Notes from
meeting of Wessex SuperVets Fixtures Alliance held at the Cricketers’ Bagshot
18 March 2006 1900 – 2000 hrs.
Present: Tim Tennent, (Epsom Vagabonds),
Paul Bloomfield, (Woking Pitts Elders and Youngers), Rob Kenwrick, (Wokingham
Vets), Peter Colwill, (Amersham & Chalfont).
Apologies:
Wimbledon Nightmares, Oxford Hawks Falcons, Winchester Wanderers &
Winchester Whistlers, Polytechnic.
Results up to the 11 March were
circulated.
It was noted that cancellations (4) occurred between
28 January and 18 February 2006.
Remarks from Clubs
Henley (Richard Sessions)
I am writing on behalf of Henley Hockey Club Veterans
after lengthy discussions with our members and in particular Jeremy Spring.
We have struggled for numbers this year and I have
been analysing the playing
statistics for this season.
We have failed to raise 11 players on 7 occasions out
of 20, and only 12 players can be called regular squad members having made more
than 9 appearances.
I can't see things getting any better next year and I
think we would struggle to compete with the stronger sides if we finish in the
top half and face the better teams twice next season.
We think it would be better all round for us to have a
fixture list like this season with the home and away games against the lower
sides. We would be very grateful if you could accommodate this approach.
Wimbledon (Tony
Hawksley)
Would you please accept
Wimbledon’s apologies for absence? We are most grateful for the enormous effort
and know how which you and Tim put in to make the league possible.
Playing hockey at our age
and with congenial opposition is a privilege which none of us would have
without your supreme efforts.
Oxford Hawks Falcons
(Richard Wilsdon)
Have been away for a week. I believe Peter has responded to your
mail we have our Club dinner that night so it will probably not be possible for
any Falcons to attend.
Epsom
Vagabonds (Tim Tennent)
Cancelled
matches, is there a pattern. Do we leave dates blank around Feb half term?
Oxted Vintage Moonshiners (Rainer
Vogt)
Rob,
regrettably I have had to cancel our game against Amersham this Saturday.
Illness but even more importantly, half-term and skiing reduced our squad
to six. Hopefully, Amersham will be able to fix up another fixture. Can you
help?
This
is particularly embarrassing as this is not the first time we had to cancel
this fixture.
Last
year, or was it the year before, I suggested that the league should have a rest
day during half-term as we have this problem every year. I can't believe that
it only affects Oxted. Can this please be reconsidered and the season be
started either one week earlier or finish later? Or if indeed it is only us
that are faced with this problem could the two rest days we have had this
season be allocated to us to coincide with the autumn and winter half terms to
avoid having to cancel games?
Sorry
to be such a nuisance but if that could be arranged then that would be of great
help to us. Another aspect is the amount of travel for us. Whilst we have no
objections to spending a great deal of time travelling to our away fixtures, we
would appreciate not having to go to Amersham one week followed by Oxford the
following week. Although I don't think that this affected the availability this
week I am sure it did not help.
Hope
you find these comments constructive.
Leave rules as they
are now.
Polytechnic Vets (Ed
Shepherd)
Both Roy and I have other commitments so will be unable to be
there on Saturday. Unfortunately we haven't been able to find anyone else to
represent us. Please accept our apologies for being absent for the first time.
We are generally against excessive regulation, so if, as may be
possible, there are any proposals about aggregate ages on the pitch and numbers
above or below certain ages we would be against them. We are basically in
favour of keeping everything as relaxed as possible.
Woking Pitts (E & Y) (Paul Bloomfield)
See you Saturday. As spokesman for The
Pitts Elders not in favour of playing everybody twice.
Peter Smith has rung me to say that Haslemere
Bluebeards may be in a position to rejoin us for next season. The
projected 'youngsters' by and large did not materialise and they have been
struggling in the Wessex Masters.
It might also be worth trying
Basingstoke, Fareham & Newbury all of whom are conceding lots of goals in
the Masters.
Southampton (John Spencer)
Sorry won't be in Bagshot tonight.
The current view is that we will stay in Wessex Div 3 next
season.
Thanks
Those members of the Alliance who were
present took note of all the comments and agreed that:
There should be no Rule Changes for
the forthcoming season;
The format for next season would be
based on the top half / bottom half playing each other twice and the other half
once only;
No gap in the calendar in respect of half-term
was adopted. This would in fact
potentially affect 4 Saturdays and Hampshire has different dates for February
half-term than the rest of the area covered by the Alliance. Instead it is recommended that if clubs suspect in advance that they will not be able to
raise a team for a particular date, they suggest to the opposition postponing
the game to a mutually acceptable date, earlier, or later in the season.
Several games have been postponed this season and replayed and one match is to
be replayed on 23 April 2006.
Web site – Entering ‘Wessex Supervets’ into Google doesn’t take one to
the site but to references to it eg Henley, Woking, Guildford. Can anything be
done about this?
On the site when you go to ‘results’ you
get the elephant. Can that be moved?
Domain name – Tim said that he would
enquire into this possibility.
Other Clubs worthy of offering places in the WSFA included Maidenhead (G)
Purley (G), Sunbury (G), Hounslow, Barnes, Ealing. (G = Grass).
Declaration
of Goals
Goals for and against are reported to the
AO and it was suggested that these should feature on the website (for
information) but not affect the results table.
It was decided to ask the question of the membership at large before
proceeding with this.
Officers
Rob Kenwrick reported that due to likely
business commitments he would be abroad for approximately 100 days over the
next 10 months and therefore stood down.
Tim Tennent agreed to take on his role as
Assistant Organiser and Peter Colwill agreed to step into Tim’s shoes as
Organiser.
The meeting ended at 2000 hrs with broad
agreement to meet in June to set up the fixtures.