FORUM CLOSING ON 14th JANUARY

MING wrote:

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Following the AGM, presentations of trophies for player of the year/national finals will take place.

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And small trophies for every member of the OCPF squads to finish the year.

john will all members get a trophires, i.e. womens and youth, also yes rick is right, y a saturday, y not sunday, if i do get one please can u keep it until i c u next, or give it to bally, jimmy, jamie or matty, if any of them are there so they can give it to me on monday please cheers mate

No the C team is not a place to give wildcards for those that fail at trials. Oxford has taken the opportunity to have a C team to enable more players to play at a higher level on a consistent basis. In previous years players have found that unless they keep on winning it takes time to get another chance because of the number of players in the squad. You have to have a squad to cover holidays, working commitments, sickness etc.
 
We have seen in the past good youth players fall just short of the mark when attending the mens trials following their final season in the youth Squad and there is a real danger that some up and coming talent is lost. Some might say they are not good enough then but equally one can argue give them a chance first to get experience before dissmissing them as the mens game if different to the youth game. There is already a policy in place to retian youth players into the mens team if they reach the rention criteria in their final youth season.

The C Team may give those people who have seen success in the youth team but fail when trying to make the step up into mens qualification. Do not read the last statement to mean it is a way of wildcarding Youth players into the mens squad and will be a team of ex youth players that is not the case at all.

As I understand it Players are free to play in both the C team and B Team with one exception
 
"IF THEY HAVE PLAYED AGAINST A PARTICULR TEAM EG WEST BERKSHIRE AT HOME IN THE B TEAM THEY CAN NOT PLAY AGAINST THEM IN THE C TEAM AT HOME. THIS ENSURES NO ONE CAN PLAY MORE GAMES THAN THE PERMITTED MAXIMUM"

You say players from the youth trials have been wildcarded into the C Team - I ask you WHO in that case as I was at the trials on Saturday and it was for YOUTH AND WOMEN the mens trials is this coming Sunday ?

Were you at the meeting on Saturday ? John and Marcus are the Mens team Managers and explained about the creation of the C team and the merits behind do so and I think it would be useful if they could clarify this issue on here.

Barney wrote:

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If you're not happy with what the people in charge of the squads are doing then I suggest you should have attended the AGM and raised questions, points, arguments whatever.  It's only a destructive thing to raise points like this on this forum.

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That is so correct. The point of an AGM is to air comments and issues both positive and negative. Several of the current committee had to be voted back in this year (2 years posts) so if there were any issues people had they should have turned up and put them on the table for discussion.

Like Barney says above slating decisions that have been made after the event is only being distructive and not warranted.

Muppet did you or did you not attend the AGM ?

-- Edited by Beefy at 14:17, 2007-03-19

muppet wrote:

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Whats happened to having to get through trials to get into the county squad.  People went to qualify on saturday for youths and ladies and did not get in, and were then handed a place on the new C team?????

Is the C team for people that fail in qualifiers????

There was one particular 17 year old female, that trialed for youths and failed and then trialed for ladies and failed.

She was later informed that she had made it into the C Team, and 'what name did she want to have on her county top' so if someone cannot get through qualifications for youths or ladies, should they really be given a wild card into the C Team. It is starting to look as though you get into the C team if your face fits, or on a who you know basis rather than your ability to play pool.

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And so it starts again!!

You really should write for the News of the World or something ... ability to make an innocent situation sound like the travesty of the 21st century.

The C Team - The formation of this side has many uses.  Last season saw numerous problems.

1. You require a large squad to last the season so early on many play only a few matches making retention and qualification for Nationals (ie be picked for a side)harder.
2. This rotation of players makes the team weaker and ensuring team qualification in an increasingly tough southern section even harder.
3. Our youth only got to play Berkshire last season - out of our hands (we can't make opposition!!)
4. We have a habit of losing young talent the second they finish youth just as they had one bad day at their first men's trials.
5. Oxfordshire has a whole host of good accomplished experienced players that rather than get involved, play and attempt to pass on their experience, would rather sit on the side lines and groan non stop and wait for situations to arise so they can jump on the bandwagon of moaning rather than fixing.

I for one believe the development of younger talent to be our best hope for the future ... better than constantly bending over for some of the current best only to get ******* over by oversized ego's.

Anyway, back to the C team.  This seasonwill  see 10 fixtures for the A team but a huge 16 fixtures for both the B and C team. It is going to be a long season. It will be used to

1. Act as an overflow to ensure members of the B squad aren't missing more than one match in a row. This should give players a good run and opportunity to improve. The C side plays identicle teams to the B. About 5/6 places of the nine needed for each match would be used for this.
2. Create competition for places in the B. Thus hopefully making the B's a better side over the entire season.
3. Provide an oulet for some current youth players to gain experience of the Men's level. Hopefully about 2/3 places will be occupied by the best performing youth players
4. Allow Oxfordshire room to make a SMALL development squad reserved for YOUNG and clearly TALENTED (but obviously not yet the finished article) players that don't make it through trials.  These individuals are NOT promised an automatic place at all but over the course of a long season can expect to play a few times.  This is primarily to gain experience and make them stronger.  Probably only 1 place per match.

Now clearly you have a problem with four - Just try looking at the alternative.  She waits till next year to try again and we just fill any spare spots when we are short with cabbages? Yes she failed the trials but with nearly an entire womens squad retained it came down to practically a toss of a coin. That's lost time and wasted resources. Just a few matches this year and continued work could make that player far better. 

In summary, if you are young (under 21ish), have raw talent, are enthusiastic and want to learn, then i suppose yes the face fits.  Old dogs unwilling to improve are not my priority nor OCPF's. We have a responsibility to provide something for development.  If giving occasional matches to people fitting this criteria is a problem for you ... there are plenty other counties trialing around now.

Oh and by the way, all this was explained at the AGM before trials started before you go down that route.  Were you there?

-- Edited by JFK at 16:03, 2007-03-19

-- Edited by JFK at 16:12, 2007-03-19

I agree with what JFK as put, As someone that was at the AGM all was explaned about the C team and the idea of how it was all going to work.

I think this can only benefit the team now and for the future

Well done to the comittee for puting it in place.

A win win for oxfordshire pool

As put in a previous thread that vanished

-- Edited by lakeattacks at 16:36, 2007-03-19

Milhouse wrote:

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Who is the player concerned ? As John has said, maybe this person has played well in their team this season and has just had a bad day at trials ?

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This person is one who has never played a single shot of league pool let let alone county, and needless to say suffered some what with nervousness, true that it remains to be seen if she can overcome this factor, but i believe an excellent decision has been made as this girl has the potential to be awesome,  i have seen her play 2/3 times only and the potting display we were treated to was enough to match a large percentage of the mens ability!!  she hardly ever misses one of her brothers matches, wherever he is playing, which shows she has a genuine interest in the game,  again,  i believe a brilliant decision has been made!,  people with such potential  deserve/ need to be given a helping hand in the right direction

GO LITTLE DISHWASHER GO!!!!


-- Edited by sir_ramrod at 19:24, 2007-03-19

sir_ramrod wrote:

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GO LITTLE DISHWASHER GO!!!!

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A-ha. I think I know who it is!

 

sir_ramrod wrote:

GO LITTLE DISHWASHER GO!!!!

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Well if Matty is the Hotpoint version what will the young apprentice be

cheers Em. if this 'muppet' knows it all then why is he hiding identity. its stupid, not as if i expected to play for 'c team'. I know what the 'c teams about and how often games are and stuff so i dont know where muppets gettin his rubbish from.

cheers. just thought all  this was goin on about me so thought i would have a say in it too as its startin to turn bad on me. I didnt expect the 'C team' to be mentioned on saturday just as much as everybody else though i cannot make any decisions all i did was went for trials and as for 'muppet' well what can i say......at trials??....at AGM??.......we dunno coz he wont show identity.

thanks.
'you are disgusting'

maximus wrote:

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I gotta agree with ramrod,i practise with her a bit and she can definately play.
U have to give people the chance otherwise how they gonna gain experience.

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        Thanks though everybody is entitled to their own opinion!

Beefy wrote:

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Yes and in the usual true manner of the forum harsh comments seem to come from anonymous users who hide behind new identities.

Ash if you have a way to disclose user names I think it might be worth while threatening to do so if people continue with comments that are aimed in a disrespectful and spiteful way so everyone knows who is behind it.

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All I have 1) The email address they registered with (which often is little help in finding out someone's identity), and 2) the IP address they post from (which with the help of JFK) can sometimes tell where a user is posting from.

Anything put in a post that is aimed at some other forum user that is deemed 'offensive' by myself or one of my moderators will be deleted. If it happens regularly then the user gets a warning and then are barred. To date three IP addresses and 6 users have been barred, so it does happen.

Any user that feels that a post has offended them, should bring it to my attention and I will deal with it appropriately. Unfortunately, sometimes, we are not aware of the relationship between two posters on here, and what might sound offensive is actually fully understood by those involved as tongue-in-cheek.

I will put a poll up on the welcome section to see whether users think there should be a 'introduction' thread, where new users must post to say hello and give a brief description of themselves in order to remain a member.

The other option, is that I have to approve every member before they are allowed to post. I could then check that they have entered certain details on their profile, so that their identity is known. This, however, is inconvienient if I am not around for a few days.