Are todays players any better than their counter parts of the 80's or 90's

[KevinStangoe]

Would the Scottish or English teams that played in the Europeans beat their respective counter parts of years gone by?

Could Bowman/Briggs or Forbes/Kerr beat Gilliland /Travers or Middlemiss/Hogg?

Could Blair/Clark beat Hunt/Archer or Dew/Tredgitt

The list of comparisons is endless,

Is Gail Emms a better Mixed player than Nora Perry, Is Peter Gade better than Morten Frost?

Like to here everyones thoughts young and probably old like me as they can make the comparison.

I believe the players of today are by far much fitter and have the luxury of modern equipment, but those players of the 80's and 90's appear to have had more technical ability.

[The Expert]

On the whole the players of yesterday would be well beaten playing at the level they played at then. All games develop and this is the natural progression. EBU tournaments a few years back were nowhere near the level they are at now and grand prixs likewise.

[soup]

kev

there will only ever be one gilliland and travers in our lifetime as far as scottish badminton is concerned. it doesn't take much to work out they were streets ahead of any other partnership scotland has produced. for me the second place would go to white and pringle. that said i concede i am not familiar with the guys today, but are their results anywhere near that of the the two couples above?

soup

[chris wild]

We are what we are because of great pioneers. We are improved tecnologically through sports sciece. We have little idea of the strength of character of those who did not have psychologists to fine tune behaviour. Now were we to ask our present athletes to play with the same benefits & constraints of those pioneers; then...??? :eek:

[KevinStangoe]

eh? I think i get the gist of that. If a lot of the top players today were to use the equipment of days gone by like greenflash trainers, carlton 3.7x's (still have one in my loft) or carbonex 8's (still got one of those too) then i do not think this current lot could tie the shoelaces of the afore mentioned greenflashes of those names from the past!!

Soup, think you do yourself a little dis-service, not much between you and Chalkie or Big Iain and Chalkie as pairings. In fact you and Big Iain weren't too bad either. I think back then there was more competition, granted BG and DT were a class apart but below them there were some pretty good pairings who could all beat each other, You and Chalkie, Charlie and Ali Baker, Big Iain and BJ, Hammie and Dave Joiner, Kenny and Arnot, Me and Ross Gladwin ( had to add that). Plus a few other permutations thrown in.

I think that is what is missing, the guys in scotland possibly only have 3 or 4 good pairings to come up against so they are getting less decent competitive games in the Nationals and other Scottish tournaments.

I do think that Susan would come out on top against Alison, Pam, Gillian or Jenny.

[ferguwat]

I used to love the carlton 3.7x .... I used several, but they all went the same way, snapping/shearing in the flat area of the shaft ..... now I find my current bats (still carlton, one piece carbon) are kinda going the same way .... stress cracks appearing up the shaft ...

[soup]

morning kev

i've not seem susan hughes play but her results clearly show she would top the lot from a scottish stand point.

soup