Team England Captain 2025: Community Q&A

[Purplegoo]

Hi both,

Interesting comment above on one of the roles of the captain being to prepare the team. After a rough 2024, how do you intend to work with the team to prepare them and engage the community with that process for more success in 2025, both on and off the board?

[yud]

Hi both,

Interesting comment above on one of the roles of the captain being to prepare the team. After a rough 2024, how do you intend to work with the team to prepare them and engage the community with that process for more success in 2025, both on and off the board?

Perhaps a little blunt, but I would view success on the board as the aim. To some extent the 'off the board' measures may help with that of course.

I think if I am voted as captain some of the initial work will involve engaging with both captains and players from previous years to get an understanding of what has worked and what hasn't in the past to inform this preparation a little. Generally speaking I would be looking to spend the time leading up to the tournament in both playing the ruleset myself and with the rest of the team to work on the selection of the bowl and open teams - to engage the 12 person team in that process. Engagement with the community would primarily be done through twitch and discord.

I come from the online scene, and given distance issues that may well be best suited for some of these activities. Though I would not see an online presence as a pre-requisite to selection.

[Wulfyn]

Hi, my name is Dan, or Wulfyn, and I think that being a great captain for Team England is about understanding and implementing 3 key aspects of team tournament play.

Skill and Experience
I have tried to focus on going to the toughest tournaments and facing the best opponents, and as a result a third of my tournaments have been outside the UK. I currently am the English player who has attended the most Tilean Team Cups (4), with other notable tournaments like Lutece (3), Rugbowl, and Bilbao also completed. I have been to 2 world cups and to 2 Eurobowls, one of which was with England when we won in 2016.

Playing against such tough opponents has taught me a lot about how to be a better player, with 1 in 8 games being against 200+ ELO rated coaches. It has also allowed me to understand the European playstyles – for example knowing that Italian Lizardmen players would be less affected by the maximum 4 skill ruleset proposed because they almost always play 5 block 1 tackle rather than the more typical 6 block roster you see in the UK.

Many of our likely Eurobowl opponents are not just people that I have played before, but also friends. This level of competition is something that I am very familiar with.


Running a Team
It’s not just the level of opposition that is important but also the ability and experience with running a team. I am a team tournament specialist, with half of my tabletop tournaments being either team or pairs events. Many of these I have also led, such as taking the Tacklezone team to victory in the Kent Open at the start of the year.

Organising and running a team is about more than just selecting players and booking flights. Ensuring cohesion, enabling top players to score the most points that they can, and supporting new players are all things that is now second nature to me. This includes during the game, and on more than one occasion I’ve had to give a morale booster to someone on my team that is having bad dice, and that there is still a second half to play.

The mentality of team tournaments is different as well. It’s not about the glory of that last gasp play or getting as high a win rate as you can. Being able to lock down a gritty draw to get the team through a difficult round is essential.


Community Building
I was the person who first suggested and pushed for Team England to have an official Europen team, as a way of increasing the inclusion of players into a very competitive and successful team. The explosion of the game since GW re-released it, and again since Covid, means that we have an incredible number of fantastically strong players pushing for the top events. It has never been more competitive to get into the England team, something recognised by the committee’s proposal to officially increase the initial selection from 8 to 12.

I feel that the time is right to expand again. As such, as part of my candidacy, I am announcing Squad England. In addition to the 12 official selections I will be unofficially selecting another 12 players to form a wider and more inclusive squad. We will practice together, ensuring that everyone is on top form and prepared.

It also gives us more opportunities to get that all important elite European experience, as knowing each other better allows for more opportunities to travel as a group to these big events. It is my hope that the wider Squad England would also try and form Europen teams together, but this will not be forced. Rather I would be providing a platform to assist them to do it themselves, as well as rewarding people who are working hard to break into the team but didn’t quite make it this time.

Building a competitive English community is essential for creating a strong foundation for the team to succeed, both this year and in the future.


Lots of great questions already, but please keep them coming!

[Wulfyn]

I'm going to try and group questions together in themes for easier reading and replying, but let me know if you don't think I have addressed your questions specifically or fully enough.


Team Selection (Rake / Pete 1&2)
The aim is to win Eurobowl. We have a long pedigree of winning the event and I am keen for us to get our next star.

I think that coach-race combinations are really important. As you play a team more you get a lot of lessons from the past over what worked and what did not. These lessons are hard to calculate within a game, and are more “rules of thumb” that you can apply intuitively. For example when playing Lizards I will always use the Saurus in pairs on defence so that one can free up another, and then in attack I will pair 1 with the Krox and then cage the other one so it cannot be tagged to allow me to start my turn with a blitz (and rotate). Every roster has small rules like this that top coaches know even if they don’t always communicate it.

That makes Hungary a bit tricky as we’re not quite sure what the rules are yet, and their philosophy to shake things up is presenting a tricky moving target. We’ll need some flexibility in the selections, but I don’t want to go into a tournament with people playing teams new to them.


This means that when selecting the squad it is important to look at statistics, but only at the outset of the process. I don’t want people to feel like they were punished because they tried a new team or took something fun. It’s about finding a reason to pick someone, not exclude them. So I will not be looking at online games, tournaments with wild rulesets, or caring that someone had terrible results because they were trying out Gnomes.

But it is not just win rate that is important, but who you have played. Even the mid-table nations have lots of good 200+ rated coaches, and we don’t know who will be facing who. Showing you can do it where it matters is a huge boost to your selection chances, because it demonstrates that you can help the team to win rounds. The more like the Eurobowl your experience is the easier it is to be selected.

Finally I think it is also important to get a sense of the player from people who have played them. With so many tournaments all around the country it is impossible to have seen everyone. I will be leaning on advice from others that may know them better. However again - if you are primarily playing in local tournaments then you need to show you can do it on a bigger stage to have a better chance of being selected.

[Wulfyn]

Playing or Non-Playing (Torq)
I’ve not decided whether I will play or not, because I think that this ultimately comes down to the selection process. I think I have enough experience to run the team on the day whilst playing, but I do see the benefits of having a non-playing captain that has the experience and ability to play at this level to understand the players and support the team. I know that some players will just need to focus on their own game and not be distracted, whilst others will prefer more direct support. That’s definitely easier to understand when you have been there before.

A large part of this will come down to team selection – I think you need a good balance in a team. For example I feel that if the selection lacks some playing experience then it makes more sense for myself to play. However if the ruleset looks like it is going to disrupt Lizards as much as it is (my strongest team) then they probably don’t make the cut, and in that case the team will be stronger if I don’t play.

So ultimately it comes down to selecting the best 8/12 for the event. If I’m in it then great, but if not then that’s also great. The team comes first.

[Wulfyn]

Preparation (Pete 3 / Purplegoo)
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the last 2 events and what I think the main areas for improvement are, and I think that if I could summarise it in one word then I think it would be “preparation”.

I think Pete selecting the same squad where possible for Malta as he did pre-Covid was a very loyal and admirable move. Unfortunately he (and the rest of us) didn’t anticipate how unprepared some of the long established and experienced players would be. The main thing here was that the game had changed, and nobody thought to check that those players had changed with it. Why would you? These are stalwarts of half a dozen wins. But they went in unprepared, and so the results were poor.

I think Kare recognised this in his selection of people that were highly active and at the top of their game, and so were prepared in the way the previous team hadn’t been. But then maybe he went a little too far the other way and picked a team that didn’t have a lot of European experience at the point they were picked. Now this is not necessarily a bad thing – you pick for the year ahead, and all 4 new caps were (and are) excellent players. But I don’t think they were prepared as well as they should have been. I would have liked to have seen them go and play together more at some European tournaments, for example.

Of course you can’t force that, and I don’t want to be unfair on anyone and their circumstances, but I think if you are someone with a high win rate but lacking in European experience and you want to play for England then you have to go out and get some experience.

Again no criticism meant for any individual. Hindsight is wonderful, and all players picked were and are excellent players. But I do think that better preparation in both tournaments would have made a big difference. It’s not something we’ve had to do before – established active European experienced players using a static ruleset was the norm for us, but that’s no longer the case.

This is one of the reasons for creating Squad England – so that we have a wider group to practice with and prepare rosters and try out new things and possible difficult matchups. For example anyone who has not played against some of our top Vampire coaches prior to the event cannot consider themselves as prepared, because you really should not be going into a Eurobowl having little to no experience of what the new roster can do. But I will also be encouraging us to go to team tournaments as a group as much as possible to get that experience. Tilean Team Cup and Lutece are great tournaments – why wouldn’t you want to go to them!!

[Wulfyn]

Community (Cauleeflower / Stewbacca)
Wider engagement is an important part of being the Team England leader and representative for the year. People need to understand what the route in to the team looks like, and that the efforts that they put in are either rewarded, or recognised and encouraged. One of the great things about the last year for me is getting to meet so many of the new players that I didn’t know that well, in a variety of different tournaments, and there are many more to go.

That is one of the reasons I first suggested Team England having a Europen team, and is also why I think the time is right to expand to Squad England. It’s crucial that those pushing for the team but not making the selected 12 understand that they have been recognised, but also that they have a really important job to do in helping the team prepare. It also means that they get to know each other more so that the entire setting is more familiar.

To help with this I will create a discord channel for the competitive English community. I was really happy and proud of us having done this with the TZ discord last year. This will be for all English players with that healthy competitive spirit, but there will be some private and more focused channels for the Squad itself, to help bond the team and discuss the year ahead. The rule will be simple: if you are supporting and encouraging all other players to improve their game then you are welcome.

But the community need to help themselves as well. If you are serious about playing for England then the more experience you have the better you can help the team to win. Seeking out top tournaments is important. I will also be "attending" more of the larger tournaments in different places that I am not playing to get to know people more.


Ambassador program
I won’t be enacting an ambassador program this year, because I think that it is better to get a wider range of voices rather than to try and pre-select a group at the beginning. All people will be welcome to point out up and coming players, or advocate for their friends. For example at Barton Bowl this year I played Chris (GreenskinPhil) who asked if someone who had never played a tournament before could watch the game. We had a good chat and, well, I’ll leave you to guess who that is but he’s having a pretty good start to his tournament career!! I’m having these conversations all the time, and I welcome having more. I know people in all the English regions, as well as online and other team groups (some more than others), and trust that they know me well enough that if they have recommendations then I will absolutely look at them.

In short I want everyone to feel like they are an ambassador, and if I don’t know an applicant well enough then as I said in my selection answer I will be reaching out to people to ask. But please don’t hesitate to come and speak with me. Even if it is just to say hi.

[dragonborn]

Thank you for putting your names forward for the Captaincy. I genuinely wish you success.

I’d like to know:

1. Why do you want to become Captain of Team England now?

2. Nurturing a winning team is a lot more than picking a group of individual players who have/are performing well in different environments under differing rulesets. To what extent does team ethos, role modelling behaviours, and inclusivity of community form part of your vision and goals for Team England over the next 12 months?

[yud]

Thank you for putting your names forward for the Captaincy. I genuinely wish you success.

I’d like to know:

1. Why do you want to become Captain of Team England now?

2. Nurturing a winning team is a lot more than picking a group of individual players who have/are performing well in different environments under differing rulesets. To what extent does team ethos, role modelling behaviours, and inclusivity of community form part of your vision and goals for Team England over the next 12 months.

1. Why now is a good question - one part of the answer is that I wasn't eligible before this year. Beyond that, the timing works well for me. In my professional and personal life I have various skills that would be transferable to the role. I've managed teams at multi-national companies, as a hobby I run a business putting on and organising events and gigs - building a community, engaging with social media, and organisational aspects are a large part of that. I've also been vice president of my professional institute for the last 6 years, that was the maximum term and ended last month, so I now have considerable time and energy to throw at something else which was part of why I put myself forwards.

2. I completely agree that the most competitive team is not necessarily the 'best' individual coaches. Such factors like you mention are an important consideration of both the initial selection and preparation beyond that. That said, the goal will be to build the team with the best chance of winning, at the end of the day.

[sann0638]

Will you keep the new Team England logo, or go in a new direction?

[yud]

Will you keep the new Team England logo, or go in a new direction?

Yes but I’d just put it on the sleeve of the shirt so there is room to emblazon ‘7 time winners’ on the front.

[Wulfyn]

1. Why do you want to become Captain of Team England now?

I’ve thought about putting myself forward for England captain since 2018. That summer I did a mega year of the major team events (Tilean, Lutece, German Team Bowl, Bilbali, and of course UKTC) and felt that I now had the experience to run the team. Despite not being picked for ’17 or ’18 I was still on the fringes of the team and felt that some of the spots were up for grabs.

2019 was a World Cup year and over that time leading into the 2020 TE election I had a change of job circumstances where I left my corporate role to start in consultancy. I felt that the demands on my time for this career change would be too much to dedicate to the team properly and so I didn’t stand.

Covid then came along and as fate (and working from home) would have it so did my first child. So the first couple of years after the restrictions were lifted I really decided only to do the major UK events (NAF and UKTC), as well as of course the World Cup. This meant that last year’s election was too early for me to put myself forwards as I was out of practice and didn’t know the new community well enough. So my focus over the last 12 months was doing that – getting back into the game, proving to myself that I could still play, and meeting loads of people for the first time and listening to what they wanted from Team England.

2. Nurturing a winning team is a lot more than picking a group of individual players who have/are performing well in different environments under differing rulesets. To what extent does team ethos, role modelling behaviours, and inclusivity of community form part of your vision and goals for Team England over the next 12 months?

I completely agree, and I think this is where my experience at playing in and leading teams helps. It really is as much about building that team spirit and cohesion as possible. Not every member of a team needs to be best friends, but they do need to want to work together towards a shared goal. Balancing this will be a part of the selection process.

[Wulfyn]

Will you keep the new Team England logo, or go in a new direction?

Do you mean the "trident" that was dotted over the shirts? I think... maybe time for that one to be retired.

But should it be up to just me or yud to decide that? I dunno - yud what do you think? Maybe that's something the wider community should have a say on?

[yud]

Will you keep the new Team England logo, or go in a new direction?

Do you mean the "trident" that was dotted over the shirts? I think... maybe time for that one to be retired.

But should it be up to just me or yud to decide that? I dunno - yud what do you think? Maybe that's something the wider community should have a say on?

I assumed Sann was taking the piss..

I think probably it would be nice for the team each year to have a say in how they dress themselves, rather than a mandated uniform and/or logo, but it's not something I have a strong opinion on.

[Littleleadperson]

Hi both. My question is - what do you think the team captain can learn from how other countries select, organise their squads and arrange training?