British Esports LoL champions receive coaching at Excel Esports’ professional training facility

British Esports LoL champions receive coaching at Excel Esports’ professional training facility

Dominic Sacco
4 min read | 1 May 2019

British Esports Championships Spring 2019 League of Legends winners were treated to a special day out this week.

School winners Beyond Reality (Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School) and college winners Farnborough Falcons (Farnborough Sixth Form College) visited the Excel Esports training facility at Twickenham Stadium.

Excel Esports is a professional esports organisation that competes in the League of Legends European Championship (LEC), the highest tier of European League of Legends, as well as the UK League Championship (UKLC).

Students were given talks from Excel about esports careers and what it’s like playing as a pro, as well as game coaching and advice.

Starting off the day, Excel Esports MD Kieran Holmes-Darby and director of esports Joel Holmes-Darby gave a talk to students about how they set up Excel, their vision and answered questions about working in esports.

General manager Ryan Barnett then spoke about his background as a player and how he transitioned into management, which was followed by a talk from community manager Alex Harris on esports content, streaming and building up your personal brand.

 

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After the talks, the students were given a tour of the facilities, including the lounge area, hot desk space, media area, green screen room, practice and streaming rooms, a VoD review area and more.

There was a short break for lunch, then it was into the virtual action: a best-of-three match between the school and the college.

After each game, the teams gathered back in the VoD review area and received coaching, analysis and advice from Excel performance coach Jon Ellis. He asked the players questions about their decision making, champion selections in the draft phase and helped them to identify their mistakes to help them improve and play better as a team.

Beyond Reality won the first game, but the Farnborough Falcons came back to win the overall series 2-1. But today wasn’t about who emerged victorious, it was about giving back to two excellent teams and inspiring them in the world of professional esports and to give them a taste of what it’s like having a career in esports.

As the day came to a close, Excel kindly handed out some goody bags and merchandise to the students, who left the facilities beaming.

Harry Wessels, teacher of computing and computer science at Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School, said: “I just want say a massive thank you for today! The boys had a great day and I am sure learned a lot from the experience. We hope to enter more teams next season.”

British Esports would like to say a huge thank you to everyone at Excel Esports for putting on the day and accommodating the students.

For the Overwatch and Rocket League British Esports Championships Spring 2019 winners, we are currently working on some similar coaching sessions with British Hurricane (Overwatch) and Mike ‘Gregan’ Ellis from Team Vitality (Rocket League)!

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