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25th May 2003 - All England MastersAdjudicators: John Berryman, Eric Crees, David Read This year’s Masters contest again followed hot on the heels of the Blackpool contest. Due to our relegation from the Grand Shield last year, we concentrated on winning the Senior Cup, and so did not spend much time on the piece for the Masters until the Senior Cup was out of the way. Our preparations for the contest were blighted by a number of unexpected problems, including two band members having to be taken into hospital for operations. Thankfully, they were ok and still able to play. We also had a band member still on military service in the Gulf, and so were allowed to borrow to cover them. This combined with only three weeks to get the piece up, made the run up to the contest challenging. The piece was difficult, especially for Percussion and we had to bring in another player to cover the tuned percussion. He proved to be a busy chap, and only managed to attend his first full band rehearsal the day before the band left to travel to Cambridge. We travelled down to Cambridge on the Saturday afternoon, and stayed in our usual Travelodge. Our rehearsal the night before the contest was in Godmanchester and started with a short percussion sectional due to the late arrival of our third percussionist. Afterwards, the band went out to local pubs for the evening. We knew we had drawn in the middle block of bands, and also knew that most of the other good bands at the contest were in the same block. We drew twelfth, just after YBS, and so knew that this draw would be difficult to do well from. We left for our rehearsal at midday and then went on into Cambridge in time to play. We played well on stage, there didn’t seem to be many mistakes at all, and we were happy with the performance. The band then went their own separate ways into Cambridge to wait for the results. This years contest started late, at midday, and was followed immediately by a concert. In previous years the contest started earlier, and had finished in time for a separate concert to take place after the results. The first half of this years concert was performed by the Sellers Band, and the second half by Leyland. It was good, but it did drag a little and it was a long time to wait for the results to be out. It was a little surprising how quiet the hall was during the results; I think most bandsmen were still in the pub. This contest often shows just how subjective adjudication is. There are three separate adjudicators who give their own placings without conferring, and these placings are then added up to give the final contest results. I think this probably gives more accurate placings at the top and bottom of the field, but makes the mid-ranked bands a bit of a lottery. The final result was as follows. Individual placings by the judges are shown in brackets after the band name: 1. Leyland (2,3,5) 7. Travelsphere (3,14,8) So, an interesting spread of results! One judge had us as high as fifth, another as low as second to last. YBS preceded us, and two judges thought YBS were better, and the other strangely thought we deserved a place higher. Similarly, Woodfalls followed us on, and two judges thought we were better, and a third thought we were worse! It’s also interesting that the band placed first at the contest were not placed first by any of the judges. Not a bad result for us given the bands were were competing against, and the restricted build up we had to the contest. It was the same placing as were were given last year, and consolidates our position at the contest. The year hasn’t been a bad one for contesting all around, with a fourth at the Area, and a win at the Senior Cup. We now have a well deserved rest from contesting until next year’s area. Tim Sawyer |