I've known terrible players in excellent bands, and excellent players in terrible bands..... Paul Richards example above being a very good case in point.
Obviously, Alex you are not saying that Brunel Brass are a terrible band....
I've known terrible players in excellent bands, and excellent players in terrible bands..... Paul Richards example above being a very good case in point.
Good to see a post swimming against the tide of opinion! Thanks Phil.
...but lets say I was doing a piece which has a huge solo for Cornet,Sop,Euph and I then borrowed, Roger Webster,Kevin Crockford and David Thornton...<snip>... I would guess that I would have gained a huge advantage in the contest...
This particular example illustrates very neatly one other problem with the system, mentioned above - Paul Richards plays with Brunel Brass (a hardworking band rapidly rising), but he is ex-Sun Life and properly good... Any 1st section band could have also potentially borrowed him - and 4 years ago, he could have been borrowed for 4th section contests (I think he's been with Brunel since then?). Lower section player doesn't necessarily equal weaker player, as we all well know.
The issue with the Championship section at Butlins was that the printed rules stated that you could not borrow a player for a principle seat, this was to stop bands getting a ringer in from a band like Corys or Dyke for example, because the Sop part or Cornet part for example may be incredibly hard (which happened about 4 years ago when we saw a couple of top sop players borrowed in), however Butlins dropped themselves in it this year by adding that a band could borrow a principle player if sanctioned by the contest officials, the officials then sanctioned the use of a number of borrowed principle players which completely went against the reasons of the original rule. The issue may seem insignificant to many but lets also remember that in the Championship Section the top 2 bands actually drew on 5 points each (Flowers 1 and 4) GUS ( 2 and 3) They were only separated into 1st (£7000) and 2nd (£3000) place by the fact that Flowers came above GUS on the set test piece. Whereas GUS did not have any borrowed players, Flowers used borrowed players on principle positions. Its easy to see why a number of people have an issue with the way officials dealt with the borrowed player rule this year, it quite probably did make a real difference to the result in the Championship section.
I understand the frustration with bands putting quality borrowed players on principal seats, but how can you legislate for that without disadvantaging the bands who have genuine vacancies in principal seats?
I honestly don't think you can!Herein lies the problem - its all very well saying bands shouldn't borrow above their standard, but how do you legislate for that in a clear and easy to interpret way? Or even what the band's 'standard' is in the first place?
Just picking up on this point for a moment, can anyone think of an instance where a (say) mid-ranking championship section band borrowed three or four players of the above sort of standard, sat them on the corner chairs in order for them to gain a significant advantage, with the express aim of winning a contest?
Isn't the whole thing just a moot point?