South Counties Tournament

[Whitey]

No Surrey Team???

Purley, Blues, Epsom, Holloway and Imperial - was there not 10 players between 5 clubs (7 teams) who might have enjoyed this?

[Chilli]

Have asked Ray (tournament schedule/rules organiser), the play-off is as indicated, 1 v 3 and 2 v 4

[Blind Zebra]

Purley and Blues have fixtures they have tp play.

Partly caused by SEMLA not including the England training in the fixtures and by bad weather.

BeeZee.

[Chilli]

To be clear, SEMLA announced the fixtures as per the byelaws and normal practice for the last ten years or more in May of last year.

The England team/NEMLA didn't fix dates for the northern schedules until September.

The England training weekends were part of that scheduling as the bulk of the England squad were, and are, NEMLA Premiership players

SEMLA were asked to change the entire schedules for the Premiership and East One and West One to match those weekends, the England team were unwilling/unable to change their schedule to match the spare weekends in the SEMLA schedule.

At the time there was no certainty that any SEMLA players would be selected for the England training squad (The Blues' Matt Bagley as England manager being the only definite exception)

The end result was that the SEMLA Committee decided to allow the clubs of any SEMLA players who were subsequently selected, to request their scheduled opponents on the day of the England training sessions to rearrange the games. There would be no absolute obligation on any clubs to move the game as they may themselves be disadvantaged by any re-arrangement since players may have already made plans for work or holidays, or there may be problems with pitch bookings etc for the alternative weekends.

It was agreed that the England team and NEMLA would fix future dates in advance so as to allow SEMLA to integrate those dates and still issue the fixtures as required by the byelaws.

[Blind Zebra]

Now now. Calm down, dear.

BeeZee.

[S_24_LAX]

Epsom also have a vital re-arranged fixture against Hillcroft A.

But I will be there with all my Northern Soul Sportswear goodies so please come over and see me.

[Chilli]

Rob, it wasn't written in an 'uncalm' tone at all, simply explaining the background to your comment for those who may wonder why SEMLA had not included the England training dates.
This also was not written in an uncalm tone

[Jim13]

County Tournament, Saturday 31st March 2012, Reading

Sorry I can't open the letter from Peter Mundy or post it here - basically someone in each area needs to select players/be responsible for organising their County Team.....please see below.

Hope that helps



AVON: Bristol L.C., Bath L.C., Bristol Bombers, West of England University.

DEVON: Plymouth University, Exeter University, Marjons University.

ESSEX: Buckhurst Hill L.C., Colchester L.C., Cambridge University, East Anglia University, Norwich L.C.

GREATER LONDON: Hillcroft L.C., Spencer L.C., Hampstead L.C., Brunei University, London University.

HAMPSHIRE: Portsmouth University, Southampton University, Southampton Tridents L.C., Bournemouth University.

HERTFORDSHIRE: Welwyn L.C., Hitchin L.C., Hertfordshire University.

KENT: Croydon L.C., Maidstone L.C., Christchurch University, Kent University.

NORTHAMPTONSHIRE: Northampton University, Warwick University, Birmingham University.

OXFORDSHIRE: Oxford University, Reading L.C., Gloucester University, Cheltenham University.

SURREY: Purley L.C., Walcountian Blues L.C., Epsom L.C., Royal Holloway University, Imperial College.

WEST GLAMORGAN: Swansea Hawks L.C., Swansea University, Cardiff Harlequins, Aberystwyth University, Cardiff University, UWIC.

WEST SUSSEX: East Grinstead L.C., Brighton University, Chichester Crusaders.

The visiting Belgian National Team have also indicated they wish to play in this Tournament (contact = Ray Wood)

Bloody hell that's a lot of clubs / regions, fair play!

Good luck with it all, hope it goes well.

['predator']

I know this maybe a stupid question, but is it to be held at Prudential Ibis Sports Club, Scours Lane, Reading? Just trying to work out how to get there...

[Chilli]

Yes

http://www.readinglacrosse.moonfruit.co ... 4524798205

[S_24_LAX]

Fair play to mmm...beer too

He has had his moans about some of the things in the south good to see he is supporting this (too).

[davewilliams]

[Princess]

To be fair blues don't have a fixture, names were put forward but never heard any more of it. There seemed some confusion about whose responsibility the Surrey team was.

[laxwill11]

To be fair blues don't have a fixture, names were put forward but never heard any more of it. There seemed some confusion about whose responsibility the Surrey team was.

Harlequins v Blues has been rearranged for Saturday

[kjk2085]

Given the volume of rescheduled/postponed games, it's a pretty inopportune time to be organising a county tournament on a Saturday.

[Blind Zebra]

All three Blues teams had fixtures. A couple of the opponents have now conceded. Originally, only Holloway and IC were available for Surrey.

BeeZee.

[Chilli]

The date of the County Tournament was selected so as to take into account feedback from last year's event that the Tournament could serve as part of the selection process of the South team.

What wasn't foreseen was that bad weather would leave teams using a 'free' weekend for re-arranged games.

Maybe the Committee should have made attendance at the tournament mandatory and refused to allow re-arranged games on that weekend?

The County Tournament was never proposed or discussed in that light and so it's unfortunate that one or two counties aren't joining in but one county is at least partly because of re-arranged games and the other is because of Uni tours.

There are so many competing events etc that any chosen date is always a compromise and will make individuals and clubs make choices about what they do

[Jim13]

Fair play to mmm...beer too

He has had his moans about some of the things in the south good to see he is supporting this (too).

I don't try to bitch but I'm happy to give an honest opinion where I see fit - not always kindly received but hope I don't come accross as an arsehole; just an interested observer.

I had a cracking time down there with hitchin many years ago so keep an eye on events - my mate Dave plus other lads from Gin and Juice have done well which is a clear sign of progression. Playing you lot in the regionals has seen ups and downs but on the whole there's a clear upward curve. Events such as this can only develop that. Growth of the game down there has been fantastic and I give credit to the many people I don't know who've been involved in it.

You may all talk funny, drink babycham and not understand the rudementary basics of chip etiquette but apart from that, good luck to you all.

[S_24_LAX]

Constructive criticism always welcome mmm....beer

I know who you are and I am sure you know who I am.

I know you are another one of the many that actually want to see the game grow and develop irrespective of location.

[Tree13]

What wasn't foreseen was that bad weather would leave teams using a 'free' weekend for re-arranged games.

Trevor, that's a little misleading. I recall a flurry of emails, in June of last year, between several clup reps and at least one SEMLA Officer discussing the increase in division sizes, the possibility that we would run out of weekends to play fixtures and even some fixtures being rearranged in advance due to there being free weekends in October. To ensure my recollection wasn't flawed, I just checked my old emails - the conversation is still there.

Bad weather has caused teams to use free weekends to play re-arranged games in previous seasons, with monotonous regularity - adverse weather has always posed a threat to travel plans and has often rendered pitches unplayable. That it would do so again this season, was forseen by many. To suggest that nobody could predict it would rain, snow or be excessively windy or dark in December and/or January is a little strange, given that it has done for at least as long as weather records have been kept.

Nevertheless, I hope the County Tournament is a success just as it was last year.