Autumn League fixtures posted - start 29th Sept

Just a quick reminder that the Autmumn league will be run as 'back to normal' - i.e. yes, all normal rules will be applied (including current ES membership) and, yes, home teams should provide food afterards. These leagues will count towards the Spring leagues so results and points will count - and so the rules will be applied in order to encourage fairness. Do please re-read the rules (https://badsquash.co.uk/about.php?con=about.rules) as we've probably all forgotten them... 

Please remember (as pointed out below) we don't have any slack in the fixtures so it won't be possible to rearrange. If you're down to three then play three (it actually says that in the rules). Below that, it may be more appropriate to opt for the walkover but talk it over with your opposing captain as it may still be worth a couple of competive games on the night.

A huge thank you to Michael for a great deal of work gathering the teams and player lists, arranging into divisions, finding out who is sharing who's courts, who can play on which days and when and then generating the fixtures, we are now able to announce the fixtures for the Autumn league.

We've done our best to assemble leagues that will be fun and competitive. There has been a good deal of upheval since our long ago pre-COVID days with some players lost and some gained, teams merging and a couple of courts closing which is always disappointing. All in all we're about 20% down with 50 teams now compared to our previous 64.

We hope to have a few more in the Spring when a few more players plan to return but we also need a bit of a recruitment drive. It's noticable that the teams missing are mostly from the lower end of the league and it's important that we sell our league as inclusive and for all abilities. We should be talking to our players in the boxes and at club night and see if we can bring a few more along to league. More on this later but something to start thinking about now.

So, we started with where we left off in Spring and took account of all the changes we knew about since then as best we could and so we end up with this league structure:

Mixed: https://badsquash.co.uk/tables.php?league=169

A couple of points to note:

• We are jammed between the start of the league and Christmas, allowing for half term where we could, so there's no space for any rearrangements. Therefore, it's pretty unlikely we can accommodate any more requests or changes and - importantly - if you can't get a full team out on the night then you're not going to be able to re-arrange. So play with who you can on the night.
• We have allowed for the university term dates and away BUCS matches. When we say 'away' we mean out of area so we do expect university teams playing BUCS in the local area in the afternoon to be able to play again in the evening in the league.

Let's have a great league. Good luck but, most of all, enjoy your squash!

Many thanks,

     Michael and Richard.