Page 4 - RPVFC v Abbey Rangers

Combined Counties League Statement
This season has seen an unprecedented number
of postponed matches. They started in earnest
on Saturday 10 December, when 24 of the 31
scheduled matches were postponed.
The following midweek we lost all 11 matches
followed on Saturday 17 December when only
2 matches, both on 3G went ahead out of 30
planned. There were further multiple postpone-
ments in January (14th – 22 off, 21st – 23 off, etc). February wasn’t too
bad but the poor weather returned, with multiple postponements contin-
uing through March and now on to April.
Needless to say, the Twitter trolls have been active with the usual com-
ments revolving around why we didn’t play more matches in midweek
earlier in the season. All good advice no doubt had we known what was
going to happen.
To explain, the CCL provides an annual list before the start of the season,
the ambition being that every club will have a game every Saturday. That
worthy principle is quickly scuppered in Division One as we have an odd
number of clubs which means that on the majority of Saturdays, at least
one club is inactive. Basically, we try to fill up all the Saturdays from Au-
gust to April, with the remainder being allocated to midweek, the majori-
ty before the turn of the year. Normally it doesn’t work out too badly
Again, in Division One we have the highest concentration of ground-shar-
ing clubs in the country, with 15 out of the 21 sharing either as owner or
tenant. We have no influence over higher leagues who simply set their
own fixtures and we have to work behind the lines so to speak. There
have been some weeks where there have been insufficient home grounds
to go round, which again, doesn’t help. Neither do we have much influ-
ence over County FA’s the majority of whom do not really worry about
our league matches and we have had one or two heated discussions this
season. The problem for leagues is that the current “rights of prece-
dence” give Counties the right to play their Senior Cup games whenever
they want and they all do something different, including one or two who
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insist upon starting their County Cup competitions in August, which can
mean that with FA Cup and Vase matches starting around the same time,
it becomes increasingly difficult to get off to a good start
Another significant problem has been that where clubs at Step 4 and
upwards have had postponements themselves, they have generally been
quick to “grab” the available dates in midweek leaving us to scrap around
for spare Tuesdays.
As to what we are going to do, we have a Board meeting coming up when
this issue will be debated. In recent weeks, where possible we have tried
to ensure that any club likely to be in the play-offs will be ready to com-
pete on the dates laid down by the FA. These are immediately after the
22nd April which has led to the situation whereby many clubs are now
facing 3 or even 4 matches in midweek and the League being ridiculed
by people who clearly have little understanding of the overall situation.
Even that hasn’t worked as the postponements have just gone on and on
and it always tends to be the same clubs.
It does seem now that we will not be able to get every match played so
back to the question ‘what do we do about it’. We have no specific rules
and there has not been any specific FA guidance, other than the addition
of an extra week but only for those clubs not likely to be in the play-offs.
To be fair, that is helping in the two Premier Divisions but not in Division
One which is tightly bunched up with nearly 50% of the clubs not too far
away from being in the play-offs.
We will hopefully come to a decision at the meeting: the options being: we
call each game a nil-nil draw, or we use PPG, or we award unplayed games
to the away club as it is not their fault if the home ground is unfit for play,
or we don’t award any points for unplayed matches. None seem ideal but
as we go into the final games of the season, we will have to opt for one
method or another.
Alan Constable
Director CCL
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