There are limited tournament opportunities for rec teams and my son loves them so im sure we'll keep doing this one, but I agree the logistics are rough. If doing mini games, group them closer together. We spent 8 hours at the field for 2 hours of soccer. Not enough time between games to go anywhere but too much time to sit around. Also I know its hard to find fields, but most of these games did not need lighting. We could have played 2 or even 3 morning games at another venue then switch fields for 1 or 2 evening games. That would have been so much better than spending an entire day at the field and it was a field with no concessions and porta potties without toilet paper.

Finally if your scoring system is so complicated that it takes 4 hours to release the next day's schedule you need to either change it or end games earlier. We were at the field until 830pm. Didn't hear about the next days schedule until Midnight and had to be back there at 830am. After sitting at a soccer field for 8 hours I had no patience to wait and hear our next day schedule.

If anyone organizing is reading this please think through the timing a bit more!!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many people posting here who will be volunteering to make next year’s tournament better!

Right?

You all will getting off your @$$e$ and doing a fabulous job next year.

Right.

I didn’t think so.

Nice deflection. Host fails, so it becomes the guests' problem to fix. That mentality is why the tournament is a dying enterprise.

Bad analogy. It’s not a party; it’s a league event. You are part of the league and you are free-riding off of people just like you (except they actually step up) and have the nerve to complain about it while doing nothing else.

You are the problem, not the people doing the work.

What league puts on the Herndon Cup All-Star Tournament?

Go ahead, I'll wait.

They should pay the refs as much as the travel tournaments pay.

Regardless, its not a "dying enterprise" based on how many teams were participating this weekend.

You should switch your kid to travel. Thats where the high-maintenance parents all end up.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many people posting here who will be volunteering to make next year’s tournament better!

Right?

You all will getting off your @$$e$ and doing a fabulous job next year.

Right.

I didn’t think so.

Nice deflection. Host fails, so it becomes the guests' problem to fix. That mentality is why the tournament is a dying enterprise.

Bad analogy. It’s not a party; it’s a league event. You are part of the league and you are free-riding off of people just like you (except they actually step up) and have the nerve to complain about it while doing nothing else.

You are the problem, not the people doing the work.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are defenders of this pathetic tournament continuing to say "I'm sorry you kid didn't win a trophy." Mine is winning hers today, in spite of this tournament's pitiful management by disinterested teenagers.

Perhaps they shouldn't hold the tourny on a weekend when many other travel tournaments are occurring- orgs that that pay their refs more money. Of course you're getting bottom of the barrel at this rec tournament.

As far as refs go, yes, there was a shortage because this weekend had the Bethesda Cup, McLean Cup, Hunt Country, and Herndon Allstar tournaments. Just not enough referees to go around. Herndon and McLean play the least. And the Herndon tournament is a grind. Games every 30 minutes. 12 minute halves. That's 24 minutes. 2 minutes to switch sides at halftime usually. That gives the referee 4 minutes in between games to get a sip of water and get the next game going. Very easy to fall behind. No time to even go to the bathroom, which was OK because where I was reffing (I guess I'm one of those bottom of the barrel refs for reffing in this tournament), it only had one overflowing portable bathroom. We ended Saturday 16 minutes behind schedule. Not too bad. As for lack of refs, I was shocked that the U19 Hunt Country final only had two referees, which means the center referee had to watch for and call offside on one half of the field by himself. Not easy to do.

Also NVSC ref tournament was this weekend.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why are defenders of this pathetic tournament continuing to say "I'm sorry you kid didn't win a trophy." Mine is winning hers today, in spite of this tournament's pitiful management by disinterested teenagers.

Perhaps they shouldn't hold the tourny on a weekend when many other travel tournaments are occurring- orgs that that pay their refs more money. Of course you're getting bottom of the barrel at this rec tournament.

As far as refs go, yes, there was a shortage because this weekend had the Bethesda Cup, McLean Cup, Hunt Country, and Herndon Allstar tournaments. Just not enough referees to go around. Herndon and McLean play the least. And the Herndon tournament is a grind. Games every 30 minutes. 12 minute halves. That's 24 minutes. 2 minutes to switch sides at halftime usually. That gives the referee 4 minutes in between games to get a sip of water and get the next game going. Very easy to fall behind. No time to even go to the bathroom, which was OK because where I was reffing (I guess I'm one of those bottom of the barrel refs for reffing in this tournament), it only had one overflowing portable bathroom. We ended Saturday 16 minutes behind schedule. Not too bad. As for lack of refs, I was shocked that the U19 Hunt Country final only had two referees, which means the center referee had to watch for and call offside on one half of the field by himself. Not easy to do.

Anonymous wrote:So many people posting here who will be volunteering to make next year’s tournament better!

Right?

You all will getting off your @$$e$ and doing a fabulous job next year.

Right.

I didn’t think so.

Nice deflection. Host fails, so it becomes the guests' problem to fix. That mentality is why the tournament is a dying enterprise.

So many people posting here who will be volunteering to make next year’s tournament better!

Right?

You all will getting off your @$$e$ and doing a fabulous job next year.

Right.

I didn’t think so.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What a complete and epic $hitshow this tournament was. We always looked forward to this event, but I assume this is it's last year.

Traveling between two fields all day, neither field had one compitant adult present, not one. At Arrowhead, the two dimwitted teenagers checking scores in were too busy juggling the ball back and forth on the sidelines in between two benches, kicking the ball into the field several times.

I get that there's a ref shortage and it really is unfortunate, but for some ungodly reason they were adding stoppage time. At one point the field was two games behind. But it can't all be blamed on the refs, because several ended up leaving, requiring parents to ref.

It was a really poorly run event. There is a reason adults run swim meets, I wish the Herndon Cup did the same.

Why would you assume that? Unless you mean its your last year attending, which is understandable.

Look, we have the first "adult" ready to help run this hapless experience!

Its run by parent volunteers from Herndon soccer. Do you not understand that?

The price was the same as travel tournaments with decent logistics charge. No one cares that it's run by parents if you charge that much. Do you not understand that?

My friend's kid played in a tournament this week that was like 1000$ for three games. Herndon charges half that.

As far as all star tournaments, we prefer the FPYC tournament in the spring more just because its less hassle scheduling to deal with full length games vs. the mini games, but my kids always enjoy the Herndon tournament. FPYC is a little more organized. I did hear from a friend that the Valor one was awful (travel teams mixed in with rec teams).

FPYC and Herndon *parent volunteers* run these as fundraisers for their scholarship costs. Travel tournaments are run by for-profit travel clubs to make a profit. I am sure they are much more professionally run.

If the disorganization this year bothered you, skip it next year because it is like this every fall. In fact, this year was much more organized than last fall.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What a complete and epic $hitshow this tournament was. We always looked forward to this event, but I assume this is it's last year.

Traveling between two fields all day, neither field had one compitant adult present, not one. At Arrowhead, the two dimwitted teenagers checking scores in were too busy juggling the ball back and forth on the sidelines in between two benches, kicking the ball into the field several times.

I get that there's a ref shortage and it really is unfortunate, but for some ungodly reason they were adding stoppage time. At one point the field was two games behind. But it can't all be blamed on the refs, because several ended up leaving, requiring parents to ref.

It was a really poorly run event. There is a reason adults run swim meets, I wish the Herndon Cup did the same.

Why would you assume that? Unless you mean its your last year attending, which is understandable.

Look, we have the first "adult" ready to help run this hapless experience!

Its run by parent volunteers from Herndon soccer. Do you not understand that?

The price was the same as travel tournaments with decent logistics charge. No one cares that it's run by parents if you charge that much. Do you not understand that?

I liked it a lot more than the tournament our league did in the spring (the valor one pp mentioned, we won't pay for that one agein). That tournament was unpopular and had to combine ages because they didn't have enough teams, so it was nice to see a lot of different teams and all the teams being the correct age (U13). An all-U13 team playing an all-U14 team meant our kids got absolutely crushed in the spring.

I liked the way they do the mini games (basically meaningless and just for fun) and then have two brackets on Sunday that are usually decently accurate so the games are competitive. They need to build more of a time buffer between the mini games. Maybe 5 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the afternoon.

Yeah we played this tournament as well and the logistics were awful. We had the last game of the night and it was about 10 minutes behind and someone came running down yelling that the game was over and the lights were going out. They were 30 minute quick games so trying to end early was not acceptable. There was no time buffer built in the schedule? The assigned game times were also super inconvenient. And the refs were not good. But the teenagers running the scores seemed fine, polite and helpful imo.

The standings and brackets were super confusing and basically just random. Overall I didnt enjoy the tournament but my son likes playing and his team did well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know anything about tournament profits but agree our club (MYS) has made a fortune off our SFL teams the last few seasons. They only get one practice per week and have huge rosters. Its really irritating how these "nonprofits" just want to screw over and profit from rec kids.

SFL age groups are a cash cow for our league
as well. They way overcharge for this age group and then make them buy their own shirts and then buy numbers and iron on their own numbers. For $200!

Is it sya? We played an sya team and some. kids had walmart t-shirts with markered-on numbers, some had no numbers, ony a few kids had an actual jersey. They looked raggedy.

Anonymous wrote:I don't know anything about tournament profits but agree our club (MYS) has made a fortune off our SFL teams the last few seasons. They only get one practice per week and have huge rosters. Its really irritating how these "nonprofits" just want to screw over and profit from rec kids.

SFL age groups are a cash cow for our league
as well. They way overcharge for this age group and then make them buy their own shirts and then buy numbers and iron on their own numbers. For $200!