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Local Leagues

Postby Maui

Hi guys, I seen this idea in another thread and thought I'd get the ball rolling. Thought we could discuss and compare the local leagues we all play in, and maybe keep track of each others progress throughout the season.

How many of you play in a local league?
What's the format?
What's the standard?
Any interesting history to your league?
Maybe some current pro's you've come up against before they made it onto the tour?

I'll start off and tell you a bit about the league I play in.

I'm just about to enter my 14th season (started league when I was 12), and when I started I was playing for my clubs 'G' team in the sixth (and bottom division). Unfortunately the league has shrunk a bit since then, and we now have only 3 divisions (prem, 1st, 2nd), with roughly 15 teams in each. Luckily the standard of the league hasn't dropped, as it was mostly the lower league teams that have pulled out over the years. If anything I'd say our Prem division is getting stronger every season.

As for the format, there is no real limit to how many players a team can have playing for them, but only 4 players can play each week. Both teams have 2 players play at home, and 2 players play away. Each player then plays a best of 3 match. I love this format, as it guarantees each player at least 2 frames a week, & also means players play their own "match within a match", whereby a player is playing for personal goals aswell as team goals.

You get 1 point per 'mini' match won, with a bonus point for the team with the most wins, giving a total of 5 points per week. If all matches and frames are tied, you share 2.5 points each.

The team I captain plays in the Prem division, and we start in 2 weeks time (tuesday 14th), with our opening match against last seasons runaway champions. We finished last season in 2nd place (our highest ever) & have strengthened in the summer, so it should be a good match.

We do have a few ex pros/semi-pros currently playing & have had some great players in the past too. The most famous and recent are probably Judd Trump and Andrew Norman.

Last season was a bit special, in that a friend of mine who captains the other Prem side in our club hit the all time league record break of 142. It beat the previous best of 138 which was made by another player from their team back in 1986! We think this may be an all time record amateur break for league snooker, so if anyone knows of one higher please let me know.

Wow, that was a lot of info i've given out there. Hope you've not nodded off and reached this point, as I would love to hear about all your leagues. And as I said earlier, it would be good of we could follow everyone progress throughout their respective seasons.

Maui

Re: Local Leagues

Postby randam05

Have already talked a bit about this in the other thread but will put it on here as the official local leagues thread.

I have played in my local league for 2 seasons now, coming onto my third (begins sept 16th). Our league was three divisions but now only two with each division consisting of 15 teams. There are about 150 players in the league and the teams have no limit to amount of players. Each thursday night starting at 7.00 5 of our players play a frame against 5 from the opposing team, switching from home to away each week. A sixth frame is decided by the aggregate points (the amount of points scored by the player in each frame, whichever team gains the most points wins the aggregate(6th frame))

The league has been going since 1949 and teams battle out for first place in their division, players battle for, best player of the season, highest break and most improved player of the season. The highest break being 139 3 years ago and not many centuries other than this. Each player has their own handicap which starts at 40 and either increases or decreases during and after the season. The best in the league is -52 and there is a few other minus handicaps.

Last season we were promoted to 1st division and were top for most the season but towards the end dropped to 5th, not bad since this was our first time in division 1. Personally, I won best player of the season, having won the most games, so have a trophy at home. My handicap dropped from 40 to 30 after my first season and 30 to 15 during season 2 and have been notified recentley I will start at 12 for the new season. My highest match league break was 47 being the highest of last season for our team.

Look forward to hearing other peoples league facts and I will post breaks and results from my team here when I begin.
Last edited by randam05 on 03 Sep 2010, edited 1 time in total.

Re: Local Leagues

Postby Roland

Guys if you have any ideas about how you want local leagues to be covered then let me know or go to the Suggestions section. If enough people are interested and it grows then a seperate local leagues section of forums can be easily added.

Re: Local Leagues

Postby randam05

Well we could have a league table section where we put our league tables inand update with new results. A breaks section? and team results. What does everyone think? Is there enough people interested to make it worthwhile having a local league thing seperate?

Re: Local Leagues

Postby Roland

It's the sort of thing that will gather with time. You need to start somewhere, and then it will pull in more people who talk about their leagues etc etc and before you know it there's a network. Do any of your leagues have websites that can be linked?

I'm currently without a team or a league and it's something I'd like to get back into one day. I recently got my old form back as in the feeling I used to get when I played, and it felt gooood. I remembered that actually, I can play this game as well as talk about it :redneck:

Re: Local Leagues

Postby randam05

Definantley try get back in a team. Its something to look forward to each week and something to practice for.

Re: Local Leagues

Postby Roland

Yeah I do miss it. My last season was 2005/06 I think so a fair while back now. We were pushing for top spot in division 1, and then two of them went to another team, another one gave up, I moved to York and decided to pack it in because I was getting frustrated with my game because I wasn't getting chance to practice, and also my handicap was too low so I was giving more points away and the next season would've been even worse as well as more travel. And when I looked there was no scene in York so I spend my snooker time talking about it and watching it instead.

Re: Local Leagues

Postby Maui

Could be a good idea sonny. I'd be interested in hearing about other peoples leagues, the same way me and Randam05 have described ours. Such as history, format, standard, # teams/players, awards, breaks etc. Also how people are getting on personally & their/their teams standing within their respective leagues.

Would also be good if people could keep up to date with the other posters results/form etc.

Think all of this would be very interesting to league players, to see how their league matches up to leagues throughout the country.

Randam, thanks for your input. I think the way your league is run is probably the most common format across the country. All players play single frame in the same night at the same venue. Should imagine that's good for the atmosphere & maybe a bit of banter between teams?

I also like how you issue out personal awards, and congrats on being reigning player of the year. We don't have such awards in our league, although we do run individual singles competitions throughout the season. There's an Open (for all the divisions), and divisional ones too. All of these (like all league matches) are played off scratch and are best of 5 (7 in final). I've had a few QF appearances in the Prem & Open, but never beyond (yet!). The semis & final are played at a neutral venue, where we get a professional referee (complete with gloves & penguin suit lol), and we have to dress smartly too.

This season maybe ;-)

Re: Local Leagues

Postby randam05

Will be interesting to see how many people get involved in this. As many as possible I hope.

Can be good atmosphere at some venues and a lot of banter. Depends on where it is. In the winter months some of the barns can be awfully cold to play in and you have to play in coat and wooly hat..no jokes! Only one or two places like that thankfully and places such as liberal club can be great as not just your team and opponents watch, but also a few regulars at the club.

Thanks for congrats. We also have singles tournaments and doubles, I entered two last year, got to the semis of one and lost my first round in the other! Wow good luck in getting to the semis this year. Would like to hear what its like having a proffessional referee! sounds great. We would never get such class down here. The most class we get is a cushion on the metal fold up chairs.

Re: Local Leagues

Postby Maui

Perhaps professional referee is the wrong term to use, as that implies they get paid for it, which they don't. A better term would be WPBSA fully qualified referee would be a better terminology. Either way though, it's still good to play under those conditions.

I did get to the latter stages in the lower league individuals when I was younger, but so far the top ones have eluded me. It's within my capabilities to do so, as I generally win 75 % (18 from 24) of my best of 3's throughout the season. I just seem to play better when playing for the team, than what I do when playing the individuals.

Sonny, you should definitely try and get back into it. Looking at your high break, you're a quality player who should be playing competitive snooker.

As for websites, I did stumble upon a really good one a few months back. It included around 50 leagues from around the country and records all team & individual stats. Unfortunately my leagues committee didn't fancy the idea of joining up to it. Were still stuck in the dark ages and have to rely on Royal Mail to deliver our result cards! Worth checking out though at, you may even find a league close to where you live now.
It's www.leaguesnooker.co.uk

If you were interested in looking at my league, then a few of the players have set up a facebook page whereby we can keep track (unofficially) of each others results, and last season I took it upon myself to post regular league tables. My team is Page B.
The address is: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2 ... 913&ref=mf

Re: Local Leagues

Postby randam05

My league not on that website either. I dont believe there can be such thing more stuck in the old times as Bideford and district snooker league.

Will take a look now and again on your fb page at results. Would like to do something like that for our league, but there are no players younger than 50! so I doubt it would be popular as they do not know what a computer is.

Re: Local Leagues

Postby Maui

Haha, luckily the players in our league are fairly modern. It's just the committee who are a bit behind the times. Never mind, this FB group works for us for now as pretty much every team follows that instead of the local paper (prob cuz they're printed 2 weeks after the match was played!)

Re: Local Leagues

Postby Wildey

i don't play local league ive never played local league the fact there isnt a local league here has something to do with it....

but i think its a great idea to add a local league section or sub forum and spread the word that way that snooker island caters for the local player and not just the pro game.

Re: Local Leagues

Postby Smart

wildJONESEYE wrote:i don't play local league ive never played local league the fact there isnt a local league here has something to do with it....

but i think its a great idea to add a local league section or sub forum and spread the word that way that snooker island caters for the local player and not just the pro game.


<ok>

Re: Local Leagues

Postby Tubberlad

StalinESQ wrote:
wildJONESEYE wrote:i don't play local league ive never played local league the fact there isnt a local league here has something to do with it....

but i think its a great idea to add a local league section or sub forum and spread the word that way that snooker island caters for the local player and not just the pro game.


<ok>

Would definitely agree with this. Snooker, like all games, has it's vital grassroots. Without this, you don't get the professional game we all know and love, so it's time we gave it it's own section.

Re: Local Leagues

Postby Witz78

My local league started this week and my opening match is tomorrow night at 7pm, a best of 5 match.

Havent a clue who the guy im playing is but ive decided im not going to turn up with my £400 John Parris cue or my multicoloured leather cue case as i might give the impression im a better player than i am and my opponent will raise his game as he will see me as a scalp, Also would potentially set me up for a fall if i get pumped.

So i will turn up with my trusted old Ronnie O Sullivan £60 BCE cue and hope i turn on the magic and romp to an easy 3-0 win !!

Re: Local Leagues

Postby randam05

So i will turn up with my trusted old Ronnie O Sullivan £60 BCE cue


I got that!!

Re: Local Leagues

Postby Roland

It seems unfortunate now that this topic has the same name as the new section and sub section :redneck:

Re: Local Leagues

Postby Witz78

randam05 wrote:
So i will turn up with my trusted old Ronnie O Sullivan £60 BCE cue


I got that!!


there nothing special but i find they feel very natural and easy to use. Always find my arm / cueing action just flows so much more naturally and accurate with it to be honest.

Cant wait now actually

Re: Local Leagues

Postby Roland

So are you guys going to start new topics about your respective leagues and give us a progress update on your season?

Re: Local Leagues

Postby Witz78

ah right, so theres a local leagues section too, right .....

yeh ill start one on my league after tomorrows game then

Re: Local Leagues

Postby Roland

:santa:

you'll find it right at the bottom so it's easy to get to.

Re: Local Leagues

Postby randam05

If we have this as the local league general chat topic and then everyone adds their own league topic. League tables, results, breaks and reviews about their league under their own league topic and people can discuss it. Hopefully we should have atleast four peoples local league sections. <cool>

Re: Local Leagues

Postby The Teddybear

Hi

I reckon tis a good idea to discuss the differences in leagues throughout the country etc.

After moving to Nottingham two years ago, our uni snooker club finally entered into one of our local snooker leagues.
I think the league starts again this October, we play every Tuesday night, with matches being best of 8. Each team consists of at least 6 players, with 3 players from each team playing at the home/away venues (think this is probably quite unique). Each match consisting on 6 singles frames and 2 doubles frames.

It's a charity league aswell, so generally most games are played in a really good spirit and we have a good laugh.

There's only 2 divisions in the league, each with 10 teams, however the standard is pretty higher especially in division 1. Think the leagues had players such Anthony Hamilton and possibly Michael Holt aswell in the past, with a high break record 143.

We were quite chuffed with our first seasons performace, as we managed to win division 2. However, you generally almost always win a frame if you knock a 30+ break in. Still was great practice and really enjoyed my first taste of league snooker. Although we'll struggle to stay in top division unless we find a few players!

Can't wait till it starts again now!


   

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