Official England EurOpen Team at Cardiff and beyond

[Nippy Longskar]

Hi folks,

So this was my proposal for a Team England EurOpen team, what are people's thoughts?

I think that having an official team of three to represent England at EurOpen is a must, and Wales is the perfect time to kick it off, with so much English participation. It is an awesome thing to strive for for newer coaches aiming to eventually make the 8, and should be recognised as having as much importance as the EB team. Therefore I'd propose a 'get-you-by' solution for this year, with a more concrete process implemented for the future. For 2018, I think that once the registration period for EO teams closes, any all-English EO team that wants to can put its name forward to be the Team England EO team. Then either 1) there is a vote among the English community for which team gets the role OR 2) Lycos picks the team he thinks is most suitable/appropriate.

For the future, I think the England Captain should select the 3 England EO players from the pool of those who have said they are interested and willing to play EO as well as EB.

Both this year and going forward, I think the three Team England EurOpeners should get Team England shirts, but with only the team badge (not the EB stars) on the front (a new star system could be implemented for this team if it wins events), and with EO1, EO2, EO3 etc on the back, to signify EO Team England cap numbers. These three would essentially be part of the team and involved in the organisational elements I mentioned above.

[Joemanji]

Think it is a great idea in principle, and your short term solution for this year is great.

Longer term I think we should also try to find out what is causing people not to put themselves forward for the EO option. Is it that the time of year TE announce the squad means they have already made plans? Do they not want somebody else deciding who their teammates will be for a three-player event?

[howlinggriffon]

After reading about the last EuroBowl / EurOpen, I knew that I wanted to go this year and started working on a EO team pretty much straight after it ended. I'd had my team members all decided in November and we booked the hotels in January. So we were all set months ahead of time, well before even the TE captain had been decided.

I like the idea of the Team England EurOpen team - it will help develop players into possibly joining TE at other events. I'm not sure how the England captain will work out who to choose though. It sounds like another kettle of fish to cause headaches.

[Nippy Longskar]

After reading about the last EuroBowl / EurOpen, I knew that I wanted to go this year and started working on a EO team pretty much straight after it ended. I'd had my team members all decided in November and we booked the hotels in January. So we were all set months ahead of time, well before even the TE captain had been decided.

I like the idea of the Team England EurOpen team - it will help develop players into possibly joining TE at other events. I'm not sure how the England captain will work out who to choose though. It sounds like another kettle of fish to cause headaches.

This is a good point and it's not straightforward...maybe it answers Joe's question about why people have not taken this idea up in the past? I guess you could argue that if you want to play for England at either EB or EO, then putting your EO plans on hold is a sacrifice you have to make. But that's not ideal because the two objectives of getting lots of English coaches interested and putting their names forward for the EB/EO teams, and of getting lots of English EO teams interested, organised and participating each year are then at odds with each other. As an aside, would you consider putting your team forward if it was an option this year?

The other options I can think of for future years are:

1) Letting people make their EO teams each year as normal, and then the EB captain picks one, or there's a community vote, as to which becomes that year's EO Team England (as I've proposed for this year...it would essentially become the ongoing model)

2) OR, as some people have suggested, it's simply a case of anyone who wants to be in the EurOpen Team England can be, and can have a shirt regardless of numbers. I'm not a fan of this option personally, as while it's very nice in it's inclusivity, it does feel like it reduces the incentive to strive for a place on the team.

Are there other options people can think of?

Also, as an additional point, if the EurOpen team is selected by the EB captain, should the selection criteria be the same, or more relaxed/focused on things like community involvement? My feel is for the former but I'd like to hear other viewpoints.

[sann0638]

Team Scotland include any team as the squad who all qualify, rather than choosing one team I believe. Anyone who wants to can wear the shirt.

HG, would you wear the team England colours or rather represent your club?

[Leipziger]

The TE Europen team does offer a bit more chance to introduce some of the elements that have been mentioned in the general TE discussion, but that IMO aren’t ideal for that process e.g. you could make the best finishing English team one year, the first choice EO representatives the following year (especially tricky in years when there’s a World Cup following) or using a qualification system like the Golden Gauntlet etc.

Personally, I’d favour option 1 that you’ve mentioned Nips. Let people choose their own EO teams & then put themselves forward. For this team, I’d go for the community vote over the TE captain. I suspect the community is quite likely to end with the same choice as the captain anyway, unless there’s perhaps 2 v close teams. From this year’s list on the EB/EO website I think I could have a good guess who’d currently get the job. It’s also a chance to get more community involvement.

Re: point 2, I’m not a fan of everyone having an England shirt. Keep it as a thing to be earned IMO.

[howlinggriffon]

I would be honoured to wear an England shirt of any type - but I'm checking with my team mates if we would want to throw our hat in the ring for selection (assuming there is a ring to throw hats into...) as one of them has Scottish parents and he might not want to play under an English banner.

If shirts are too much, maybe have TE patches that English EO teams could fix to their shirts if they wanted to pay for them?

* edit * Team mate is indeed Scottish so a moot point about selection

[Nippy Longskar]

If there was to be an English community vote, would this need to be conducted on the TE Forum? That wad all set up for that kind of thing, whereas I'm not sure it's possible here on TFF.

Nice thought on the patches HG...could be something to pursue if option 2 proves popular?

Interesting ideas about the GG etc Al. But yeah I think it still suffers from the issues of people having to hang on before booking their EO space which could impact flight logistics et in future years.

[Leipziger]

Interesting ideas about the GG etc Al. But yeah I think it still suffers from the issues of people having to hang on before booking their EO space which could impact flight logistics et in future years.

Oh I agree re: GG etc. Just giving another option

Re: the vote, yeah I’m not sure you can do a hidden poll on here. You could have a vote coordinator & have people vote by DM?

[Pipey]

Great idea Mark. Think it'll be more straightforward if the concept is introduced as part of selection then those who want to put their names forward for England EO or EB will do so. Agree an earlier announcement of the Eurobowl team would assist this process.

Whether it's preferable for every member of a travelling Euro party to be offered the shirt I'm not sure.

Great to see ideas taking flight. <3 this community

[deeferdan]

I really like this idea, and I think I like it going forward too, its a semi-informal team England involvement it would be nice for a team to be given the support of the community as a representative of TE.

I also think (based on previous posts) giving the community the job to vote on the TE EO representative means it is not yet another job for the TE captain, who could just step in in the result of an unlikely tie.

[Raging82]

For a selection too work by the captain, then you would have to have concrete dates on the following:
Captain selection, volunteer period ( and all that enter are then viable for either team ), a selection cut off date.
All of this would need to happen well in advance of the tournament itself or you could ruin someone’s chances of even going. This means that players that might be performing above and beyond just before the EB don’t make the team.
If everyone know the time line then it could work because everybody could plan around it.

[Barney the Lurker]

Re England Shirts. In Belgium, Purplegoo organised it so that any English coach going could get a shirt, and I liked that as it still helped to create the 'English Community' that I think we are striving for. The people picked for the actual team still have their numbers, which the Europeners didn't, so there was still something to aim for and earn.

[Nippy Longskar]

Lots of good ideas here...but no real concensus yet as to exactly how TE EO would/should work. Does anyone else feel strongly about this and want to throw ideas into the ring? Doesn't matter if you're not going to EuroBowl/Eur'Open this year, still good to get as many views as possible about what we as a community want our Eur'Open participation to look like.

[Jip]

Lots of good ideas here...but no real concensus yet as to exactly how TE EO would/should work. Does anyone else feel strongly about this and want to throw ideas into the ring? Doesn't matter if you're not going to EuroBowl/Eur'Open this year, still good to get as many views as possible about what we as a community want our Eur'Open participation to look like.

I'm off to the EurOpen, so feel able to have an interest in this. Full disclosure, I'm not that fussed about an all-English coaches should be branded thing, but I was a bit ignorant about the selection process and general TE vibe, leading up to this, so this has all (mostly!) been really interesting to read.

When this was talked about at NAFC, I envisioned a Team England EurOpen team, and then a way of highlighting the rest of the English EurOpen players, alongside that.

My take on it, just to give others something to build on:

• Any all-English EurOpen team captains wishing to be considered for the TE EurOpen role would make themselves known to the TE captain.
  
  If there was more than one team applying, the decision would be made (by the TE captain and/or the team and/or the community etc.) as to who would best represent England at the EurOpen. They would then get versions of the TE shirts. Barney the Lurker's post, above, seems to have more insight on this than me, so something like what he's referring to.
  
  The remaining English coaches would (if they wanted to) then be able to purchase badges, pins, scarfs, hats, tattoos, red noses, timeshares (essentially, whatever was decided) to signify they were part of the TE ethos.

That creates a visible presence, and allows an opt out (as some people might not really be fussed about all this), but also doesn't water the 'brand' down as you would have (hopefully) the most competitive EurOpen English team, representing Team England.