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Are UK teams good enough to compete at major tournaments?

Tony Harrison

What is your beef with the Mac?
Mar 13, 2007
6,518
1,874
238
I think part of the problem is that there isn't anywhere near enough supair fields in the UK so teams can't get form or get practice. The nearest supair field to me is an hour away and its a pain to get to. It also doesnt help that gear is cheaper in the US so they can practice more often.
That's one thing that hasn't changed about paintball over the years - you have to put some serious travel time in to get to practice & events. It's a given.

For me, CPPS is a 3 hour round trip on a good day - and that's one of the closer sites I've been to.

The US teams put some really serious air miles in as well - for example, take World Cup. It's in the backyard of TBD, but you have Impact flying in from Canada, Vicious from Omaha and a ton of Californian players from the other side of the country. as for Legion & Art Chaos - I don't want to think about the hours they spend travelling!

As for stuff being cheaper in the US - it's not, believe me! It's cheaper for us because of the exchange rate, but then we have import tax to contend with on top. And anyway, we should be supporting UK retailers.
 

Liam92

#16 Reading Entity
Nov 4, 2009
2,371
587
148
Glasgow, Scotland
That's one thing that hasn't changed about paintball over the years - you have to put some serious travel time in to get to practice & events. It's a given.

For me, CPPS is a 3 hour round trip on a good day - and that's one of the closer sites I've been to.

The US teams put some really serious air miles in as well - for example, take World Cup. It's in the backyard of TBD, but you have Impact flying in from Canada, Vicious from Omaha and a ton of Californian players from the other side of the country. as for Legion & Art Chaos - I don't want to think about the hours they spend travelling!

As for stuff being cheaper in the US - it's not, believe me! It's cheaper for us because of the exchange rate, but then we have import tax to contend with on top. And anyway, we should be supporting UK retailers.
I'm jealous. I'm an 8 hour (on a good day) round trip to CPPS and playing with Reading Entity, my teams home site is a 740 mile round trip, so its an easyjet flight for me to do that one!
 

Tony Harrison

What is your beef with the Mac?
Mar 13, 2007
6,518
1,874
238
@Liam92 exactly! Then you travel hundreds of miles to play CPS!

Paintball.....if you haven't got a car, you're ****ed.
 

Spikerz

Super Moderator
Mar 25, 2014
1,834
732
148
45
I'll step into the wayback machine as well.

In 2000/2001 when I was playing in an event every 3 weeks around the country in the US, it got silly expensive.

We had a sponsorship via a local store that covered most of our gear, it wasn't manufacturer specific though. In 2004 I had a full ride from Empire for clothing, paint, and NPPL entry fees.

I was never told who I could or couldn't practice against.

Or normal practice field was at the fairgrounds in Vallejo California, home to KAPP and the Ironkids (who then became Dynasty). Never had an issue practicing against any teams that showed up (other than egos and random jerks). That was a 30-45 minute drive for me, and about an hour to an hour and a half for the rest of my team.
There was no public transportation to the fields at all, so if you didn't have a car, you were totally boned.

Traveling to events, we'd go from the San Francisco area, to LA, Seattle, New Orleans, Las Vegas, San Diego. Other than LA each of those is a plane trip. LA was a 9 hour car ride each way.

Although now being based in Dublin, I have to fly to the UK if I want to play events, so cheaper to fly but I still have to get on a plane.

It was super expensive, if anything I think the gulf in team skill does have a foundation in the amount of disposable income that an area has. In the early days of the dot com explosion people got paid huge money so they had a lot to burn. There was a drop off, and now things are better.

I'm pretty sure guys/gals like the Tigers and Nexus will improve next year. They learned a lot being in the CPL at Mills and that's how you get better. You play and practice against better teams, and it raises your game. No one likes to lose, no one likes to come in at the bottom of the table, but they stayed up and are going to be better for it next year.
 
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hipjaw

pbplayr.blogspot.co.uk // Reading Entity // #22
Apr 8, 2011
185
91
38
Bristol
pbplayr.blogspot.co.uk
I think part of the problem is that there isn't anywhere near enough supair fields in the UK so teams can't get form or get practice. The nearest supair field to me is an hour away and its a pain to get to. It also doesnt help that gear is cheaper in the US so they can practice more often.
I agree with the gear being cheaper, but having a site an hour away is lucky. In the paintball world that's on your back doorstep! In the states I've heard of people doing 8+ hour drives to get to a tournament field, just for practice, or even catching flights even! When I got back into paintball before Cribbs opened up I had 3 options for training sites and all 3 of them were almost 2.5 hours away - I still did it every weekend.

EDIT: How the hell did I forget @Liam92 and your crazy travels to see us?!

Where I think the problem lies, as someone pointed out above, is there are only a few high calibre teams in the UK for our best to train against. Nexus, Tigers and Disruption have been competing against each other for years and you do get to learn how other players on your rival teams play - making scrimmage sessions less valuable as they will then go to a tournament and have to adjust to a completely different style of play. Whereas in the states there are a lot of 'hotspots' in Cali, Florida, Texas etc where a lot of strong teams can play each other and get better.

The other difference is money - a lot of strong US teams have great backing, allowing them to take advantage of training opportunities (such as flying out to scrim with some other top teams) whereas 99.9% of players are paying their own way.

I doubt we will come out on top over the Americans again unless for some reason we have a boom of new players and for some reason, somehow, the paintball scene dives in the states.
 

Ash - GI Sportz

GI Sportz
Jun 14, 2006
403
211
83
38
GI Towers
Potentially controversial post:...

First off, most teams dont REALLY want to be a top team - this is fine. Paintball is a hobby and is for fun, take from it exactly what you are looking for - days out with your mates, banter, a few games with teams of a similarly low commitment level and standard. Everyone is happy. This probably covers at least 60% of teams not just in the UK, but worldwide.

When it comes to teams and players who do aspire to be a top team, I feel there is a lack of direction in most cases. Add in a HUGE amount of pride / personal history and grudges, and top it off with a little fear or lack of courage to just straight up ask how to be better and you start to get close to the root cause.

Just this season alone we (Nexus) have actually had multiple other UK Elite teams refuse to train with us seemingly because they would rather train with another team that is more their own level in order to win more points. And lets be honest, we havent even been that good this season.

When I was playing amateur level with Campaign back in 04-06 we would often drive the 3hrs+ from London to Bristol or Nottingham or Leicester and spend two days banging heads with Shockwave or OG Nexus. We'd normally only win a handful of points but we took so much from every single point regardless of the result, and we were able to tap in to the minds of the top UK players of the time as well.

When we win matches at CPPS, hardly ever do the teams we beat actually come and ask us how we were able to shut down their attack, or how we were making spots they weren't. I have actually been and told teams how we go about shooting a certain spot off the break if I see they are struggling and they have completely ignored the advice and continued doing what they were before with no success.

A lot of the posts in this thread are referencing money and sponsor control. I've never once been told who I could and couldnt train with, and I've not heard of this among any of the other teams we train with (including the ones who decline the offer - its not down to sponsorship) so I would be interested to know who this has affected and who made that call.

As for money, this is an all too easy excuse. Yes paintball is expensive and you have to be able to afford it BUT this is where a lack of direction comes in to play. A lot of teams feel that to improve you have to play a whole lot more, while this is true to an extent, with a little application and dedication/will power you can actually improve quite quickly at little EXTRA cost (time & money). Teams need to set goals - season goals and short term goals and goals for individuals. Then work back from there - if your back guy needs to shoot a higher percentage OTB then you set up a drill to work on it - start of with static targets and then build up to a runner, then add in a shooter back at him too for real-game simulation - he doesnt need to hose a loader on every spin. The same can be said for running and shooting, snap shooting, working in pairs etc. Yes, ultimately you need to build up to full points to put it all in to practise and this can be paint heavy, but with how much paint you would have saved up to this point you still should not be shooting much if any over your normal daily amount. Its not hard to sit down at the start of the season and make a realistic budget and a plan, then actually stick to it. It might mean having 1 or 2 less weekends playing over the season in favour making the weekends you do have more productive, but believe me its worth it when it pays off.

I could also go on about how pro schools are notoriously under-attended (mainly by those on these aspiring mid-level teams) compared to how many people sign up for pro tryouts, and many other elements too but i think I've ranted enough for now.
 

Liam92

#16 Reading Entity
Nov 4, 2009
2,371
587
148
Glasgow, Scotland
When we win matches at CPPS, hardly ever do the teams we beat actually come and ask us how we were able to shut down their attack, or how we were making spots they weren't. I have actually been and told teams how we go about shooting a certain spot off the break if I see they are struggling and they have completely ignored the advice and continued doing what they were before with no success.
I hope you realise i'm going to come pester you every time we play you now ;)
 

Twizz ECI

London Tigers 2
Jan 8, 2003
1,354
186
98
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Crawley
Simple answer.........No

we have good players in different teams, but not one real outstanding team, just look at the GB Team, has done really well in the nations cup. I have tried getting these players together but no luck.

It has been said on here before, players don't want to travel to train, until that is sorted we will stay where we are