Team England Captain 2025: Community Q&A

[deeferdan]

Hi all,

We have two candidates for the position of 2025 TE captain, so in accordance with the TE charter we will have an election
The timeline is as follows:
• 21st Oct: Q&A begins
• 28th Oct: Voting begins
• 4th Nov: Voting ends, captain elected.

This thread is for your Q&A. Please post below with your question for our two candidates. Fell free to add follow up questions too, using the quote function wherever possible for clarity.

Good luck to both candidates: Wulfyn and Yudlugar.

Thanks!

Dan

[deeferdan]

if both candidates could begin with a statement of intent that would be great…

So, why should you be Team England Captain?

[TheRake]

To both candidates

With the first draft of the rules for Hungary floating about what would your strategy for selecting coaches for team England be? Will you be looking at coaches first and let race picks fall into place or would you be looking to select coaches based on races that you want to see taken on the team, or would there be a different method altogether?

[deeferdan]

See question from Torquemada, moved from a previous thread...

In the previous cycle there were plans for a 9th, non-playing member of the Bowl team. I know this time that unfortunately did not materialise due to reasons outside of anyone's control - do the candidates intend to try to make this happen again in 2025? And further to that question, would the candidates consider taking on that role themselves and stand as non-playing captains?

[PeteW]

Thanks for standing both of you. From experience, it is more of a job than most will appreciate! My questions:

1. What is your overriding aim in your captaincy? Is it to win EuroBowl? Or do you have other aims? (For example, Kare had a mandate to improve engagement and widen inclusion with his squad.) If you do have other aims, to what extent are you prepared to compromise the chances of winning?

2. Building on Mike's question, how will you assess competence of coaches when selecting? To when level of detail will you interrogate the numbers? What other aspects will you include, or deem important?

3. How will you lead? What will you do over the course of the next year? Are you a do-er or a delegator? How do you perceive the role of captain? Are you just a team picker, or is there more than that?

[yud]

Hello everyone - a bit of an introduction to myself for those that don't know me:

I've been playing Blood Bowl since around 2018. I started as an online coach before moving to Tabletop and am now an active player and streamer. across tabletop, cyanide and fumbbl formats. In 2023 I managed the most NAF games with a single race, my specialist goblins. This year I have focused more on getting to some of the bigger team tournaments, making it to UKTC, Bilbao and Athens. I've played 1000s of games online and I would say 99% of them are goblins.

So that leads me onto 'Why Team England Captain' - I am standing on the premise of a 'non-playing' captain, KFoged's suggestion of a 9th man last year I thought was an interesting one, and one that gives me an opportunity to get involved in the Team England squad. I was a referee at UKTC in 2023 and found it quite enjoyable to have a different experience to playing, so it gives me an opportunity to do something different, whilst hopefully contributing to England's success. Both from a point of view of preparing for the tournament, taking on the captains responsibilities during the tournament, and with engagement to the community.

Best of luck to Dan as well.

[yud]

To both candidates

With the first draft of the rules for Hungary floating about what would your strategy for selecting coaches for team England be? Will you be looking at coaches first and let race picks fall into place or would you be looking to select coaches based on races that you want to see taken on the team, or would there be a different method altogether?

I am working from the assumption that the proposed change to the charter will go through - and the selection will be for 12 coaches that will make up both the Eurobowl and Europen squad. I think this would favour picking coaches first, rather than selecting races first. My understanding is that the ruleset has already been through some iterations, so may not see largescale changes - but some tier adjustments may well happen.

I think a key aspect I will be looking for would be that coaches putting themselves forward would be happy and willing to play on either the bowl or open squad - Some demonstration of willing to be a team player here would be desirable. Rather than picking with an 8 + 4 mentality, from the coaches who are available I would look to pick a 12 that gives us some flexibility and who can prepare as a wider squad - with the decision on the 8-person Eurobowl team at a later stage. I probably would not pick 4 coaches who would only want to play the same race - but having the ability to arrive at the 8 following some testing, and potential changes to the rules down the line would be a consideration.

[yud]

See question from Torquemada, moved from a previous thread...

In the previous cycle there were plans for a 9th, non-playing member of the Bowl team. I know this time that unfortunately did not materialise due to reasons outside of anyone's control - do the candidates intend to try to make this happen again in 2025? And further to that question, would the candidates consider taking on that role themselves and stand as non-playing captains?

I am standing as a non-playing captain, but answering it from that perspective, I do not really intend on bringing a wider team of non-playing staff with me - though I believe France did do it this year, with more than 1 non-playing member. If someone was willing to carry out a non-playing role I would consider it, but I won't hunt them out.

[yud]

Thanks for standing both of you. From experience, it is more of a job than most will appreciate! My questions:

1. What is your overriding aim in your captaincy? Is it to win EuroBowl? Or do you have other aims? (For example, Kare had a mandate to improve engagement and widen inclusion with his squad.) If you do have other aims, to what extent are you prepared to compromise the chances of winning?

2. Building on Mike's question, how will you assess competence of coaches when selecting? To when level of detail will you interrogate the numbers? What other aspects will you include, or deem important?

3. How will you lead? What will you do over the course of the next year? Are you a do-er or a delegator? How do you perceive the role of captain? Are you just a team picker, or is there more than that?

1. It is to win.
2. Whilst I am statistics fan, and spend a lot of time with spreadsheets, the main assessment will be done subjectively. The goal will be to select the 8 (or 12) that will have the best chance of winning the tournament. Where I do not know coaches who put themselves forwards, and where online games are available (such as fumbbl/cyanide/youtube coverage) - I intend to watch gameplay to help alongside the statistical aspect. The reality is also that experience in past Eurobowls is likely going to be a major factor in selection. Being able to pick an initial 12 I think will enable to both bring in some of the newer coaches whilst maintaining a core squad with experience. This is perhaps with a little nod to the fact that one of the aspects I am lacking is experience in Eurobowl myself - so would need to mitigate that factor.
3. So as I see it, my role as captain would be to prepare the team, there are potentially some tournaments to target where we could try out the non-playing captain (such as home nations) and try and understand what helps and what doesn't. I would also look to be heavily involved in testing, being available to both organise and play practice games across the team. I would look to try and take on the organisational side - travel / accommodation / organising shirts / organising evening social stuff etc as is needed - so the players are able to focus on the games. At the tournament itself I would be looking to observe and keep tabs on how the 8 matches are going - and taking decisions / passing on information with regards to questions over a individual game state in the context of the round.

[Cauleeflower]

Thanks both for standing!

Last year Kfoged worked a lot to increase the wider interaction with Team England and have more engagement with the wider blood bowl community. From my point of views this has been very successful! What will you do to continue this?

We also had a reasonable number of new caps this year. There has been an explosion is the blood bowl community with tournaments selling out in a matter of hours, what will you be doing to look for and nurture up and coming talent in the community?

[stewbacca]

To slightly follow on from Cauleeflower's question around community engagement...

Last year Kare appointed Team England regional Ambassadors (of which I was one, and would be happy to do so again if asked) with the goals of communicating to the community about TE, how to apply, what was going on etc., and also to advise him about applicants that he may not have come across previously.

Is this something you would continue with?

Are there any other things that you would want to introduce to support the captains in future years and/or help applicants who aren't quite at TE level to improve their game and therefore selection chances in future years?

In my opinion, it would be good for TE to build the infrastructure to promote these sorts of things which captains could include as part of the handover to their successors.

[lunchmoney]

When is EB '25?
And how will you deal with the new edition (if it appears before then)?

[yud]

Thanks both for standing!

Last year Kfoged worked a lot to increase the wider interaction with Team England and have more engagement with the wider blood bowl community. From my point of views this has been very successful! What will you do to continue this?

We also had a reasonable number of new caps this year. There has been an explosion is the blood bowl community with tournaments selling out in a matter of hours, what will you be doing to look for and nurture up and coming talent in the community?

I agree that Kfoged did a good job of extending the interest and engagement with Team England. I am relatively active across discord and twitch and would look to continue through this. My focus during the tournament would be on the team and tournament but would like to be in a position where I can provide updates throughout the rounds. Leading up to the tournament I would be looking to work with other streamers to provide content to engage the community.

The move to selecting a squad of 12 opens up some possibilities here, as mentioned in response to earlier questions my intent would be to favour experience generally but within the 12 there is definitely space for 'up and coming' players. If the squad were interested I would like to look at running some online tournaments for both practice and selecting the 8/4 split - potentially there is scope to open this up to say, 16 and bring in some other players who are on the fringes.

[yud]

To slightly follow on from Cauleeflower's question around community engagement...

Last year Kare appointed Team England regional Ambassadors (of which I was one, and would be happy to do so again if asked) with the goals of communicating to the community about TE, how to apply, what was going on etc., and also to advise him about applicants that he may not have come across previously.

Is this something you would continue with?

Are there any other things that you would want to introduce to support the captains in future years and/or help applicants who aren't quite at TE level to improve their game and therefore selection chances in future years?

In my opinion, it would be good for TE to build the infrastructure to promote these sorts of things which captains could include as part of the handover to their successors.

The regional ambassador idea is a good one - I certainly am more involved in northern tournaments than southern ones - so engaging with people in other areas would be helpful in understanding applicants. I would do this on an informal basis generally.

I think at this point I'm not in a position to answer the second question - as part of the role my understanding the captain joins the Team England committee, and I would look to work with them with regards to continuity/development/infrastructure, rather than come in with a bunch of 'my own ideas' to overthrow work done to date.

[yud]

When is EB '25?
And how will you deal with the new edition (if it appears before then)?

Eurobowl 2025 is the first weekend of October.

As far as I'm aware, a new edition, even if released, would not be used for Eurobowl next year.