Thank you for your patience.

We have now finalised the team list and waiting list for London Calling. As explained previously, this has been a partly subjective process on this occasion, and at the margin it has been very difficult to separate the last few teams. All have a very good case for inclusion - some played last year and are thus favoured by our previous rules; some are from geographic areas without much Ultimate going on; some are part of established, well-run clubs that we in general wish to support; and so on. It's almost impossible for the committee to reach agreement.

Therefore, we have narrowed it down to only those teams that we could find no compelling reason to include or exclude, based on the following criteria - in addition to the criteria listed in the previously used rules:

Is the club affiliated to UKU?

To what extent is this club likely to grow the UK community in the future?

How many Tour events did they enter last year?

Is this their most local tournament?

Do the club have persistent spirit issues such that they are being monitored by the SotG committee?

Does the club offer the only option in their geographic region, and do they encourage beginners to join and hence facilitate the growth of Ultimate?



It is unarguable that there is no truly objective way to weight these criteria right now, either against each other or against the criteria in the existing rules (which for example strongly prioritise teams who played even 1 event last year over any new entrants). In the Open division, some of these criteria were sufficiently clear as to exclude two more of the 9 teams that we announced yesterday as still under discussion, leaving us with 7 we could not separate. We ran a lottery for these 7 teams, over Skype this morning. Similarly, in the women's division, we could not separate the last 3 teams, all of whom had good arguments versus the other two, and so a 3 team lottery was run.

We do understand that those teams who miss out will have ample grounds to consider themselves hard done by - every team really does have a good case, and can point to a team that does have a spot and suggest reasons why they should be ahead of that team. But for those teams at the margin, it really does feel as though Team A beats Team B who beats Team C who beats Team A - every team deserves a spot over some but not all of the others, and no clear decision was possible.

The Competitions Committee will now attempt to use the knowledge gained from this process to codify new entry procedures for future tournaments.

Apologies once again for the lateness of all this, caused by uncertainty over accessing the venue on these dates. We do understand that 2 weeks in advance is very late to be closing entries to an event like this and we do intend to do much better for Tour events in general.

The Competitions Committee realises that the growth in the number of teams year on year has meant that the number of spots available will soon be consistently exceeded by the number of entrants. A new competition structure allowing for further growth in Tour attendance is being set out. Growth in the number of teams was predicted to significantly exceed supply of spots next year but the changes at the venue have reduced the available spaces. The new structure is intended to be in place next year and it should prevent teams being turned away in these numbers.

In Open, Fluid and Bournemouth were awarded a spot after the draw, and in Women's Swift 2 were the lucky team.

Following the draw, the following teams did NOT get a spot. The waiting lists now look like this, in order:

Women's:

Enigma

Manchester 2

Open

Friends of Magdalen Green

Leeds 2

Archbishops of Banterbury

Birmingham FC

Flyght Club 2

Manchester 2

Ballincollig

The full teams lists are below:

Open (56 teams):

ABH A BAF Birmingham Black Sheep 1 Black Sheep 2 Bournemouth Heat Brighton City Brighton Legends Brighton Shiny Bristol 1 Bristol 2 Brixton Cambridge Camden 1 Camden 2 Chevron Action Flash Cloud City Curve 1 Devon 1 Devon 2 Devon 3 EMO 1 EMO 2 Fire of London 1 Fire of London 2 Fluid Flump Flyght Club 1 GB Masters GB Open D GB Open O GB U20 Glasgow 1 Glasgow 2 Gravity Guildford Hampshire 1 Hampshire 2 JR 1 Ka-Pow! Leamington Lemmings LLLeeds 1 Manchester 1 NEO Pelt Pier Pressure Reading 1 Reading 2 Red Leicester Rhubarb SMOG Sneeekys 1 Sneeekys 2 St Albans Vision Yopen

Women (26 teams):