Friday 25 August -- Players and coaches from the Great Britain Fastpitch League teams Stags and Meteors will be heading to the Netherlands over 
the August Bank Holiday weekend to compete in next week’s European Men’s Fastpitch Super Cup.
Unusually, the tournament won’t start until Monday evening even though 20 teams have entered. This is to avoid teams having to compete for hotel rooms with the Dutch Grand Prix taking place at nearby Zandvoort on Sunday.
The 20 teams will be divided into four five-team groups for an initial round-robin to be played from Monday evening through Wednesday on four fields: two at the Olympia Haarlem Softball Club, one in Amstelveen and one in Nieuw-Vennep. The pools are seeded, as far as possible, based on last year’s results, but there is also an attempt to ensure that teams from the same country are in different pools.
The top three teams from each group will go forward to Super Cup playoffs, while the bottom two teams from each group will go to European Cup playoffs. Both playoffs will be run as double-elimination events.
Round-robin groups
This will be the first time in many years that two British club teams have competed in the European Men’s Super Cup. The Stags qualified by winning the Great Britain Fastpitch League Men’s Division in 2022, and the Meteors qualified as runners-up.
The initial round-robin groups are:
POOL A
Stenlose Bulls (Denmark)
Montpellier Barracudas (France)
Vennep Flyers (Netherlands)
Meteors London (Great Britain)
Czechia Under-23
POOL B
Hurricanes (Denmark)
Magos Tenerife (Spain)
Hoboken Pioneers (Belgium)
Spectrum Prague (Czechia)
DVH Amstelveen (Netherlands)
POOL C
Locos Breclav (Czechia)
Chicaboos (Belgium)
Stags (Breat Britain)
Span (Croatia)
VSC Sweden
POOL D
Rabbits (France)
Painbusters Most (Czechia)
MRKI Medvedi (Croatia)
Olympia Haarlem (Netherlands)
Duerne Spartans (Belgium)
Stags
Players from the Stags will convene in the Netherlands on Monday morning 28 August, some arriving by car and others by plane.
Because of this, the team won’t have a chance to practice before playing their first game of the tournament at 9.15 pm local time (8.15 pm in the UK) against the Chicaboos from Belgium, one of just four games being played on Monday.
On Tuesday, the Stags will play an evening game at 6.15 pm against VSC Sweden, and the Stags will complete the round-robin on Wednesday with games against the Croatian team Span at 1.30 pm and the Czech team Locos Breclav at 8.30 pm.
The Stags’ roster will consist of nine players from the UK and three players from elsewhere in Europe:
Mike Burn
Ieuan Gale
Kfir Leon (Israel)
Edan Lord
Trent Nash
Richard Oplustil (Czechia)
Josh Peat
Tomas Pokorny (Czechia)
Tom Russell
Jack Scholes
Will Sinclair
George Young
Trent Nash will function as a Player/Coach and Bruce Webb will be the Team Manager.
Trent said, “I like the group we've been put in and I think it gives us a decent chance to qualify into the top playoff round for the first time in the team’s history, which would guarantee us a top 12 finish. Our aim is to improve on what we achieved last year and to keep improving the reputation of British club teams in Europe.”
Meteors
Most of the Meteors’ players will travel to the Netherlands on Sunday 27 August by car or plane, and the team has organised a training session for Monday morning.
The team’s first game will be at 10.00 am local time on Tuesday against the Montpellier Barracudas from France, and later on Tuesday, the Meteors will play the Czech Under-23 Team at 5.30 pm.
On Wednesday, the Meteors will complete the round-robin with games against the Stenlose Bulls from Denmark at 4.00 pm local time and the Vennep Flyers from the Netherlands at 8.30 pm.
The Meteors’ roster will be:
Joe Coxon
Victor Elsner
Trey Feary
Darryl Herrmann
Adam Hugill
Tarquin Karaitiana
Tom Kupczik
Kyle Kwok
Michael Lee
Vit Oralek
Luka Rilović
Kevin Stockford
Ben Tomlin
Matt Tomlin
Darryl Herman will function as a Player/Coach, Dobe Chan will be the scorer, and Mickila O'Boyle will be the Team Physio.
Meteors captain Matt Tomlin said, “We have a young team with a couple of experienced players, so we will be looking to give our players experience at the top level in Europe. At the same time, we will also try to compete with every team we face throughout the competition.”