Tournament Organisation or not!
There seems to be a multitude of problems with, especially, Crockfords Cup entry and organisation not befitting England's premier KO. All of the examples that follow are in recent years, post covid.
1. My team was seeded and then not seeded. The reason was a team entering in time but the entry had been misfiled and they , rightfully, were then seeded ahead of us.
2. We then had a bye and then not a bye as the draw was redone at least twice
3. If you lose your match in the last 16 you qualify for Crockfords Plate Final; an 8 team event with an identical format to the main event. The number of teams in the last 4 years 6,7,5,7. 7 is awful as it means a 2hr+ sit out. As a bonus teams qualifying for either final pay an additional £105 to go with the £96 already paid
4. In the early stages of a round robin of four teams we were asked whether we preferred to play online of F2F. Two years ago we answered F2F only to have one team withdraw, another to claim they meant to enter an online group and the third to say that F2F meant either at home or within 20 miles of home!
5. We played a seeded team in the last 32 and beat them only to get another seeded team in the next round. We weren't the only ones. Upon enquiry this was, allegedly, because of the need to balance those who wanted to play F2F and online but as the KO rounds are F2F by default this did not ring true.
6. This year after the round robin we were drawn in the last 32 against a team we had played in the round robin stage. Upon enquiry as to whether this was correct the event was redrawn so presumably the answer was "no"
Bad things happen but the number of times this is the case suggest to me that not enough attention is given to getting it right by the Competitions Department.