultimate, the results from Brighton
Beyond 2006 have emerged from the settling dust.
1st Shocker
2nd Discuits
3rd Bristol Plastic Factory
4th Haze
5th West Pier Pressure
6th Thundering Herd
7th Curious Bacon
8th Aye-BH
9th BASIC
10th Flump
11th Palace Pier Pressure
12th Curve
Spirit Of The Game: Thundering Herd
MVPs: Rodders and Vicky King
The first ever UK National GlaxoSmithKline tournament was held in the
clubhouse on Saturday night infront of a raucous crowd hungry for
special moves.
Most inventive - Fiddlewinx (special moves included lifting the table
off the floor to maintain disc position, and spinning on the rim of a
pint glass, knocking the disc off with a drink)
Best GlaxoSmithName - Fat Kids are Harder to Kidnap
GlaxoSmithWomensChampions - Bright Ro Ho's Slap it Good, Slap it Real
Good (6.83 seconds)
GlaxoSmithChampions - Mohawks (new world record set: 48.3 seconds)
GlaxoSmithMostValuablePlayer - Mac
Thanks to those who came and made the weekend so much fun. Expect
more teams, more music, and more cocktails at BB2007.
Photos:
Felix
BBTD
29.06.2006
From :
Brighton Hat Tournament
Saturday, details are as follows...
Registration: 10:30 - 11am Please show up between these times so we
can work out a fair hat system, and get games started on time.
Games start at 11:30 and go on until 3pm. This allows enough time to
get changed, walk to the local pubs (10 minute walk) and get the beers
in before the England game.
After the England game, there will be a BBQ for everyone, with cheap
beer and burgers (meat & veggie), then we'll carry the party on for as
long as people want.
If you've not told me that you're coming, but want to play still,
don't feel shy, come and play some ultimate!
tequila,
gmail dot com - tequila.o
www.mohawks.co.uk
28.06.2006
From :
Tequila has made an exciting announcement regarding a Hat tournament to be held in Brighton this weekend!
Yo South East,
Its been pretty quiet while exams have been going on, a little too
quiet....
So, the Mohawks are proud to present a random one day hat tournament!
July 1st.
Come down for a hat tournament, to play with and against Brighton Ultimate (Indoor National Champions) and the Mohawks under casual co-ed rules (depending on the number of women each team has). FREE to enter, and fun 1000% guaranteed.
We decided to make it a hat tourney for two reasons - so YOU can come down if you can make it, but some of your team can't, and because the Mohawks think it'd be cool to play alongside some of you guys before the year is up. It has been an incredible year for the South East, and we just aren't ready to let the ultimate stop yet!
Email gmail dot com - tequila.o@ if you want to show interest, so we can get an idea of numbers.
tequila, proud to be part of the South East
www.mohawks.co.uk
23.06.2006
From :
Hey all, heres some info to get you a little more excited about Brighton Beyond.
There are just under four weeks till BB. Currently on the teamlist:
Shocker
Bristol Plastic Factory
Haze
Discuits
BASIC
Brighton Ultimate
Thundering Herd
Curious Bacon
Flump
ABH
Lucky Huckers
Curve
Lewes local team
The venue is looking pretty sweet - there are four pitches in the same field, with a clubhouse selling drinks till late on one side, and the campsite over a stream on the other side. We'll be serving all kinds of food throughout the weekend (breakfast, lunch, dinner), catering for veggies and meat lovers alike, all being sorted out by the healthiest player in Brighton Ultimate so it's bound to be nutritious and delicious.
We've also got the most often drunk BU player to fix us up with cheap cocktails and cold beers for you to enjoy in the sun - before, during, and after your games! No need to leave the venue all weekend.
We're going to be holding a GlaxoSmithKline tournament on Saturday evening, 4 players per team, you'll have 10 minutes to achieve your best time and pull off your funkiest tricks before moving along. Check out for GSK info & a video showing how to play.
It's gonna be great! Get in touch without delay or talk to me at Mixed Nationals if you've any questions - the seeding/schedule/directions/captain's pack will follow in due course!
Felix
BBTD
23.06.2006
From :
There are now 10 's online, so go check them out in anticipation of the upcoming UNO2006 DVD.
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