Which Regional Team Can I Play For?

[Jon MW]

Play for where u live,,the only rule,,simples,,,a..

This.

It"s astounding that this is an issue

[Fatcatstu]

...............but alas several people pulled us up on the approach, probably correctly in my opinion. 

Can these people explain why they want the rules applied so rigidly?

i wasnt one of "these people" as this is the first of any of this i have seen!!

But

I still say that the rules have been put into place to combat the lack of fairness in team sizes last season, This was the point that i saw raised more than any other in regards the online league.

If you start relaxing the rule for people now, its going to end up back exactly where it started. Des and Rich have a duty to uphold the integrity of their tournaments for the majority of people.  This is why, whilst going to really annoy and disappoint some people, the rule should stay in my opinion.

is what i would have to say in answer to you really.

[josharp01]

At the risk of becoming boring, I"d just like to make this point.

The original comments about ex Luton players all playing for London & HC were bourn out of trying to keep the team spirit alive, that Waz has spent 3 years cultivating. Waz (and he won"t thank me for this) is absolutley gutted that we will be playing for different teams this season, but in the truest of APAT spirits has accepted the fact that he must now play for East England. The insensitive comments by the ex Solent captain, given that they were made within a few hours of the announcment, simply fuelled the fire and got the response they were no doubt designed to get.

The vast majority of ex Luton players are very disappointed about the decision but we all have accepted it. It should also be pointed out here, that most other "ex teams", Liverpool, WM, Solent etc... will still be playing with the same teammates in the new teams, but we will not, and thats where the dissappointment

^^^^this. My initial interest in the newly named "East of England" team did somewhat tail off when I realised that it would mean splitting up the infamous Luton team. Whilst I appreciate that the rules should not be softened for the Luton team, te perception is that yesterday it was said that people could
Choose a team that they had an affiliation to and today that decision has been changed due to someone who is notoriously not a Luton team fan  throwing their toys out of the pram an making some pretty harsh and out of line comments.

At the end of the day, for me personally, I will still play for, and promote, whichever team I fall into. However, I really feel that a decision being changed because of a tiny minority  (one of whom was well out o line with their comments) without any opinion polls or consultation with the wider APAT community cannot be a positive thing.

[TightEnd]

Personally i don"t want anyone playing under the banner of Scotland who is English or Scottish with an English accent.

Rules out Mickey P from the Borders then.

[GiMac]

regardless of calling it a region or a country it"s still scotland..... for instance i"m pretty sure scouse wouldn"t want to play for manchester if it was that way round. (just as an example)

And lets  not forget, it aint just Scotland, it"s Wales and Ireland players also.

thats making the assumption they are ALL bothered to the same extent as the few people on here.

I really do think that most of the APAT members, if you did a poll, would click the "couldnt give a sh!t" button tbh.

They probably would, because it doesn"t effect many players. Which is also why the "soft" rule wasn"t doing any harm IMO.

Sorry, that came across as very short and slightly dismissive now i re read it.

I still say that the rules have been put into place to combat the lack of fairness in team sizes last season, This was the point that i saw raised more than any other in regards the online league.

If you start relaxing the rule for people now, its going to end up back exactly where it started. Des and Rich have a duty to uphold the integrity of their tournaments for the majority of people.  This is why, whilst going to really annoy and disappoint some people, the rule should stay in my opinion.

Sorry, this is a red herring & you are wrong, that is not why the rule is now being applied so rigidly it is being applied rigidly because some people complained before even knowing what size their team would be!!!

The larger regions introduced this season  should have easily solved the team size differential problems of last season, i.e. Newcastle, Sunderland & Stockton now all one North East Team etc etc, without the need for this rule to be applied so harshly.

[Sef]

regardless of calling it a region or a country it"s still scotland..... for instance i"m pretty sure scouse wouldn"t want to play for manchester if it was that way round. (just as an example)

And lets  not forget, it aint just Scotland, it"s Wales and Ireland players also.

thats making the assumption they are ALL bothered to the same extent as the few people on here.

I really do think that most of the APAT members, if you did a poll, would click the "couldnt give a sh!t" button tbh.

One non-scottish very well respected member of APAT has already expressed his desire not to play if he can"t play for his chosen team so yes they are bothered to the same extent.

[Waz1892]

Removed HLC name and regged for East England.

APAT rules. I"m a member of APAT. I abide by them. Simples.

Do I agree with them, not entirely, healthy debate on it should always be encouraged but rules are rules.

[BOINGBLITZ]

Well I wanna know why England aint got a team?......this is blatantly unfair and I think if you are gonna have Scotland, Ireland and Wales as regions, then England should be one as well. That should even things up.

[josharp01]

Removed HLC name and regged for East England.

APAT rules. I"m a member of APAT. I abide by them. Simples.

Do I agree with them, not entirely, healthy debate on it should always be encouraged but rules are rules.

+1
A decision had to be made....it"s been made....and you can"t please all of the people all of the time!

[scouse3465]

regardless of calling it a region or a country it"s still scotland..... for instance i"m pretty sure scouse wouldn"t want to play for manchester if it was that way round. (just as an example)

I technically will be playing for manchester as they part of the north west lol .

But if was manchester liverpool team obv want to play for liverpool .

BUT I WOULD NEVER EVER LIVE IN MANCHESTER !!!!!

To be honest why is this a discussion , where ever you live thats who you play for surely you like the place you live there !!

Also what i think is the most important thing it is the fairest and the easiest way to police it . Where ever your stars account is thats where you play for , seriously why argue , if you really feel that strongly about it re locate

[Fatcatstu]

Ok, so that might be why it ws reviewed, but IMO this is the reason it should be reviewed. If people get to pick, and the Luton team all lump into one team, then the whole thing is no further along than it was last season.

At the end of the day, this was brought in (i think, i am sure Rich or des will correct me otherwise) to ensure that the teams were fair, and that all the input into season 6 discussion thread was not for nothing. They have, infact, listened to the majority of people who posted, and acted on that.

There is always going to be people upset, thats unfortunate.

[GiMac]

Also what i think is the most important thing it is the fairest and the easiest way to police it . Where ever your stars account is thats where you play for , seriously why argue , if you really feel that strongly about it re locate

which account?

Stars.com
Stars.fr
Stars.ee
Stars.dk
Stars.be
or
Stars.eu?  

[AJDUK]

I don"t actually think it was badly explained as it was clearly stated they were regional teams.  And we should be keen to retain those identities, as it would have been as easy to call Scotland "Region D" and Yorkshire "Region E", etc while retaining the geographical split.  I"m sure there wouldn"t have been any issues had we named in that way.

Trouble is Des, pretty early on in the original thread you said this:

ok gotcha........can u choose which team u are in??.....Im from Brighton but live in Slough so how does that work?

Choose one, once you"ve committed you are then tied to that Region for the season.

I didn"t see any great depth of feeling against this view, and people were already thinking about which region they might choose. Then it changed. Why? Where did the avalanche of feeling come from to make you change it?

A wee search of MintTrav"s latest posts might help you out, since he seems to be the main complainer.  

Az it happens I (on balance) agree with the "tie it to where you live" stance. But then I"m not being forced to change my allegiancies or to go against my nationality. I was very surprised when the original "pick your team" changed. If it"s all down to one person"s view I"d also be very surprised; Des doesn"t usually work like that. Regardless please don"t pick on John for having a strong opinion.

I wasn"t asking Des to name names, just explain why. The OP says:

...
some questions have been raised about this policy and for that reason we are now stating the following.

Players can only register for the Region within which they currently live.
...

So that suggests questions strong enough to change it. What are/were the defining factors?

[AMRN]

Well I wanna know why England aint got a team?......this is blatantly unfair and I think if you are gonna have Scotland, Ireland and Wales as regions, then England should be one as well. That should even things up.

lol


light fuse and retreat 25 metres..

[nosey-p]

If you can call them by another name instead of Scotland, Ireland and Wales as to try to take away the National pride bit, then would that solve the problem? I.e. could Ireland be classed as "overseas" which would include Europe  

North of Hadrian"s Wall

West of Offa"s Dyke

Other side of the Isle of Man


That help?

Scotland in this instance is a REGION in a REGIONAL league. It"s possibly badly expalined at outset, but people need to think that way

Just trying to help, I know not to bother in future

Reminder to self, must add smilies in future

Looking forward to next week an awful lot, I must say. (In brackets for the hard of comprehension: Not)

You have never forgiven me for Shrek  

!

see first page of my blog