Concern - League 6 behaviour & conduct

[Grewal, Hardev]

Hi Leo & committee,

 

I hope you’re well!

 

I’m emailing in my capacity as captain of NSPCC Narwhals and on behalf of team sentiment given some recent interactions my vice captain @Noble, Jude & I have had over email with another team/captain. We have had some email communication with Mark Everitt from British Council over the recent month or so in attempts to schedule a softball match (which was meant to happen today, but due to weather & unforeseen circumstances, has ended up not being viable).

 

Whilst not overt, there have been a few instances where both myself and Jude have felt uncomfortable and disrespected by Mark’s tone and style of communication. Recent emails today have become quite authoritative and not what I view as appropriate behaviour for the softball league (which whilst competitive, is ultimately a fun, friendly league).

 

I have made many attempts to schedule a game in and remain polite & professional (despite aforementioned behaviour), however, following some communication today, I don’t feel safe or comfortable communicating directly with the captain (Mark Everitt) further, or putting my team in a position in which they could be exposed to insult or undue disrespect. I have also sense checked recent communications with my wider softball team who also feel deeply uncomfortable.

 

I’ll attach just a couple of examples in case useful.

 

Below is a screenshot of our first interaction and although not necessarily overt, I’d like to bring attention to the sentence in my email emphasising ‘no rush’ and then Mark’s response beginning ‘I’m afraid’ with the exclamation mark – both my vice captain & I felt this was quite unnecessarily demeaning and passive aggressive.

 

 

 

Please also see brief screenshots from emails today… Mark raised concerns about the weather. I was happy to re-assess this afternoon, but then we had a number of staff members unable to make the match due to train delays and concerns of safety to which Mark (from mine, Jude & the team’s view) undermined as not in fact being the truth.  Just worth noting (and I think this is evident from some screenshots below – Mark’s tone has been directive rather than collaborative, and I believe fair to say at times intimidating or abrasive).

 

 

 

 

 

Just also flagging – Mark has appeared to pre-emptively reschedule next week’s match with whoever they are paired with to the rest week. I don’t feel it’s fair for them to be able to freely reschedule (so far in advance), but simultaneously have the expectation that we cannot reactively reschedule to existing circumstances (i.e. the weather). I have been proactive, initiating communication to get the match scheduled in and until 5pm today was very happy to still work towards finding a solution.

 

Apologies as I appreciate this may prove to make your life (as the committee) a bit more difficult - I have tried to avoid raising concerns, but I’m keen for the league and the match to remain a psychologically safe space for all involved. I personally no longer feel comfortable engaging in discussion with Mark (and have been requested to report this by my vice & wider team).

 

Thanks,

 

Hardev Singh Grewal (he/him)

Senior Strategy & Planning Manager

 

Working pattern: hybrid (London-based), typically between 8am and 6pm Monday – Thursday as Fridays are my non-working day.

I sometimes work flexibly, so whilst I’m sending this at a time that is convenient for me, please only read/respond during a time that works for you.

hardev...@nspcc.org.uk

Weston House, 42 Curtain Road, London, EC2A 3NH | 020 7825 2500 | nspcc.org.uk

Registered charity England and Wales 216401, Jersey 384 and Scotland SC037717

 

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[Liz Moore]

Hello Hardev,

I’m Liz, your league representative for League 6. 

The committee and I will review and come back to you in due course.

Thank you,

Liz

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[Liz Moore]

Hi Hardev,

Thank you for your patience. We are reviewing the information from both yourselves and British Council so that we can address this as fairly as possible, and hopefully get you to a resolution.

Having looked at the emails, we don't feel that Mark's emails were intended to be disrespectful, however we do see that a few came across abruptly, and we will discuss this with him. 

We would like to check in about the reasons for cancelling the game, just so that we have the full picture of what happened, and offer any support where it might be needed. We noticed in the email chain that a number of reasons were cited, including travel, safety and other issues.

Leo has mentioned that you were in touch about needing additional players, but that you have now been merged with another charity to help with this. We do also appreciate that there were some travel issues due to the weather.

For clarity - how many players did you have ready for the game before the cancellation at 4pm, and how many were affected by the travel conditions? 

We do ask that teams attend the pitch at the agreed time to check conditions before cancelling - this is because we have limited rest weeks and sometimes even when it rains during the day, the parks are usually well drained and safe to play if the weather does improve. If a team calls off, the onus is then on that team to reschedule at a time that works for the opposition.

If you could let us know the full circumstances of the decision to cancel, as well as the weeks that you can offer a reschedule we'd really appreciate this as it will help us to facilitate a path forward. 

Many thanks

Liz

[Noble, Jude]

Hi,

 

Thanks for getting back in touch – completely appreciate needing both sides and further info so more than happy to help 😊 I’m just replying on Hardev’s behalf as its his non-working day today, but he’s informed me of the situation from Thursday.

 

Context - Team structure/numbers:

At the start of this year’s season we had 21 people on our squad. Due to restructure, we now have 19 (this number excludes our volunteers and the newly merged charity as they don’t have access to teams). Of the 19, there are 2 or 3 who are slightly less engaged, but overall, for every game we usually have at least 7-10 who are ready to play.

 

 

Hardev reached out to Leo for additional players as he saw people were waiting to play so didn’t want them to be left out of the league and because he thought there was opportunity to get them involved given we don’t often have substitutes at matches (rather than having too few players currently to engage in matches). Hardev also discussed with me wanting to open the team up to other players as a pre-emptive measure in case people had annual leave as we enter the summer holiday period.

 

This specific match:

The morning of (and even until approximately 2/3pm) we had 9 people ready to play. At 1pm Hardev had informed the squad that the other team flagged weather may pose an issue and we had some questions around likelihood of the match proceeding, however, Hardev reassured people it could still go ahead and players were keen to play.

 

Hardev confirmed the match going ahead at 3:23 as we still had 9 players ready to go. However, between 3:30 and 4pm we had a number of players contact Hardev.

 

At 3:30pm - 1 was for medical reasons (they had a surgery rescheduled from Thursday 11^th to Thursday 4^th so had to be admitted into the hospital at very short notice).

We then had 2/3 people state they had train issues (whilst the NSPCC has an office in London, we have some colleagues/players travelling from the home counties/out of London whose national rail trains were impacted by weather).

We then had 1 or 2 people (including myself as vice) express concern about injury as we have had injuries in previous seasons due to wet ground.

 

This meant that despite having had 9 people even up until approximately 3pm, by 4pm the situation changed and we were down to 4 players. Usually as a team, even if some people drop out we will still proceed with the match, however, with 4 it felt far too difficult.

 

Rescheduling:

Apologies we weren’t aware we still had to attend the pitch at the agreed time as we’ve never (during Hardev’s captaincy) had to reschedule before, and in previous years, its always been a mutual decision between both teams (on the rare chance a match is rescheduled due to weather).

 

Regarding availability for rescheduling: we are awaiting responses from our upcoming opponents to confirm times/dates so this will dictate availability slightly (Hardev sent emails out in mid may and teams replied to say they will confirm).

 

We don’t have a game scheduled for the rest week (w/c 15^th) and I don’t believe we have a game scheduled for w/c 29^th June (which I believe is another rest week) as our group stage matches should conclude w/c 22^nd June.

 

Once we hear back from the opposing teams, we will be able to confirm if we have further availability in existing match weeks, however, it may be difficult for our team to be available twice in one week.

 

Hopefully this help builds a clearer picture.

 

Thanks,

Jude

 

From: Liz Moore <evmo...@gmail.com>
Sent: 04 June 2026 18:55
To: Grewal, Hardev <hardev...@nspcc.org.uk>
Cc: lcslco...@googlegroups.com; Noble, Jude <Jude....@nspcc.org.uk>
Subject: Re: Concern - League 6 behaviour & conduct

 

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[Liz Moore]

Hi Jude,

Thank you so much for providing the context. It does sound like there were a number of challenges that led to this. 

As mentioned, while we appreciate safety concerns, we ask both teams to attend the pitch to check the conditions rather than making the call based on the weather alone as it can improve really quickly, and with the limited time we have for the season, we do need to get games in around the weather (Section 1.6 of the rules states the "in person" checks). I will also relay this in my follow up to British Council to make sure that this is understood for the organisation of further games. 

We do however understand that unforeseen circumstances do happen. Hopefully with players coming in from other charities this will help to bolster your numbers in cases like this - the preference of course for everyone is to get out and play!

Thank you for indicating dates. Now that I've had a discussion with both teams, I would like to copy everyone in to organise the reschedule based on the dates provided and to make sure everything gets sorted ahead of knock outs. If that is OK, I'll send the joint email on Monday afternoon. 

Hopefully this helps to move things on for both teams. If you do have any other concerns during the rest of the season, please do reach out. 

Have a good weekend,

Liz

[Grewal, Hardev]

Hi,

 

Thanks for your understanding and support.

 

Noted RE ‘in person’ checks, will keep this in mind for future occasions (if similar circumstances arise).

 

Agreed, always keen to play whenever/wherever possible!

 

All ok RE joint email – just short of capacity so will let Jude, my vice, lead on scheduling.

 

All the best,

 

Hardev Singh Grewal (he/him)

Senior Strategy & Planning Manager

 

Working pattern: hybrid (London-based), typically between 8am and 6pm Monday – Thursday as Fridays are my non-working day.

I sometimes work flexibly, so whilst I’m sending this at a time that is convenient for me, please only read/respond during a time that works for you.

hardev...@nspcc.org.uk

Weston House, 42 Curtain Road, London, EC2A 3NH | 020 7825 2500 | nspcc.org.uk

Registered charity England and Wales 216401, Jersey 384 and Scotland SC037717