Exactly what is Bethesda really providing teams for the $1000 they spend? Polo fields? Embarrassing, and it has been this way for years. Eventually weather caught up with them but Muldoons is an embarrassment of a soccer location.

RantingSoccerDad wrote:So putting lower age groups and maybe lower tiers (where teams are less likely to be traveling) on grass would make sense? But make sure any bracket with teams coming down from NY, Pa., etc., is playing on turf?

Disagree. Tournaments should cater to local teams. I just wouldn't schedule games on fields that have poor drainage.

Anonymous wrote:

RantingSoccerDad wrote:So is the takeaway here that tournaments should only be scheduled on turf fields? Or maybe have turf as a backup -- perhaps if a game on grass can't be played at 2 p.m., play it on turf at 8 p.m.?

Very few tournaments put U12 and under on turf fields. There just aren’t enough to go around.

We weren’t in the BSC tournament this year but usually the HS turf fields that BSC has some rights to (because the club helped pay for their renovation) are used by older teams.

There are many lighted turf fields in the area where Bethesda holds their regular practices.
I didn’t see kids playing on them this weekend. There are also turf fields in Frederick which isn’t that far.
In the least you could do half field games to fit games in if you need - better then not playing.

Note: There are different types of grass fields. Some are built to drain more. Some have serious drainage issues - because of where they are located. Some are in very wet areas. Some are overused/some are over-scheduled, so they get destroyed. Some are used for multi- purpose which can have issues depending on the different purposes. Some are graded differently.

In any case, the issue with Bethesda is they have poor quality grass fields with multiple strikes against them. If it was more a local tournament, that probably would be ok. Its knowing your condition of your fields, charging over $1000 per team and having folks travel in from far distances and paying hotel costs - when you know the fields can't host a tournament is highly questionable Whether you are U13 or U11, incurring that level of costs and travel, is significant. There are other tournaments that manage it better for age groups where there is travel.

RantingSoccerDad wrote:So is the takeaway here that tournaments should only be scheduled on turf fields? Or maybe have turf as a backup -- perhaps if a game on grass can't be played at 2 p.m., play it on turf at 8 p.m.?

Very few tournaments put U12 and under on turf fields. There just aren’t enough to go around.

We weren’t in the BSC tournament this year but usually the HS turf fields that BSC has some rights to (because the club helped pay for their renovation) are used by older teams.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wags

WAGS doesn’t exist anymore.

Bethesda owns rights to numerous turf fields at high schools for practices. It’s strange that they couldn’t book any of those fields for tournament play. Most high school sports are over now for the season?
Money money money moneeeyyyty! Money!

They used every turf field they had. Had they not made the tournament so huge, they could have more teams play on the turf and/or used it more effectively for backup. Instead, they searched for every farm field to convert to fields for a premier tournament. In the past, muldoons was used for the youngest U9 and not a lot of out town - so the impact wasn't as visible. This year, they converted muldoons to bigger fields for older age groups. Muldoons was a mess early October prior to accepting all these out of town teams - it was never going to make it for this tournament.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some just do it better, but you may have to travel to get it. Strikers do it well with Jeff Cup and Cap Fall Classic, the CASL tournament is run extremely well, and locally Arlington does a good one in Feb/March.

The comment stating that the goal for tournaments is to make money. Of course it is, but you still have to provide a product that is equivalent to the price.

Jeff Cup and CASL both break up their tournaments by gender and age now, and spread out over 4 weekends. That seems to be the way you have to do it if you want to (1) attract all the teams, (2) use the best fields, (3) have a manageable number of games for a quality referee pool. Bethesda is only broken up into girls/boys weekends, so they'd need to break up into older/younger weekends too.

Interestingly, Jeff Cup is played during weekends of equivalent or worse weather. However - Jeff Cup has very high quality fields. Strong ref teams. At BSC, they staff with a single ref and field marshall who can do very little. We had a ref who admitted his first time ever reffing and it showed.

Jeff Cup is definitely still a destination for top teams. Bethesda has weakened considerably.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Muldoon fields for the U13 girls were a mud pit with 1 game on Saturday and 2 games with 15 halves on Sunday. We drove down from NJ for this mess. Our club has said they will avoid this tournament next year

So the fields at Muldoons were reduced to mud after the games this weekend, the same was true for the couple fields at Summer Hill that were opened to the U11s, and the remainder of the fields at Summer Hill had so much standing water that they cancelled all of the games that were supposed to be played on those fields.

If you are a parent of a boy playing in the boys Premier Cup this coming weekend, I'd start asking for your money back now and cancelling your travel plans. The fields are not playable, and more rain is scheduled for today, Thursday and Friday of this week.

Who wants to bet that Bethesda makes the same mistake this coming weekend and waits until all of the teams have traveled from out-of-state to DC before they start cancelling games, cutting game times to 15 minute halves, etc.?

It’s going to rain heavily again this week here. And now it’s cold so no hope of anything drying out.

Anonymous wrote:Wags

WAGS doesn’t exist anymore.

Bethesda owns rights to numerous turf fields at high schools for practices. It’s strange that they couldn’t book any of those fields for tournament play. Most high school sports are over now for the season?
Money money money moneeeyyyty! Money!

To be honest, they should really think about doing the tournament in conjunction with a VA CLUB. They could support a tournament the size of a Jeff Cup if they leverage both VA and MD facilities.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some just do it better, but you may have to travel to get it. Strikers do it well with Jeff Cup and Cap Fall Classic, the CASL tournament is run extremely well, and locally Arlington does a good one in Feb/March.

The comment stating that the goal for tournaments is to make money. Of course it is, but you still have to provide a product that is equivalent to the price.

Jeff Cup and CASL both break up their tournaments by gender and age now, and spread out over 4 weekends. That seems to be the way you have to do it if you want to (1) attract all the teams, (2) use the best fields, (3) have a manageable number of games for a quality referee pool. Bethesda is only broken up into girls/boys weekends, so they'd need to break up into older/younger weekends too.

Interestingly, Jeff Cup is played during weekends of equivalent or worse weather. However - Jeff Cup has very high quality fields. Strong ref teams. At BSC, they staff with a single ref and field marshall who can do very little. We had a ref who admitted his first time ever reffing and it showed.

Anonymous wrote:Some just do it better, but you may have to travel to get it. Strikers do it well with Jeff Cup and Cap Fall Classic, the CASL tournament is run extremely well, and locally Arlington does a good one in Feb/March.

The comment stating that the goal for tournaments is to make money. Of course it is, but you still have to provide a product that is equivalent to the price.

Jeff Cup and CASL both break up their tournaments by gender and age now, and spread out over 4 weekends. That seems to be the way you have to do it if you want to (1) attract all the teams, (2) use the best fields, (3) have a manageable number of games for a quality referee pool. Bethesda is only broken up into girls/boys weekends, so they'd need to break up into older/younger weekends too.

Anonymous wrote:Muldoon fields for the U13 girls were a mud pit with 1 game on Saturday and 2 games with 15 halves on Sunday. We drove down from NJ for this mess. Our club has said they will avoid this tournament next year

So the fields at Muldoons were reduced to mud after the games this weekend, the same was true for the couple fields at Summer Hill that were opened to the U11s, and the remainder of the fields at Summer Hill had so much standing water that they cancelled all of the games that were supposed to be played on those fields.

If you are a parent of a boy playing in the boys Premier Cup this coming weekend, I'd start asking for your money back now and cancelling your travel plans. The fields are not playable, and more rain is scheduled for today, Thursday and Friday of this week.

Who wants to bet that Bethesda makes the same mistake this coming weekend and waits until all of the teams have traveled from out-of-state to DC before they start cancelling games, cutting game times to 15 minute halves, etc.?

Rockville City is considering to convert their Redgate Golf Course to a “Rockville SoccerPlex”.

This would be so damn incredible if they do this. Everyone in Montgomery County and surrounding areas would surely benefit. Sure beats the old & rundown golf course.

I'm starting a go fund me...let's buy muldoons and have it converted to a true sports park.