Organisation

Whilst most lads are aware of the organisation that goes into tournaments, unless they've done it themselves they can't really understand.

The preparation started weeks ago with hotel bookings and flight arrangements. The Budapest club organised a group rate in a hotel in the city. In the past, everyone used to stay in the same place and that made things a lot easier to coordinate i.e. everyone leave for the pitch at the same time and get there at same time! Also there is money to be collected for registration/lunch/dinner, team sheets to fill and disclaimers to sign. Having fellas in the same place makes this a lot easier. Now though, some guys prefer hostels and others bring their girlfriends and check in elsewhere. There’s very little price difference between many hostels and the hotels we stay in now so I don't really get why guys don't just take the offers. It's not something i try to enforce though.

Then you have lads who put their name down for the hotel, knowing that the club has to pay a deposit and then either pull out or change their arrangements. Everyone is always apologetic and they probably don't think it's a big deal because it's only them but in reality, there are a load of lads trying to tinker with arrangements and it creates us, mainly Colin, a big headache.

The information pack takes a lot of putting together also. You need to consider transport from airport to hotel, hotel to pitch and back, hotel to restaurant etc. All that takes a lot of time to gather. The simple stuff like gear required, weather, fixtures, panels etc also need to be gathered and collated.

We go into a fair amount of detail to ensure there are as few loopholes for questions as possible. Still though, it seems unavoidable. Today, Hough emailed to say he thought we should emphasise more that its on astro and only mouldies are allowed. Now, in my world, you receive a pack of information and you read it because all the information in it is important. Otherwise we wouldn't have taken the time to put it in.

Also, some lads are just too smart for their own good and like to highlight things like Hungary not being in the eurozone. The reg/lunch/dinner costs €35 and thats what we put in the mail. If we wanted it in funny money, we would have asked for it in funny money!

And the jerseys. There’s always a scramble to collect the jerseys the week of the tournament. I washed the 'Championship' teams jerseys last night but the 'Shield' ones are still sitting in a spare room in our apartment building waiting to be washed.

Finalising the panels is no straightforward issue either. Paul Hagan pulled out a week or so ago, Paul Quinn pulled out yesterday and Kevin Keary today. This can't be helped as situations change etc so you just have to adapt quickly to it. Some guys are carrying injuries and were asked for an update on their situation on Monday but still have not informed me. Again, this complicates the selection process.

That's just a taste of it. There are a million other little things to be done also. You need lads to behave like an army of little ants to make things go smoothly. We've improved our information supply a lot in the last two years to try and reduce any possible mess being down to human error rather than us not providing the required details. I think we have pretty much achieved that. Next thing to tackle is reducing the human error factor.