As some are you are already aware the Men’s Leagues are now available to view on the website.
In the Clegg leagues, there were 39 clubs entered – so there is 4 divisions of 8 and 1 division of 7.
In the Knight Cup, there were 32 clubs entered – so 4 divisions of 8 clubs per league.
In the above divisions (except for Clegg 5), the leagues all start at the same time/week and are in the leagues of 10. You may ask 10? when I’ve just advised 8’s – the 9th and 10th teams are actually “byes'”. The reason these were put in, were for the leagues all to start at the same time, plus it would give clubs free weeks during the season where they are scheduled to be playing the “bye”. This will hopefully help all clubs, where free weeks may be helpful in arranging other games or by simply not having a game and easing any burden a club may have. Also allows those clubs that are in BE competitions, i.e. Top Clubs, Double Fours, as well as perhaps re-arranging other games during these “blank” or ‘bye’ weeks. This also ensuring leagues start and get underway and hopefully all games will then be played in the season, instead of everything being concatenated, and fixtures being cancelled and not played.
As you realise to enable the above, as in 5 divisions in the Clegg (4 x 8’s, and 1 x7) and 4 divisions in the Knight Cup it meant a re-structure in some leagues. For example in Knight Cup last season we had 9 clubs in league 1, so with 3 teams being promoted from Division 2, it meant 4 teams were unfortunately relegated in order to get to the 8 clubs in this division. Also to note after the late withdrawals last year we had only 7 teams in both Knight 3 and 4.
In the Nines league we have 11 teams, and we welcome a new addition to Bowls Northumberland and to the league in Linton Lions. With the league comprising of 11 clubs it means there are some fixtures to be played on a Friday evening. These fixtures are at the start of the league, and run over 4 Fridays. We hope all or most clubs are able to play on these dates, but if not these games can be mutually arranged, as long as they are played by end of July.
Hope all of this is self explanatory but if you have any queries on the leagues and should be addressed via Club Secretaries in the first instance to Jim Holmes or myself (John Harthen). Thanks