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Your commissioner recently sat down for an interview (well, it was an email) with San Jose Shrimps Coach Vick Hall.

The commissioner found the San Jose head boss to be a little more forthcoming than a, certain, previous coach.  

Thank you Vick!

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1.    Who is your least favorite coach in the Pac 8 and why is it Phil McIntosh?

My least favorite PAC8 coach is Bryce at Mat Su as we always seem to struggle to beat them! Phil's Chameleons are green and we often mistake them for fellow Shrimps. In fact anyone would think they are Shrimps until you look at their win record....

2.    If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be and why?

Well my degree was in plant physiology so I actually have a few favorite trees. I've always been very fond of Silver Birch with their white bark, but my favorite are Joshua trees. they are so majestic in the bleak desert and i think they all have their own idiosyncratic characters. I have smuggled back a batch of seeds from my recent visit to your shores and will be planting them in Spain next year as my ´plant´ project!

3.    What was your favorite vacation or trip and where is the photo?

Crikey there have been many of these as well and you want photos! Can I pick a top three?

In ascending order of favorite  was our first family holiday that was not to Bognor, but to St.Ives in Cornwall. being of Gaelic heritage I quickly fell in love with the Cornish countryside and loved all the little Cornish fishing villages and their boats. Little did I realise at the time I would end up owning one! However the highlight of the trip was a sighting of the Loch Ness Monster which was also on holiday at the time in St.Ives. Although only 8 or 9 at the time I quickly snapped a photo of it as it rose to the surface of the bay with my old camera. No one believed me of course until we got the photos developed and there it was. Even to this day when people see the photo they are shocked to see old Nessie.

Second favorite holiday was our first trip outside the UK to Ibiza where we had a lot of fun. My sister and me persuaded our parents to let us go on a donkey ride up a hill to the top of the island where we had lunch and a giant pitcher of sangria. Just what you need when you are thirteen. I think my sister foolishly gave her share to her donkey to drink which was the most lethargic mule going up the hill. Going downhill her donkey had turned Quincy and bolted down the hillside into the wood. We did not see them again until the rest of us got to the bottom. The other highlight was Lupe one of the Spanish waitresses inviting me out to one of the local discos, although she only plied me with coke not sangria. I have a photo of Lupe and me somewhere. I will try and find it!

Lastly and by far the best trip though was to Syria well before it's current struggles back in the days of the old President Assad. We stayed mainly in Aleppo, an incredible old city, just steeped in history, and this was partly why the trip was so great. A country full of remarkable lost desert cities and crusader castles. Also the people were so friendly and hospitable. It makes me sad to think how bad things have been for them in more recent times. I have literally hundreds of amazing tales about Syria. Every day was a crazy adventure of some sort. If in the future any of you do get a chance to visit Palmyra safely then do it as it is the only time I have ever experienced a feeling of euphoria (non chemically induced) just from my physical surroundings and being sucked into a sense of endless antiquity. Rome, Athens and even Istanbul do not even come close to Palmyra and it's timelessness.

4.    Do you have two or three other nicknames people call you that I could use?

Nicknames. I guess I have had a few, Stumpy and Titch from being on the short side and sssssssssssssssSnake from my diplomacy days. Can't imagine why. There was even a snake dance some people used to do whenever I won a Diplomacy trophy..........

5.    Name something about TMVL that you do not understand.

There are probably quite a lot of things I don't understand from TMVL. How are the Net rankings built or made up for a start!

6.    Name something about TMVL that you’d like to upgrade.

Since it was brought up I have been wondering about how a transfer system between teams might work. Would a transfer of players between teams with RP's as a balance work or would this unbalance the game and make some teams permanently stronger. I wouldn't like to unbalance the game in anyway, but equally it would be nice to have a chance to get that player who got away from you in the auctions.

7.    What is your current job or gig or hobby/side gig ? 

Well at the moment I am kind of enjoying a temporary retirement, but come next year I am going to crack on with a couple of little game design projects i have. Don't hold your breath as one of them has been on the back burner for over 20 years, but you never know I might just finally get round to it.

8.    Will your TMVL team win any titles this season?

Yes the Shrimps are aiming for the WGM Cup/PAC 8 double this year, but just one or the other would be delightful.

9.    What is your favorite real life sports team and why?  Feel free to name a couple.  

Well I have been an Arsenal supporter since I was 4. I used to collect those football stickers when I was kid and could not stop buying them each year until I had all the Arsenal players. They were of course the first team I ever saw play and then I ended up living in Islington which was a bit weird. Of course I went to see them play quite a lot at Highbury at that time and stupidly gave up my membership when I moved to the States, not considering I would be back after a year! After which it was difficult to get membership again so I just bought tickets to watch Arsenal play away at other teams grounds, Whilst in the States I supported the LA Raiders with OL Reign being the Womens footies team I support over the pond. 

Of course it's the Arsenal womens team I support over here and Barcelona being my local Spanish backup. Other than Football, Athletics is the only other sport I have a lot of interest in, although I have only gone to one Olympics when it was held in Athens. I really don't see the appeal of basketball and trying to get a ball through a hoop, but possibly that's a small person thing. Equally I really do not enjoy rugby which comes across as overly macho to me and when we were forced to play it at school I did my utmost to avoid being in a position where anyone would choose to throw the ball to me and if they did to get rid of it before you got crushed by anyone else. And really at my school you really did not want to get crushed by some of the others!

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ADDENDUM

Surely, there are other questions you'd like to ask the Shrimps coach.  Please reply with your comments/questions.