Looking forward to the 2008/2009 season

12 June 2008

Apologies for the lack of updates - lack of any news forthcoming I'm afraid!

Five new sides have applied and have already paid up!  The are:

 - There has been no further news on the application from Southcourt Spitfires FC!!

 - 26 referee have also registered for next season.

 - The Management Committee have decided that the league will run with 3 divisions next season.

If you have any pre season news to tell us, email me.

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The AGM is on Thursday 26th June and it's time to start speculating who's going to be playing where next season.  We could have around 30 sides and it will be 3 divisions.  Who should play where and why? 

Email us your opinions and your suggestions and we'll put them on the site.

Here are your opinions so far:

My tuppence worth for how the leagues should shape up next year.......

2 leagues of 14, as suggested if 2 or 3 teams pull out of a league of 9 or 10 and leaves a short season as the premier ended up this year.  

Agree with the earlier suggestion of maybe a couple of midweek games in September - be good to get people back into it and a chance to get everyone's fitness back up!!

The important bit - Promote Elm Farm & Nags Head to the top division whilst relegating the bottom 3 - Yeoman, Cublington & Grenson from Div 1 to the 2nd tier.  
This pretty much amalgamates the Premier and Div 1 whilst promoting those that earned it (E.F. & N.H.) and relegating those teams expecting it, exceptions being Chandos who it would be harsh to relegate down past all the Division 1 teams, and Yeoman who probably thought they'd done enough to stay up - but in order to maintain the balance in numbers - tough!

Aristocrat
Aston Clinton
VTS
Rockwood
Ickford
Chandos
Bell Topboys
Halifax
Belgrave
Bucks
Unique
Padbury U Res
Elm Farm
Nags Head

Yeoman
Cublington
Grenson
Exiles                
Excel Dent
Cheddington
Padbury AFC
Thame
FC Wanderers
Chearsley
Ickford
Winslow
Aylesbury Torpedoes
Southcourt Spitfires

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Hi Steve,

Personally I would say that there should remain 3 leagues this gives more
teams something to play for as with 2 divisions realistically you end up
with too many teams with mid table security and nothing to play for come the
last few months of the season. Hardly great motivation for getting players
to turn out, at least with 3 you have extra promotion and relegation issues
to contend with so most games mean something.

As others have said having 3 smaller leagues also offers greater fixture
flexibility when the inevitable bad weather causes postponements..

Other than the weather the main reason for fixture pile up this season in
particular was the number of free weekends that a lot of teams suffered
early on in the season when generally the weather is better and games could
have been played. Yes it is nice to have a week off once in a while but not
having a game for 3 or 4 weeks when you could have played is just crazy.
These lengthy periods without a game generally puts you at a disadvantage
next game as well as despite your best efforts to stay sharp you inevitably
come up against a team that had a game for the last 4 weeks.

I don't think planning to have midweek games to avoid having to play midweek
games later on if required is a good solution. Most people have work/family
commitments during the week and cannot play midweek football so all this
will lead to is some teams, particularly those with an older playing staff
being severely weekend in the midweek games. Likewise other teams may even
have strengthened teams for midweek fixtures due to players who perhaps
choose "Saturday night vodka" over "Sunday morning footy" being available
midweek. Both of these scenarios will result in some "weird" results when
compared to the Sunday morning results. So the league becomes a lottery
based on what days you play certain teams, I know that can be the case even
with Sunday fixtures and you get lucky and play a team just when half the
team has been wiped out with flu, or it was someone's birthday the night
before but I feel throwing midweek games into the mix will just compound the
problem. I can also see these early season midweek games just getting
postponed anyway because of teams not being able to raise a side midweek.

As well as all of the above it is imperative that teams are in a division
that suits their ability, any self respecting player should want a
competitive game where you have a chance of winning if you play to the best
of your ability and get beat if you have an off week. The league must ensure
that there is not a repeat of the situation last season with Elm Farm
winning by at least 6 goals week in week out which should have been as
embarrassing for their players as it was frustrating for anyone playing
against them in Div 2. I wish them good luck in the top division which is
where they clearly belong!

Assuming that the league takes the newly created teams playing staff into
account and slots them into the appropriate division then the teams
promoted\relegated last season should remain in their "new" division. If
after this extra numbers are required in a particular division then the next
placed team should get moved up or down a division.

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Evening Steve
 
Feel the need to have my 2 pence input into the SLN as i do the ADL.
 
In my opinion if we have 3 divisions then there needs to be further cup competitions to fulfill fixtures. This is unlikely. Three divisions of 9 will mean 16 league games and maybe 4 cup games. Not enough and playing a team 3x is sheer desperation to provide a Sunday League. If there are 28 teams then 26 league games will be tight but why not start the season earlier, and finish it later? The Premier League runs from Mid August to Mid May. Why cant we?
 
The only stumbling block is our 'no brains or care for local football' Council. If it rains and if they used some common sense and looked after the pitches (as it costs us £50 a home game) then we wouldn't miss 4 weeks running due to a little bit of rain.
 
If both of these were done we would manage I am sure with the fixtures.
 
As someone said, we know The Ari, ASSC, VTS are better then the rest but having another 11 teams to play against at least means you have the chance of winning the same amount as you lose! These three teams and Top Boys, Halifax and Elm Farm also have big squads so if they end up on going on major cup runs they can cope with a fixture overload and they are the likely ones to do so. Which also gives the other teams a chance of competing!
 
From history it seems there is always a split in the middle league whereby the top 5-6 are very good and the bottom 5-6 very bad so why not make it more competitive for them all to win games by giving them more opportunity to win games. Teams will stay on then and hopefully the likelihood of teams folding will reduce and thus stop them wanting to return the season after as another team to win Div 2. Win win scenario.
 
My final point is are the ADL marketing themselves enough, have we approached the local paper for an advert for new teams? This could be done in other surrounding areas to obtain teams from Wycombe, Thame, Tring etc who potentially play in other leagues.


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Hi Steve,

In my view we should move to two Leagues.

By moving to two divisions we will increase the number of teams and will be able to absorb any resignations with little impact.

True there may be a need for more games and maybe the odd Wednesday night or midweek might help overcome this ?

We seem to have played a few this year and some teams reported long breaks in between games, I’m sure everyone wants to play on a weekly basis.

If we look to the Premiership it is effectively three mini divisions in one League with the top couple of sides battling out the title over a full season against the teams at the very bottom who are fighting to avoid relegation and then the rest that make up the middle with a chance of European football to play for.

I think if we adopted a similar structure to the Sunday League it would help improve the League.

With the greatest respect to all our teams, we have effectively 2 or 3 teams each year that realistically have a chance to win Div 1, it seems many teams struggle to compete or don’t “fancy it” in this Division, by moving to two leagues over the course of a FULL playing season teams perceived as “underdogs” will undoubtedly take  a result off the top clubs (happens in premiership) and you only have to play the top teams twice, the rest of the time everyone has a chance to beat anyone and we get a full programme over the season.

I have another wacky idea to throw into the pot for you regarding Assistants for games, there are a couple of Club Assistants who week in week out do a really good job, very fair, honest and consequently get a great deal of respect from both the Referees and players alike.

I believe we should reward these guys and recognize their commitment and efforts by perhaps giving them the chance to do what they’ve done so well all season in one of the cup finals perhaps ?

If the clubs agree, I think this would work and if it helps I’d be happy to donate a couple of kits !

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Topboys, Halifax, Belgrave and Bucks should go up from the 1st division also maybe along with elm farm?
If all 25 teams all carry on plus if the 2 new teams are accepted in total 27, then 3 divisions of 9 maybe?
If there are fewer teams then the bottom division should have lesser teams.

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