2019 Captaincy Election: Question & Answer Thread

[Itchen Masack]

A question for both candidates please, (and apologies if this is covered elsewhere, perhaps on committee pages - there is only so much reading i can handle):

Being English - Do you have any criteria for a coach to be considered eligible for selection?

Over the years I've noticed (on other National teams at least) there is a very loose requirement to be eligible to play for the team. These include being resident in the country, having a grandparent born in the country, or even having played once as a freebooter for that country.

As a hypothetical example I myself played as a Freebooter for Ireland in Cardiff, but would refuse selection if asked again for Poland and there was someone I considered Irish who wished to play instead.

Was wondering how the candidates saw things as it might well influence how I pick between two obviously capable options.

[sann0638]

(k)food for thought there, Itchen!

[PeteW]

A question for both candidates please, (and apologies if this is covered elsewhere, perhaps on committee pages - there is only so much reading i can handle):

Being English - Do you have any criteria for a coach to be considered eligible for selection?

Over the years I've noticed (on other National teams at least) there is a very loose requirement to be eligible to play for the team. These include being resident in the country, having a grandparent born in the country, or even having played once as a freebooter for that country.

As a hypothetical example I myself played as a Freebooter for Ireland in Cardiff, but would refuse selection if asked again for Poland and there was someone I considered Irish who wished to play instead.

Was wondering how the candidates saw things as it might well influence how I pick between two obviously capable options.

Hi Itchen

A good question. I guess England is in a very different position than Ireland, say, where we are blessed with having too many options!

The TE document says that if the national selection criteria aren't clear, then the committee will make a ruling. So that sounds like the captain's view is only one of 5.

I would want to be fair, as far as is possible, but I also expect that there will be many grey areas that need individual consideration.

Step one might be to look at the nationality on the NAF page, so if someone is from Scotland or Wales, then they should play for that team.

If someone has played for another nation, but is half English, should they be allowed to switch nations? Not sure. Or if they have lived here long enough to claim allegiance?!

For fairness, you can see it either way, which makes it tough, as including people who have played for other nations would cause other coaches to miss out. However, if someone like yourself has helped the Irish out as a freebooter, I don't think it would be fair for that to disqualify you from TE!

Considering how the community might feel in three potential situations could be useful to illustrate:

Kfoged. I love the guy, and he is a great player. He has played for Denmark a number of times, but now lived in England for 3+ years. His NAF page says 'England'. I have no idea about his intentions, but if he made TE then I could imagine this causing some upset.

Itchen. Played for Ireland as a freebooter, as a favour, but is basically English (I assume, apologies if wrong!) In this situation I would be very surprised if anyone would question your eligibility for TE.

Andydavo. Another good friend, but a bit of a Ryan Giggs. Andy has played for Wales a number of times but could theoretically play for England. Would his inclusion cause upset? Perhaps in some, but not others. (Again, I don't know his intentions, just using him as an example!)

Although this is a captains Q&A, it might be useful to have some committee commentary to frame our answers!

[Lycos]

Itchen, this is a good and important question because it is coming up at some point.

The English community have a decent amount of players so I don’t believe we will need to worry about numbers. But the big elephant in the room is “what does being English” mean.

Wider to a captains feeling, the committee’s decision is to adopt what the Eurobowl committee decide, thus all countries, not just us, have some consistency.

For me, if you move here and have been resident for a set number of years, then yes, I think you can be considered for selection. I guess 3 years is a reasonable number but I wouldn’t be against a bigger number if the community wanted it.

I think putting this in context comes in as well. I am very passionate about both being English and playing in Eurobowl. This is blood bowl though, no one is being paid on this, it is a hobby when said and done.

[Lycos]

OK gents hope you don’t mind if I ask a few more questions, my own rather than on behalf of the committee. I will use the new TE Charter as a reference point.

2. Team England
We would like to encourage all English coaches travelling to play at Eurobowl or EurOpen to consider themselves part of Team England. This may mean any number of things from wearing the same team shirts to taking part in community discussions together e.g. travel planning, debating rosters choices and tactics. Also see point 10 below about Team England practice sessions [which are encouraged, and the committee may be able to organise an event].

What will you do to nurture the idea of a wider Team England as above, in the run-up to registration and selection, as well as in the build-up to Eurobowl and during the event?

Brendan, I am going to split these questions apart as it will be a wall of text otherwise.

You're right,we want to encourage as many coaches as possible and to be fair i think there is good interest already. What we have done to now works very well. The team has a WA thread from day one, discussion about rosters, play styles etc all takes place there. It was a busy thread and the same will happen again. Putting that content on a website means our rivals can see it so WA threads are best.

Travel plans are shared but we are located across the country so flight plans are often groups.

Practice session can be not only committee led but we have already seen at tournaments, general conversation on this theme already.

As per my previous years, I will sort shirts (and hoddies) out.

[Itchen Masack]

I thank you both for you answers The question I raised is hugely unlikely to affect me in any way whatsoever, but I'm also a firm believer in "doing the right thing" whatever that is

[Lycos]

OK gents hope you don’t mind if I ask a few more questions, my own rather than on behalf of the committee

mainly for Lycos but also for Pete if he has anything further to add –

I think English EO teams can formalise themselves once the EB8 is picked, similar to last year. I dont believe this is a good long term strategy though, something more formal needs to materialise. In order to get that, I feel more communication, thinking and more listening to the wider community needs to take place.

Pete has given a 4-point strategy regarding his vision for EO Team England. Do you have any more specific ideas of what a formal EO Team England might look like, perhaps for Malta if you feel a stop-gap for Poland isn’t possible? What would the process of communication and listening involve? What would your involvement as Eurobowl captain be, if any? (apologies to press you for detail on this matter Dave; just that it seemed to be a theme in the discussions alongside our document proposals that a more formal EO team was a priority)

As previously commented, time is against us for Poland EO. The process for Wales was as good as we will get given timescales. No need to apologise about Malta ideas and beyond but I think we would agree that we (the England Committee) need to either email, call or face to face chat a number to a number of people to get a wider set of ideas. The recent thread had some great ideas from Wulfyn and Deefordan, there is a start right there.

I admit I dont have a perfect answer for what that long term picture looks like. It was clear from feedback we need to listen to more voices before presenting something more formal.

[Purplegoo]

Alright chaps.

One for both of you: What are your views on how 'all of this' (the move to TFF, the setting up of a committee, the recent votes, etc.) has gone? I'm not sure we've really learned or achieved anything of value yet. Am I wrong?

Good luck and thanks to the both of you. I've not made a decision yet, but I don't think I can make a bad one.

[PeteW]

Alright chaps.

One for both of you: What are your views on how 'all of this' (the move to TFF, the setting up of a committee, the recent votes, etc.) has gone? I'm not sure we've really learned or achieved anything of value yet. Am I wrong?

Good luck and thanks to the both of you. I've not made a decision yet, but I don't think I can make a bad one.

Thanks Phil - interesting question!

Collating all the groups into one place would have seemed to be a good thing, as the odd mixture of the Tapatalk forum, Reddit, FB etc was a bit confusing and difficult to follow.

However, tucked away at the bottom of the TFF page - I'm not sure whether everyone has yet made it here. Difficult to tell, but we seemed to have fewer votes for the 'Docs' than for other elections.

The setting up of the committee was done well, and I think we have an excellent committee of 5 top chaps, with an broad and representative mix. In an ideal world, it would have been nice to have some regular updates of what was being discussed - maybe it would have helped grow the community spirit. But then, I didn't think of suggesting that at the time, and it is also important to remember than the committee are all generous volunteers of precious time.

The recent vote has shown us that the community overall is happy with the status quo. Following the failure of Doc B, there wasn't a loud public outcry of what should have been done better to make it pass, or a mass suggestion of a rehash and revote. So I think we learnt that we are happy with what we have. Is that useful?

Good to hear you would be happy with both of us! As I said, Dave was a super captain last year, and would be great again. It's also nice to have an election that isn't plagued by insults and lies!

[lunchmoney]

However, tucked away at the bottom of the TFF page - I'm not sure whether everyone has yet made it here.

It can be moved it up the ladder, if you think it would help.

[PeteW]

However, tucked away at the bottom of the TFF page - I'm not sure whether everyone has yet made it here.

It can be moved it up the ladder, if you think it would help.

Thanks Al, but might annoy the non-English! One for the committee...

[lunchmoney]

I think it could quite happily sit in the " community" part. Next to where tourneys are listed etc.

[Lycos]

Alright chaps.

One for both of you: What are your views on how 'all of this' (the move to TFF, the setting up of a committee, the recent votes, etc.) has gone? I'm not sure we've really learned or achieved anything of value yet. Am I wrong?

Good luck and thanks to the both of you. I've not made a decision yet, but I don't think I can make a bad one.

Thanks for the question Phil, and in my opinion this is generally a good move. That said, we probably need to do more banging of the drum as I suspect not everyone connected knows it’s here.

The committee idea has been widely received and I think lays down a good platform going forwards. I was very anti doc B as you know but in hindsight, options had to be explored and I don’t think we have finished yet.

You mentioned “have we learned anything of value yet” and I think we have. We now know that pretty much people are happy with how it was. Not everyone probably, but certainly most. That at least is useful....