Social or serious or can/should there be both?

[roo]

Those who frequent Clyde's ever useful and entertaining website will have seen this paragraph explaining the situation of Dragon. Hope you don't mind me pasting it here Clyde, but it intrigued me.......

"Strangely enough the teams' results have been gaining greater consistancy and we now tend to only play in 1st class of any event we enter. This year we have found ourselves taking 4th place at the British Champs and had a couple of second places at good comps too. This is where the problem lies. Being a social team who like to perhaps continue to party well into the small hours of the night (morning) the first game on the second day tends to be a little rough (it's a good time to play us). So the point of this is that there comes a point when a team are able to play well and even gain good results. This team also want to maintain the social side of things. Something has to give ! Our expectations were probably getting beyond our own phylosophy of why we were playing and so now, we are re-addressing this from both sides."

So in the interest of club development, I'm wondering how exactly your team/club are readdressing the situation?

What is going to give?

Will you be serious or social in division 2 this coming season and is that the current Dragon team or will some players refuse to play?

To others reading this forum these questions may seem too personal, but I'm potentially in a similar situation with less option. The social team I play for are not a regular feature in the UK and so our only option is to really train and improve the social side (dancing and drinking are great for your boat control)!!

However I'm keen to hear some views for when I have to deal with our team gaining the potential to become serious....!

have fun
roo

[michielv]

I guess it all depends on what one considers social (anymore ;-)

I found that playing on a higher level means for me quite a lot of work. It's fun but in order to be a useful part of the team I need to work hard. As a result I cut down on the amount of beer & staying up late. Not that I actually consciously decided that, I simply fell asleep early at tournaments ;-)

Anyway, I noticed with some teams that I knew on a more
personal level that the better they got, the more fun it was
to actually go for it. This happened to a lot of Dutch teams lately and triggered other teams to become more serious as well.

As a result of that, teams like Rijnland and DKV have more challenging games to play in the Dutch competition, which is good as well.

However, this way it is harder for new teams (i.e people who are new to polo, not a bunch of veterans who know lots of people) to get to know other players as most teams now
go home for the night during nationals weekends instead of
hang around and drink.

It is a pity but the logical result of a sport becoming more serious instead of a bunch of idiots who play a ridiculous sport ;)

To answer Roo's question though: I wouldn't know when to decide such a thing. It also depends on wether you have a coach/team captain who notices a slight change in attitude with some players. This is usually a sign to get together and decide what the teams future should be. There's no fixed date/time to decide that. It also depends on alternatives for players. If a club has more than one team people more inclined towards social polo might simply join a lower grade team (or vice versa). If players have no alternative they must find a solution satisfying all.

Anyway, problem with most social teams is that as soon as they get coached (or hints and tips on a regular basis)that these soon get a lot better and the whole discussion starts all over again.

[clyde]

There's been a lot of talk about this subject since I put it up on my page, some of which from my own team.

This year we have had 3 bad comps including last weekend at the London International.

We had another chat !

I figured we kind of lost a "spark" where we could fire off each other in light hearted banter. The situation at that stage was that if someone called someone else a lard ass, then they would likely cause enough offence to wish they haddn't one way or another. This was a little new to see, but I think we nipped it in the bud. We got on for our last game and the poor South Coast Coolers suffered as a result - bless their little cotton socks, they got a taste of what they gave us the day before plus some !

We don't have a coach or trainer, though Chris Arrowsmith and myself are effectively more vocal when it comes to our teams errors. Try to read that the way it was intended please !

Having a coach does remove an enormouse amount of pressure on that "senior" coaching player. That player will find it difficult to act as a true peer amongst their own team mates since there is already set in place a hiarachy or them and us.
In Dragon, not being much of a drinker or clubber I guess that sets me aside of the rest anyway, but I don't coach them.

Having fun is the key. Clearly if the results go your way that will help a lot, but then there comes a time when you actually look at a game before you play it and already expect the result to go a certain way. When this doesn't go as expected, that's when an atmosphere builds that needs to be dispelled as soon as possible. It's possibly up to the wiser amongst you to see this coming and deal with it before anything comes of it.

Yes we are looking forward to Britains National Division 2. However, myself and Chris have already mentioned that IF we get promoted to Div 1 then 1 of 2 things will happen.
The team have to either get better (we both don't like the thought of getting our backsides wooped 18 times a season) or we will simply do what it takes to avoid the promotion. None of us are getting younger and while our younger members can learn new tricks, it's unlikely two old farts like us are going to start jumping through hoops. Then instead we would be more likely to step asside to allow others to take our place.

It's progress !

Clyde