An Open Letter to the NAF Committee from a World Cup 2019 Journeyman

Dear NAF Committee

My head is still spinning from the experience of attending the 2019 Blood Bowl World Cup in Dornbirn. It was a huge privilege to be a part of the first African team, The African Impis, and to be teamed up with the coach and South African Blood Bowl legend Da_Imp who taught me the game over 20 years ago in Johannesburg.


I've been playing tabletop miniature games since 1994 and attended tournaments for a wide number of game systems in the UK as well as in South Africa where winners stand the chance of gaining their national sports colours. None of them have come even close to the level of fun and friendship I experienced this past weekend at the NAF World Cup 2019. To be in a room with so many strangers from foreign lands is normally an uneasy experience for me, yet I left there feeling like I had 1,431 more friends than when I arrived. It was a superb atmosphere that was created by the players and I want to thank all the French, Italian, German, Polish, Swedish, Dutch, Belgian, Spanish, Portuguese competitors and other nationalities who went out of their way to make the first Team Africa feel so welcome. Beers were shared and stories swapped with great fellowship. Despite being a member since January 2017 my only prior NAF experience was Joe Allen's (Inderol) excellent BBQ Bowl held in July, likewise an extremely enjoyable experience and he likewise went out of his way to make this first-timer feel completely welcome and at home. It's a common theme and I am really encouraged by that to promote others into getting more involved with NAF events.

Where Sixes Were Rolled

I believe several things certainly contributed to its success. The MesseQuartier was spacious and well equipped for 1,432 coaches. The tables and seating provided were excellent: stable and secure and with sufficient space that coaches did not feel cramped. The vendors provided a dangerous level of distraction to our eyes and wallets between games. Lastly the organisers themselves worked like Trojans late into the night to ensure the success of the tournament after a disastrous first day. They took a lot of flak for the issues but their knuckling down and fixing things under tremendous pressure is most impressive. The enthusiasm of the attendees was highly infectious and in my own opinion this is what kept the event going during delays and made it an enormously fun and friendly place to be. The team outfits and trinkets (cow bells) along with the occasional team chants or singing were simply brilliant.

That being said, there are things I hope you will not see as personal criticism but observations from the peanut gallery that you will find useful towards planning future events of this scale. I will still encourage anyone to get to a World Cup (or any other NAF event) as the joyful camaraderie is unlike anything I've experienced before and it was a wonderful experience.

Where Skulls Were Rolled

The best solution to a problem is to prevent it from happening in the first place. My personal view is the choice of location created too many difficulties for the organisers to have to solve themselves. This past weekend suggests to me the following criteria need to be present for future host cities to be seriously considered for an event of this scale:

One or more airports with regular dedicated transport that is easy to navigate. 

The airport shuttles did the job but the drivers never checked for tickets which meant some presumably saved themselves €40 by sneaking on to buses while others got left behind as the bus was at capacity. I fully accept it to be the bus company's fault rather than the committee's, but ideally this should never have been the responsibility of the committee or hosts.

Suitable public transport offerings that run late within the host city is a must. 

I had no choice but to switch my lodgings to the highly expensive (€770) Sheraton as my original hotel was not on the list of hotels serviced by the shuttles and it would mean a 7km walk carrying all my gear daily. My teammates had to walk 3km back on two occasions late at night in foul weather due to missing the shuttles as our evenings ran late. When they could catch the shuttles I had to store some of their gear for them due to the number of passengers trying to get to their hotels. It was very kind of the committee to organise shuttles but a complicated undertaking that perhaps shouldn't have been needed to be solved in the first place. On leaving Monday morning at 10am I saw a player order a taxi at the hotel reception and it took 50 minutes to arrive. I was left with the impression (which may be mistaken of course) that Dornbirn, while very scenic, is more of a commuter town and not suitably equipped for this level of tourism.

Eateries near the venue.

I was surprised to see competitors being served lunch at one catering service point. With an hour for lunch you only have 0.25 of a second to serve each person to give them all at least 30 mins to eat. It clearly won't be possible. It would be much more realistic to have multiple eateries able to serve hungry Blood Bowlers concurrently and provide a range of options for the different palates of foreign visitors. If catering is to be used then I'd suggest menus being published online including allergens. I had a severe case of dysentery thirteen years ago that's left me with a wide range of intolerances. If there were allergen warnings or allergen-free food options I could not find them anywhere in the food area.

I don't judge the committee too harshly here as this seemed to be a general problem in Dornbirn. While restaurants were very good at listing allergens using a standardised code, frustratingly they did not provide allergen-free alternatives. For example on arrival at the Sheraton I was informed I'd receive gluten-free and dairy-free breakfasts. However, when I got to the dining area Friday morning I got blank looks when I asked for them. They eventually managed to scramble a couple eggs without milk for me but I was still charged €23 for a small portion of eggs, 2 rashers of bacon, a few slivers of salmon and a tomato. I was unable to eat anything on the hotel lunch or dinner room service menus and got back too late for the restaurant at night. I also checked every local restaurant on Google but not a single one offered allergen-free options. My boy scout skills are rusty but I survived the weekend on what I could manage in my hotel room: overnight soaked oats for breakfast, bananas for lunch, and tins of tuna and small gluten-free rice noodle pots for dinner. I hard-boiled eggs in the basin by repeatedly boiling and emptying the kettle into it, the first successful attempt took about 40 minutes. It wasn't great nor was it healthy. Bear Grylls if you're reading this, I could use some tips.

Night Life.

On the final evening my team went out to celebrate after the closing ceremony. We went to the Sheraton hotel bar to find it shut at 10pm. We tried to find a local bar called De Luxe showing on Google but it seemed to have changed into a closed strip club. We landed up in Burger King, and then the Happy Grill where we enjoyed a beer together but were kicked out at 11pm due to local laws. In general there seemed to be no real night life by the venue.

Miscellaneous issues.

Much has been said of the problems with issuing skills bases (and the magnetic stickers that stuck to everything except the bases), the poor sales in dice (I found some of the faces too hard to differentiate), and poor beer sales. I don't have anything to add that hasn't been raised except to say at Happy Grill we found the exact same beer bottle and neck labels (by implication the same beer) being sold 25% cheaper a short walking distance from the venue. I'm also used to tournaments having tea and coffee stations, and I was disappointed to have the options restricted to water, sodas or beer. When I enquired about coffee the NAF staff advised me if I had the time to rather seek out coffee in the shopping centre as it was cheaper and far nicer than the caterers provided. I'm grateful for their honesty in this. It may also reduce the inter-match chaos if winners kept their tables, reducing foot traffic by 50%.

One remaining issue I'd love to help with is technology, and no I'm not referring to the pairing issues on the Friday. I've previously offered to volunteer my technical skills with the NAF but not yet been taken up on it. I feel the starting point has to be the use of a digital certificate to secure all NAF web applications. I'm offering to donate the cost of a certificate if needed to get NAF web traffic encrypted. Security experts all agree it is no longer acceptable for sites not to be secured by encrypted protocols. This ensures browsers don't discourage users from visiting sites (which they are doing in increasingly dramatic ways) and gives users the security of knowing it is not a spoofed site they are using. It also protects passwords entered and personal information, such as players' real names and locations. There are other improvements (such as making sites more mobile friendly) that can be done by volunteers if desired. I'd love to be able to give something back and be more involved.


I know some of this may not be easy reading for the committee. Please be reassured the atmosphere created by the wonderful people attending the tournament, as well as the huge late night effort of the organisers to ensure smooth running of the Saturday and Sunday ensured its success and I had great fun despite the challenges involved. The gaming area was amazing and we had enough room to sit comfortably (a truly rare achievement for a tabletop tournament!). The international community created and sustained by the NAF is amazing and I feel lucky to be a part of it. My intention here is not to point fingers or apportion blame, but I hope some of this may be useful in refining the process to ensure each successive World Cup (and I hope there will be more!) is even better than before. Cities I've personally visited that I would use as examples of what I think would be excellent hosts are the likes of Barcelona, Bordeaux, Rome, and Dublin. Overall while there are certainly lessons to be learned I think you did a smashing job and will never forget the fun I had in Dornbirn.



To my wonderful opponents:

• hockeyfilo: grazie and thank you for the mozzie dice!
• Anubis2406: vielen dank and the coaster is a lovely souvenir!
• hungdonkeyman: thank you for a great game and enjoyable company at the airport.
• Gigio_la_tanica: grazie for a very very close result.
• Môrice_Le_Gris: merci beaucoup, et merci Manant pour le divertissement!
• MadArCay: vielend dank for the beer and chat.
• SouthernSlayer: cheers for the relaxed game and very nice meeting you and The_Martian.
• yeash: the tightest and most Blood Bowly game I've ever played, danke mein Freund for the beer and for being such a great opponent.
• The unknown Frenchman I played a friendly match with as we both had byes, merci and I hope you and your squad did well.

To my African Impis teammates: it was a privilege and a pleasure to spend this World Cup with you, thank you for your encouragement and friendship!

Thank you NAF committee and hope to see you all again my friends in 2023!