whittlesey v eye 17-12-2011 GAME OFF

[normanvasey]

Ces the council issue is easily resolved, goals go up and pitches marked sooner... The cricket issue may be slightly more difficult. However that there is were the league use there common sense and sort out fixtures for sides who do ground share to be played away.. You have Werrington, Bushfields, Ringwood, Riverside, Castor and Netherton which between them have close to 15 pitches if not more.. played on a tues weds thurs night then again on a sat afternoon that is 60 games in 1 week that could be played. Then lets not forget places like Whittlesey 2 (Not Utd), Oundle, Moulton, Uppi thengham, Parsons Drove etc that have pitches to also use at these times!! I think the age old cricket issue may only effect a few sides that i can think of...

Well that is exactly what the League do! Lawrence did it for donkeys years and I doubt if anybody in the P'Boro area knows more about pitch availability than him. It's a bit of a science matching pitches to teams to get the maximum number of fixtures in. Not as easy it it might seem. Remember any team, with due notice, can elect not to play on a certain date. With regard to season starting and ending dates,all clubs have a vote on this at the AGM, if there is a majority for starting earlier/finishing later, it's in the hands of the clubs. Agree, there's not much can be done about cricket, but our approach has been to be as flexible as possible to enable as many teams as possible to play in the PDFL. The more dogmatic we are in enforcing "one size fits all" onto clubs, the fewer teams we shall have. Hopefully we've got the balance right, but always subject to review. Always interesting to read views and comments on here as they can then be reflected at meetings, so the more postings, the better. On some subjects it would be positively beneficial to run a poll on here to reflect as wide an audience as possible. Perhaps "Admin" could organise one when necessary?
Finally an old moan of mine.....we still need more of the experienced hands on the PDFL committee, people from the sharp end of football.
Happy Christmas and best wishes for a competitive new year, from us all at PDFL.

[Ross]

.....Always interesting to read views and comments on here as they can then be reflected at meetings, so the more postings, the better. On some subjects it would be positively beneficial to run a poll on here to reflect as wide an audience as possible. Perhaps "Admin" could organise one when necessary?.....

Sounds like a plan, and easily done. Let us know and well sort it.

[Glasgow Rangers Champions]

The UCL and Northants leagues have games on Boxing Day and or New Years Eve.To have a break from the 17th December to the 7th Jan is to long in my opinion if the weather is ok.There are teams with floodlights to so why not play between Christmas and the New Year?

Yet professional leagues in Europe like Germany can do it easily Tommy, if players are worried about match fitness there is Power League, 7 a-side leagues and plenty facilities for teams to train during the shut down.. Not to mention players can train in the gym...
If the weather is ok then i guess we have no problem but this is the 1st year in a while that we have not had a bad winter down at these parts. Although our game was called of on Sunday due to a frozen pitch.
As for the floodlights you propose to play games between xmas and new year, but why just then??? Why not use them when there is a better chance of the games going ahead?

[Tommy Trophy]

End the season on the first Saturday in May, 2 month break - start pre-season training first week of July and play first League game first Saturday in August - most teams are playing a friendly anyway. Having an earlier start and 1 round of midweek games means you can kick off at 7 and dont have mad rush to get to games.

Not sure how the League now do it, but need to go back to 16 clubs in Premier as not enough floodlit facilities to accommodate more?