From Hattrick I met Patrick

One could say that there are many challenges in Hattrick that leads to fun and a lot of nice memories.
In my opinion, the greatest part of Hattrick is the one when you manage to discover the people outside of the game, which means meeting users in real life to create new friendships who could last forever.
For that, let me present you some countries that are having from smaller to bigger RL events, by finding out from their organizers more things about these meetups.

franitsekdarko (7176996) - Hungary

1.Tell us about the meeting that is taking place in your country.

Our IRL-HT Football Tournament will took place in Szeged, 13th of August - the second Saturday, it is the traditional time for this at our town, this was the 7th of it.
The football is the protagonist of the event, but the event itself is built upon friendships: on mine with the other organizer, Pistuko (3886636), but also for everybody who know each other from the HT-forums and manage to met on an event like this.
We play about 10-15 minutes matches, 8 or 9 them, that's a championship. There'll be about 10 teams (cca. 100-200 people; once we had 16, once 8, it's oscillating).
The teams are mainly companions of friends, old and new ones also. Seniors, juniors, amateurs and actual footballers - for many of us, not the result is what matters. We drink a few beers under the sunny sky, have chats about the game, about our national teams, the policy of the Hungarian HT, about IRL football, and about the life itself - and we play football occasionally.
We play on a handball-sized field and we have a penalty shootout contest at midday traditionally, so we can have a little rest (it's hot here these days). Many of us take our families and we stay a night or two, visiting the city, having a little vacation.
So, it's really a friendly event, a celebration of football. It takes place from 10 to 17 o'clock, after that there's a brief napping session, and then some of us go to discover the nightlife of the city together (Pistuko is the resident joker :) ).

2. What impact have the Hattrick meetings over the communities? In which way do you think those meetings are affecting the future of the game?

We have these meetings since the beginning, from around 2002. It has the power of holding the community. At an event like this one could finally meet not with an avatar or a style of writing, but the actual person itself - so one can ask his questions and have answers immediately. About the game, about life, anything. It's an extension of the federations and the forums. At an event like this one can find the reason why his team is suck and how to rebuild it.
One can get the inspiration to start over and not just running away. We're a very friendly and recipient community. In such days, when people lose contact in real life, an event like this bloomed out from a virtual space, is the quite reverse effect of the technicity: it actually forges a community! Without these, the HT life of Hungary would be much poorer.

3. What do you think would stimulate other communities to organize such meetings?

The running out of users. A community have to represent itself and to follow the forums day by day; it's a hard task to many of us - but at an event like this one could take up the yarn.

4. How would you compare your first meetings with the latest ones?

I joined the community in 2009 - then we had a broader one with more users, so more teams on these meetings. Then one could finally met with forum legends! It was miraculous! But then, one realized that the other is a human being too, so he could joined to a group talk about the new captain of the national team or about the changing of the training method of the game. It was like you were playing and foruming - but live. It was a good experience and it is one still!

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Nicolas79 (470773) - Switzerland

1. The HTST is being held in Winterthur (near Zurich) for the 4th year in a row now by end of August. The location is a pet obedience school, thus we have a lot of place to use. Part of the location is also a clubhouse, further we have a grill in the exterior to use and, in case of bad weather, there is a grill that can be used near the entrance as well. We have a lot of space, so you can even build your own tent on the location, or you could sleep in the clubhouse, as a few of us do so every year.
Usually, we play games during the meeting like table soccer, KUBB, Poker tournaments, or else. The participants get a name board. They bring their own meat along, as well usually a few of us bring salads or dessert with them. Beers are on place and can be consumed for a break-even cost of CHF 1. The revenue from the beer sale is used for financing the whole cost of the meeting.
In the last years, we had around 40 participants, among them participants of Germany and Austria.

2. What impact have the Hattrick meetings over the communities? In which way do you think those meetings are affecting the future of the game?

The meetings is a great way to meet other players and discuss strategies, and the development of the game. Share experiences and ideas is obviously an essential part of the meeting. The future of the game might be more affected by the decisions the developers take for the game – obviously, this is just my personal though.

3. As far as I’ve seen over the years, first of all, you need always a group of enthusiastic HT players, that are devoted to the game enough to invest their time and effort to organize such a meeting. Apart of making the community more active, and thus deploy them to share meetings, might be that the forum is more active again. Comparing to years ago, the activity in the message board has really declined and will continue to do so. Probably, this is just a mirror of a general sinking interest in the game.
I think there are two things that make HT less likeable to play: Either the cost for the supporter package is quite high even by Swiss standards now, further the game has become more complex over the years. The simplicity, again in my personal view, is the key to the success of the game.

4. My first meetings have been around 10 years ago, when we often meet way more spontaneous and also in little groups among HT players anywhere. These days, meetings must be organized with months ago and, in general, the average HT player has become older in my view. When I started with HT, it was the period of constant growth and a lot of new heads have become enthusiastic about the game and started with it. These days, the game isn’t growing anymore and HT is living more from the hard-core regulars that are around for a long time.
HT should really try hard to keep this people on board and enthusiastic, because it seems like this is the key to success and continuation of the game. It seems though as if the developers have realized that HT might spell its end and try to squeeze the lemon as long as it goes. It will to be seen how many more meetings in Switzerland will be held.

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Mod-Suli (931128) - Israel

1. In Israel, meetings are usually held at a public sports center in a city just north of Tel-Aviv, which is the center of Israel. It's held on a Friday of a vacation (Holidays or summer) - So both kids and parents can come.

At first (2003-2004) the tournament was based by a competition of age groups: Youngies (under 18), 18-25 and oldies. With time we moved into teams - either randomly chose or captain chose. Today we just select the players as we wish.

At it's prime, in 2007 (when I was co-organizer) we had a 100 participants!!! Since then, the number has declined and declined and now we have about 15-20 people. That's when we have a meeting, because the last holiday it was cancelled due to lack of participation.
The main organizer changes with the time (people volunteer for this), but it's always someone known from the community.

What we do there? Mainly play football. At it's peak (2006), we also had a PS tournament and a magician to go along with the printed t-shirts for the event. In 2007, we also had real trophies and medals given to the winners. After that, it was mainly Chess tournaments outside the field.
All meetings are being photographed, some of those pics are still somewhere on the web.

2. I know that, for some people, it's the only reason to stay (somewhat) active in this game. They're just waiting for the meetings, and you don't hear from them otherwise. It helps for new users to interact with the veteran community and maybe make them more active on the community. The more come - the higher the chance they'll stay in the game for few more months.

3. What stimulated us for having those meetings - the will to meet the guys behind the screen, talk about HT in real life.

4. The latest one are quite lame in relation to the first ones, but I understand that. In 2004, everyone in the community were very active and there was a lot of will to contribute. We had 2 off-site sites for HT, and few active forums outside of HT, and that's outside of the Fed-world. And the number of users was likely the same as it was back then. Today? There are no more than around 30 active managers and another 70 semi-active. The rest just don't care/don't expose/don't want to be a part of the community.

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Meetings revealed on forum :

Belgium: (17005249.10)

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