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Post by slickdaddy96 on May 30, 2017 9:02:50 GMT -5
So our academy team was in the Dacula Revolution Cup Tournament this weekend. I understand the small passing storm Sunday morning wet the fields, but they canceled the rest of the tournament which was the best possible outcome for them monetary wise. They didn't have to pay referees for Sunday games, and they didn't have to give out any awards, and I doubt very seriously they will offer even a 1/3 refund of the fees. I know this is common practice with most tournaments, but here is why I'm even more disappointed.
1) The fields at Rabbit Hill (and I was told in Lilburn at GSA as well) were mostly dirt with no grass. The fields I personally saw at Rabbit Hill looked worse than the Polo fields after rain when we played on them Saturday. It seems to me that DSC and most likely GSA probably went ahead with their May Developmental camps on their fields despite the rain last week and tore the fields up worse than they had to be right before they utilized them for a tournament. Had this not happened the fields might have been playable Sunday.
2) The storm lasted an hour max and dropped less than 0.50" of rain as per the National Weather Service. If less than 0.50" of rain causes you to rain out your fields then you got issues to begin with. Never been to a tournament where 0.50" of rain or less rains out the rest of a tournament. I went back by Rabbit Hill before leaving the area since I had stayed in a hotel the night before. The fields were not all that bad and our boys have played on fields in worse condition before.
3) The sun came out the rest of the day with no rain at all. Instead of delaying the start times a few hours to see if the field conditions improved (absorption/evaporation of standing water) they just canceled it.
4) While this would have been unlikely, they could have also extended the tournament into Monday on the holiday if need be. I realize that was a long shot but was a possibility.
I know it was just a horrible ending to a season, and our boys are disappointed as they went 2-0 Saturday, and likely would have been in the championship game on Sunday. Gonna recommend to our Academy Director not to send any of our teams to DSC or I guess now GSA's tournaments in the future if they cancel tourneys that quickly. It is a waste of the parent's money,
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Post by Keeper on May 30, 2017 10:47:40 GMT -5
Yeah kind of odd that Rabbit Hill and Gsa's complex are nothing but dirt and sand but they have three employees making well over $125K a year. It would be great to see Gwinnett County require all clubs that have exclusive rights to a county park have to put at least 20% of its profits/fee take home into the complex every year. I mean look at clubs like Inter Atlanta, All In FC, Chiefs, TYSA and the other small clubs that don't get a dime from their County's but actually have grass still on their fields because they spend money on their fields instead of overpaid coaches. Heck I bet UFA Norcross and AFU didn't destroy their fields as bad as DSC and GSA always seem to always do.
But yeah GSA has had issues with lower and mid level teams and players so it's kinda funny seeing all the tryout sign ups at my little club from players leaving GSA & DSC.
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Post by Soccerhouse on May 30, 2017 12:50:09 GMT -5
Odd timing for a tourney in my opinion -- memorial day weekend?
Learn from it and don't go back. No club can force teams to play in a tourney, unless they are footing the bill.
Not sure if its Dracula's fault though, Gwinnett really doesn't seem to care alot about the quality of its soccer fields compared to the football fields and baseball complexes. They prefer to build a new park vs invest in an old one.
Those fields usually do end up looking like that towards the end of the spring though, as they take a beating throughout the year. Could be viewed either way, they are played on which is a positive thing or they never were even in good shape from the start. Not familiar enough with the situation.
But one thing I've noticed is these local tourneys over the years are getting worse and worse. Very few of the local club tourneys are attracting out of town teams anymore and most are just you come to my tourney and we will come to yours etc. The NASA/SSA/UFA/Lanier/AFC tradeoffs. Even concorde is in that group now. We send you 10-20 teams, you send us 15 etc...
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Post by TheMadOx on May 30, 2017 13:13:18 GMT -5
And let the club bashing begin....ugh
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Post by slickdaddy96 on May 30, 2017 13:45:09 GMT -5
This wasn't bashing the particular club or any club for that matter. DSC and GSA may be great for soccer development. I don't have first hand knowledge about either club in that respect, so I won't comment on that. My point was toward the administration of DSC/GSA and their tournament. It could have been handled better than they handled it to get more games in or at least refund a portion of fees to appease the teams that came to it.
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Post by mightydawg on May 30, 2017 14:53:27 GMT -5
One thing that I have learned in my time in club soccer is that most tournaments and May development camps are a money grab. The clubs will do whatever they can to make sure that those events happen so they can get their money. Practice would be canceled without a doubt with the amount of rain that we have had lately but the tournaments and the development camps go on. Hmmm, I wonder what the difference is?
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Post by jash on May 30, 2017 15:53:42 GMT -5
It would be excellent also if the directors of this tournament would engage their customers here. This is, after all, the only actual useful soccer forum for Georgia. I bet Soccerhouse could even find a way to validate accounts as belonging to certain people so that we would know it is legitimately someone authorized to speak for the club(s). All it would really take is that person registering, then emailing Soccerhouse from their official club email address giving the username. Then Soccerhouse could add a custom title or something... you know, work some magic :-)
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Post by soccerfutbolfam on May 30, 2017 17:35:20 GMT -5
Based on my understanding - about the fields. (I don't know about the 'why' regarding the tournament.)
The fields at Rabbit Hill received new sod this year. Gwin. County apparently won't give anyone access to the 'watering' and it has to be turned off at times to ensure it isn't flooded. (this is second-hand information, but anyone should be able to call and verify that info)
Add to that - the tournament in the Fall that was held throughout the rain storms that hit and tore up the fields. (It is my understanding the DOC attempted to contact someone and no one would cancel that non-DSC-tournament.) However, the GSA tournament hosted that same weekend (at different fields) did cancel their games to help save the fields that they were playing at.
Practices were canceled at Rabbit Hill the Monday and Wednesday night (I believe) before the tournament because my friend's kid didn't practice that Monday (because it was canceled) and they did train at GCC that Wednesday.
For the kids at Rabbit Hill and the parents - yes, they have been frustrated. It's hard knowing your club has done what it can to help the kids have a good environment for playing soccer, while there are things completely out of their control.
Again - I don't know about the decision made.
Before you make assumptions about what clubs do, you should check your facts. It's pretty sad that you made assumption #1 - that they went ahead with camps the week before...
The fields have been trashed most of the year because of 1) lack of water and 2) the tournament that did not cancel. (again, based on info from friend who does have a kid there)
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Post by slickdaddy96 on May 31, 2017 8:58:08 GMT -5
Before you make assumptions about what clubs do, you should check your facts. It's pretty sad that you made assumption #1 - that they went ahead with camps the week before... The fields have been trashed most of the year because of 1) lack of water and 2) the tournament that did not cancel. (again, based on info from friend who does have a kid there) Regardless of all of what you said my first assumption was based on the most likely scenario, and even if that assumption was off base (although you say they did have 1-2 days of the camp last week and only canceled 2 days, and it never really dried out throughout last week at all), that still doesn't change the fact that someone had to have played on those fields when they shouldn't have at some point during this season. My other points are all valid. It rained 0.43" in that storm. No way 0.43" should rainout a tournament. They canceled in the middle of the storm. Again I went out to Rabbit Hill afterwards to see for myself. The fields were not even as bad as some of the fields our boys have played on before, namely the Polo fields after rain, Columbus when they forgot to turn off the sprinklers once, etc.... It would have been safe to play the games even if delayed a few hours to get as much evaporation and ground absorption as possible. Your other point was they were already in bad shape and trashed to begin with. So it seems there is going to have to be a lot of work done in the off-season to fix them, so what harm would a handful of more games being played on it before the off-season? They really couldn't have been torn up much more than they were already anyway. I mean you can't tear up dirt with no grass growing on it. The fact is they canceled the rest of the tournament too hastily, and the optics of it makes the organization look bad and just a club that cares about the bottom line only which is unfortunately what a lot of these local tournaments are turning into these days. This will end up hurting them next year if they continue having this tournament after merging with GSA.
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