Dec 2003

What follows are the thoughts of the Registration Secretary, not of the Committee in general.
It is posted chiefly to get people thinking about how we compete in the league and whether it can be improved.
Any moans / groans should only be directed to the Registration Sec on the TT Forum

League set-up.....

The Registration Secretary believes that the form in which the league is run needs overhauling - especially now the existing system results in an unsatisfactory populating of the lower divisions.

Looking at the way teams and players are registered raises some interesting figures....

The number of players registered to Premier teams is 54 spread over 13 teams.
The number of players registered to Division 1 teams is 60 spread over 14 teams.
This is 45% of players for just 40% of the divisions - this implies that that there are not enough teams / league places to cater for players who want to play at the higher levels.

What to Do?

One way to over come the problem is to restrict Premier and Division 1 teams to only 3 players!!!!

What? I hear you cry......it'll never work.....we can't always make every game....and probably a few other remarks that'll make my ears burn.

OK, so hear me out...... Let's take the total 114 players registered for Prem and Division 1. This could give us 38 teams! That's enough for two 14 team divisions + another 10 teams (almost a division's worth). This would fill all the gaps made by blank weeks.

Is that all I'm trying to do?  Fill Blank weeks? - It might be a short term solution for the league as it stands today, but teams will drop out and we'll be in the same position in a few years time. Let's for the moment just call it Step 1 in a far grander scheme.

There's more? ......... Be patient, and I'll get round to the next bit after going through the advantages gained just by reducing to 3 players in the top 2 divisions.

One problem with the Premier and Division 1 is that they are both effectively divisions of two halves, or of two levels of play. The reason the Premier was reduced to 9 teams when it was first formed was to provide players with the same high standard of play, week in, week out.

Let's populate the Premier with 3 player teams. We take the current top 9 teams and they create 14 teams, of a much higher standard.
The remaining 4 teams get pushed into Division 1, and a similar action applied to the top Division 1 teams. Again, we get a division with a higher standard of play.

So how do you cope with dates when players can't play? Most clubs in the higher divisions have players playing in the next division down. By applying the rule to Division 1 as well, the standard of these players will be higher than it is now and would be suitable stand ins for those occasions. The Rules (7c) have always allowed this, but clubs/teams are by passing it by overloading their teams with more players.

And what about those clubs who have no teams in lower divisions? With a lot of teams from bigger clubs registering 4 players, there will quite a few new teams formed.

Won't they just do that within their own club? Not if the Executive Committee apply an existing rule (6.d.3) which states teams can be moved from one division to another to 'Avoid one club having several teams in one division'. A ruling could make it a limit of a maximum of 3 teams per division from one club.

An example of this would be Britannia who have 13 players in the Prem. This would create 4 teams, one over the limit. What happens then? Simply put, one team would be required to change clubs if they wished to remain in the Prem - probably to one which would benefit from additional players i.e. teams needing cover from a lower division.

But we don't want to break our team up!, we have four and want to stay as such. This might be more true for teams in the lower divisions, but teams in the top tiers are always changing.

Most players I speak to want to play each week, having to play only three out of every four or five matches can make us apathetic to what games we do play.

Before this passage gets any more confusing I'll stop and publish the second part of the grand scheme in a few weeks. The second part will make the first even more workable, but to give you a chance to get your head round this first I'll hold back. Your comments can be added Here .

Part 2 now Available!