Author Archive | Roger Nichols

As you know we have been canvassing recently to secure enough entries to stage this year’s many competitions.

At the AGM in January it was agreed that a minimum entry level of 8 was required to make the various events both competitive and to ensure that the effort in holding the competitions and  the cost of trophies were justifiable based on the number of entries.

We are pleased that the minimum number of entries has been reached in the 8’s competition which is already well under way and we have in excess of 20 entries and 14 entries for the singles and open pairs which will take place at Abingdon United on Sunday the 6th July. Good news.

For the Captains and Secretaries competition we require just one or two more entries to reach our minimum level.

For the other planned Competitions we seem to have enough entries for the D, E and F Section pairs which will be held on Thursday 21st August at a venue still to be confirmed. The remaining competitions we would still like more entries for. These are the Team 5’s, the Team 4’s and the Team 3’s together with the new Section B and C pairs events.

As a reminder the Team 4’s and 3’s are scheduled to be held at the Croft Bar on Thursday July 17th and the team 5’s will be held at Abingdon Conservative Club on Thursday August 7th.

The Section B and C pairs competition has the least entries and the date set for that is Thursday August 14th again at a venue to be confirmed subject to enough entries being received.

So when the Committee met earlier this week it was agreed to :-

• Allow additional late entries to ALL competitions until this coming Sunday June 21st
• Confirm the dates of the new “closed ” pairs competitions for the sections B and below
• Proceed with all Competitions as planned (the only doubt is the B & C pairs which has only 3 entries so far!)
• Allow substitutes/reserves wherever necessary on the day of the competitions.

As you will be aware these Competitions are part of our heritage with many of the  trophies donated several years ago by past sponsors, players etc and we therefore want these to remain an essential part of our history and of our sport for years to come.

We appreciate that we have to find ways of attracting more of our teams and our players to take part. We need to listen to the reasons why with 60 sides entered and 480 players taking part over our 18 week league season we struggle to get a minimum of 8 (singles), 16 (pairs), 24 (3’s),  32(4’s) and 40 (5’s) players to enter and commit to play in our Competitions. We know that in part it’s about when and where we hold the competitions, it’s about players and sides not entering because they think they are not good enough or are massive underdogs, they are not held on Wednesday’s which is Aunt Sally night etc 

Those are all understood and we can, and have, adapted the way we arrange competitions in our endeavour  to attract/increase entries, but without much real success.

We will continue to listen, adapt and learn in order to improve participation, but remember whenever and wherever you play Aunt Sally it’s about taking part, having fun, sharing the banter and for everyone who plays it keeps our game alive not just for ourselves, it’s for our pubs and clubs who support us.  As importantly it’s a way that encourages others who may want to become part of our game for the future to try their hand! . If  the game is lost it will probably be lost for ever!

It took 6 weeks, but the inevitable has happened the only surprise is that it has taken this long! Yes you have guessed it, Dave Dix’s first 6 of the season in the first leg of Abingdon Conservative Club’s 6-0 whitewash of Stanford in the Vale. Dave’s 15 dolls helped the Con Club climb to top spot in the Premier and they are now 2 points clear of Croft Nomads who also enjoyed a 6-0 win at Abingdon United in the same section. Early season pacesetters Plum Pudding were held to a 3-3 draw at Steventon Sports despite 11 dolls from Terry Downes aided and abetted by Paul Longford with 10. Colin Brind and Ian Morrison shared top scores for the home side with 10 dolls. The first leg of this game was tied with 26 dolls apiece a leg score hit again in the second leg by Steventon, but the Plum were only able to hit 20 in reply, but Plum won the third leg 24-17 to secure the draw. 

Croft Nomads hit the highest leg scores of the night 27 twice with Ian Brook top scoring with 12 dolls, Alan Bell with 11 and Tosh Wooloff with 10 all threw consistently to help secure a return to winning ways for the Croft.

In the Premier/A section College Oak’s Jamie Smith helped them to a 4-2 win over the Vine who are still seeking their first positive result of the Summer as they went down 4-2 at the College.

Red Lion the early season unbeaten pacesetters in the A section came a cropper on their own throw when Berinsfield SC A were 6-0 winners to leapfrog the Lion at the top of the table and go 5 points clear.

Elsewhere and overall there was some good scoring on the night. Individuals Lee Brown for The Earl of Abingdon A in Section B hit 10 dolls, Derrick Brown of the WADs bar matched that in the same section and in the E section Richard Bunce playing for the Black Horse Hanney contributed 11 dolls and in the F section James Fletcher’s 10 dolls took doll his average to date to 2.61 – James what are you doing in the F section?

Some other scores to note include Marcham Centre’s A 45 dolls on the night against Berinsfield B a 17 doll leg for the Waggon and Horses in the same section. Other scores, not so notable, include the Croft Bar’s 4 doll third leg at home against Harwellian B and Challow & Childrey CC game against The George in Section E. At first I thought it was a tennis result with scores of 8-6, 9-7 and 13-11!

Whilst there was only the one “sixer” last week there was a reduction in the number of “blobbers” on the night so obviously signs of improvement overall!!

The league tables can now be seen to take some shape. As mentioned earlier Abingdon Con Club lead the Premier by 2 points, Berinsfield SC A are 5 points clear in the A section. The B section sees WAD’s bar 2 points clear of Royal Oak and in the C section The Wheatsheaf’s 6 straight wins puts them comfortably clear of the Fox, Denchworth in second place.

Also with 6 straight wins The Plough West Hanney head Section D, but Fleur de Lys B are chasing in second place only 2 points behind. The F section is led by Grove RFC who are 5 points clear of 2025 newcomers Ladygrove, Didcot.

An early look at each of the sections top doll averages makes good reading. Unsurprisingly Dave Dix tops the Premier with an average of 4.53 dolls, Stuart Wilson has the highest average in the A section at 2.87, just ahead of Danny Hamilton whose average is 2.83. In the B section it’s Derrick Brown averaging 2.89, Shaun Gilensen is currently highest with an average of 2.33 in the C section. Steve Dingle and Billy Collett are both averaging 2.28 in the D section, Brian Bosley has been hitting hitting 2.89 dolls 0n average in the E section and the aforementioned James Fletcher’s 2.61 average for the North Star B leads the way in F.

That’s it for this week’s review, but do look out for an important update on the 2025 Summer Competitions which we will publish in the next couple of days.

Well, another Wednesday passes and even at this still early stage of the season there are some really good individual performances and with 4 games played there are only 7 out of 60 teams who remain unbeaten and of those 6 have so far recorded 4 straight wins.

I first need to apologise to Ady Bolton of the Red Lion A whose 11 dolls scored last week included two 5 doll legs, but I inadvertently omitted him from last week’s list of double digit scorers. Sorry Ady!

Luckily for us (Croft Nomads) Ady wasn’t available last week when we played the Red Lion because even without him Red Lion maintained their unbeaten record at the expense of  the previously unbeaten Croft winning 4-2 on the night. After the Lion had comfortably won the first leg, Dean Bowler secured the second leg when needing 4 to win as anchor  Dean teased us by missing with his first two sticks and then as clean as you like scoring with his next 4 to give the Red Lion the leg. Although Croft managed to secure 2 points with an improved third leg performance Red Lion  fully deserved their win. The defeat of the Croft enabled Plum Pudding with a superior doll count to climb to the top of the Premier table when  they beat the Vine 6-0.

Elsewhere in the Premier/A section there was a welcome win for Berinsfield SC A and two legs of 28 dolls proved too good for The Vine who succumbed to a 6-0 defeat on the night. Abingdon Con Club and Stanford in the Vale FC both won 4-2 The outstanding individual performance of the night was, surprise, surprise, from Dave Dix for the Con Club who for the second time in the 3 games he has played so far this season  hit 14 dolls.

Another outstanding individual performance that should be mentioned was from Sam Coughlan playing for the Crown B in Section F who was the only “sixer” on the night and hit 10 dolls in total.

In the B section WADS Bar continued their winning ways winning at The Fleur Hagbourne and are fully justifying their leap from the F section in 2024 to the B section this year.

Also in this section Abingdon RBL who surprisingly had a shaky first couple of weeks managed their second successive 6-0 scoreline with both Dave Sapey and Tony Barrett leading the way with 10 and 11 dolls respectively.

Also in the B section The Bell A hit a very credible 21 doll leg in their 4-2 win against Abingdon United C

In the C section there was a welcome shared 3 points for the Eight Bells Eaton against The Midget and those 3 points for the Eight Bells means that of the 60 teams in the league this year none remain pointless!

In the C section The Plough West Hanney with a 6-0 victory over Steventon Sports SC B maintain their unbeaten start to the season and the Wheatsheaf hit their highest  leg score so far with 19 dolls in their 4-2 win over The Bell B.

Overall last week there were 15 individuals who hit double figures, as mentioned earlier Dave Dix led the way with 14 dolls and his teammate Phil Adams was not far behind with 12 dolls, Steve Enock (Croft Nomads0, Tony Barrett, (AB Con Club), Mason Kelly (The Midget), Matt Hill (Stev Sports B), all hit 11 dolls and Paul Longford (Plum Pudding), Andy Morton (Ab Utd A), Dave Sapey (Ab RBL), Geoff Lee (Berinsfield SC A), Olly Saunders (Wheatsheaf), Dave Collett (The Plough LW), Steve Jones (Royal Oak) Brian Bosley (Marcham Centre A),  and Sam Coughlan (Crown A) all contributed 10 dolls apiece for their teams so players from every section other than the F section all featured double digit scorers showing lots of strength and ability exists in all sections this year……..having said that there were also 17 “blobbers” last week and  they were drawn from every section other than the Premier so for some including many first timers Aunt Sally is still proving to be a game that takes some getting used to  and as well as being good fun, at times can be really frustrating! 

The closing date for the Summer Competitions is June 15th so it is time to get your entries in. Entry forms are available to download on the website for all Competitions so get your entries in early, you don’t have to wait until the closing date!!

Just a reminder that all registered players are eligible to play in all of the Competitions other than the two new Pairs competitions which are exclusive to players from Sections B and C (Competition 1) and Competition is only to registered players in sections D,E and F. Both of these Competitions not only offer the chance of a trophy, but for the winners and runners up in  both an attractive cash prize to share!!

Each of the Competitions require a minimum of 8 entries and the entrance fee for  the two new pairs Comps mentioned above  will be free to enter, all other Competitions require a nominal entry fee of £1 per player.

Venues, dates and times are all on the website so \ don’t be shy get your entries in! l

Lets make our Competitions this year be what they have been for over 60 years competitive, fun and the opportunity for  all teams and individuals the opportunity to pit their skills against each other in the several competitions all of which culminate in a grand end of season finals night in September with trophies galore on offer!!

This week is a good opportunity to look at what has been happening in each of the sections, which teams are setting the pace after just 3 games, to see how are the new teams settling in with their results  and to recognise some of the week 3 individual and collective top scores.

I will start with the F section where newcomers Long Wittenham AC are setting the pace with 3 straight wins and 15 points already secured. North Star B are chasing hard also with 3 wins and 14 points in the bag. In the E section it is Hanney RBL and The Bystander leading the way both with 3 wins from 3 so their meeting could be interesting1

The D section is led by The Plough , West Hanney and they have secured 14 points from the 18 on offer after 3 weeks so another of our 3 Hanney based sides is going well. Down the road in Denchworth The Fox,  are the highest points “gatherers” in any of the sections to date with 17 points from their 3 straight wins, but The Wheatsheaf at Didcot are chasing them hard with 16 points from their 3 winning matches.

The B section sees 2 unbeaten sides and remarkably WADS Bar who in 2024 were in the F section are currently sharing top spot with The Royal Oak, Didcot both of whom have 3 wins from 3.

The Premier has no team with 3 wins, but Croft Nomads are leading the way with 13 points and  are still unbeaten , but this week they face a trip to Drayton to face the A section early leaders and also unbeaten Red Lion A

Well it’s only 3 weeks into the season so as they say the only league tables that really matter are the ones that will be there in early September and  that’s still 15 weeks away!

As far as the  new entrants this year all have made encouraging starts and have points on the board in their respective sections and we hope they are enjoying their season so far.

I said I would look at last weeks individual performances and and remarkably the only 2 “sixers ” last week were both recorded in the E section with Richard Bunce hitting one for the Black Horse Hanney and Jon Mole hitting one for the Waggon & Horses Southmoor. There were 17 individual legs of 5 dolls over the sections so an awful lot of throwers missed that elusive 6 by just one doll!

Overall individual top scorer last week was Alex Chamberlain with 13 dolls for Abingdon Conservative Club and Ian McGregor  (Black Horse Hanney), Barry Townsend  (Croft Nomads), Danny Hamilton (The Vine), Matty Belcher (College Oak A), Paul Barrett (Ab Con Club) and Steve Martin (Ab Utd A) all hit 11 dolls and Jason Bowler (Ab Utd A) and Andy Burton (Wheatsheaf ) both landed double figures with 10 apiece.

We did have one disappointment last week with the first walkover of the season conceded because of a shortage of players by one of the sides. Just remember it is  too late to register additional players if you need to. It’s always better to have too many players than not enough and even if individuals don’t want to play every week having “occasionals” available to cover holidays, sickness etc  by having them registered means you can call upon them if needed

And so to this week when hopefully the evening will be a little kinder with the wind, rain and cold giving way to a more temperate early Summer evening!

Roger will be on holiday from Friday 16th May until Saturday 24th May. I know that may be of little interest to you all, but if you do need to register additional players, de-register,  submit scores, enter competitions etc he won’t be around to acknowledge, So in the first instance please contact the other Committee members by using the Team Support option which you will find as a sub header if you click on Scores and Results on the website. Please ensure that you identify not only yourself, but also the team and section you are acting on behalf of.

Someone from the Committee (likely Paul) will respond and if necessary action any necessary urgent requests.

Well, the first week of the season was greeted with a dry, but cold Wednesday evening and lots of interesting results across the 6 sections. What I will try to do is cover all of the sections this season individually, but for this, the first week of the league I will try to cover notably results, team and individual performances across all! Forgive me if I don’t highlight your team., your result or mention a particular member of your team, but there are 60 teams and that’s 480 players taking part each week so a few too many to cover all!!

Let me start with the Premier and A section where the defending Champions from 2024 Bystander A, now playing at and as Abingdon United A fell to a surprising 5-1 defeat at the hands of The Red Lion A despite the very best effort of skipper Steve Martin who top scored for United with 11 dolls. For the Lion Dean Bowler top scores with 8 dolls, but he was well supported by a solid all round team performance and the benefit of a handicap advantage of 3 dolls saw the Lion draw the first leg 18 apiece, but then take the next 2 legs 26-17 and 23-13.

Elsewhere in this section Abingdon Con Club (formerly Ab Utd@Con Club) got off to a winning start with a 4-2 victory over The Vine. Dave Dix hit the highest individual score of the night 14 dolls and Danny Hamilton claimed the first 6 of the season in his 12 dolls for The Vine. Dave was well supported by both Alex Chamberlain and Phil Adams who both hit double figures for the visitors and The Vines John Pownceby also scored 12 dolls. 

There were also winning starts for Croft Nomads who entertained The Plum Pudding, for College Oak A against Stanford in the Vale FC and for Steventon Sports SC A who travelled to Berinsfield SC A. All of these were 4-2 wins. Leading scorers for the Croft was Steve Enock with 12 dolls, Terry Downes with 11 for the Plum. Jamie Knight followed his first leg “blob” with a second leg 6 for the Oak, the only other 6 of the night across all sections! Robert Glen top scored for the FC with 8 dolls.

In the B section there was a battle between two sides of particular interest to Andrew Fudge when the Earl of Abingdon a new venue for 2025 entertained The WADS bar who were playing in this section after winning the F section in 2024. It is fair to say that many of last year’s WADs side were more than a bit worried about their meteoric rise to the B section, but that didn’t seem to be a problem as they turned their first fixture into a resounding 6-0 win led by the Brown boys, Derrick with 10 dolls and Gareth with 9! For the Earl Mick Brown was the best performer with 7 dolls, but his 7 team mates could only manage 24 dolls between them over 3 legs! 

Elsewhere in the B section The Fleur de Leys A were worthy winners beating Abingdon RBL 6-0 who collectively seemed to have an unusually bad night. Ian Heapy led the charge for the Fleur with 11 dolls.

Other results in this section saw wins for the Royal Oak, Abingdon United C and the Croft Bar.

The C section produced a couple of 6-0 results for the Bell Grove B whose captain Jason Lowe was the major contributor with 11 dolls against the Eight Bells and The Fox at Denchworth also were 6-0 victors over the North Star A. Brewery Tap, The Wheatsheaf and the Midget were all also  first week winners in this section.

In the D section there were winning starts for College Oak B, the Prince of Wales, Harwellian A, The Plough, West Hanney and Steventon Sports SC B. 

The E section brought an opening clash between 2 new sides to the league for this season  when The Crown A entertained the George from Sutton Courtenay and they shared the points in a 3-3 draw.

There were, in this section, some good individual performances and despite a 5-1 loss Brian Bosley and Tom Ricketts both playing for Marcham Centre hit 9 and 8 dolls respectively against The Bystamnder but Bystanders  skipper John Mackay with 10 dolls led Bystander to the victory. Elsewhere in the E section John Thomas and Spencer Walton both contributed 7 dolls but Gareth Thomas topped that with 9 dolls as Berinsfield B defeated The Black Horse 6-0. 

The F section saw newbies Long Wittenham Athletic Club ( with a couple of former Plough Long Wittenham  making the short move down the road0 got off to a flying start with maximum points victory over the Plough Appleton and Grove RFC matched that defeating the Lamb B.9 Obviously both the Sports teams had taken their pre season training a bit more seriously than the pubs!)

Not surprisingly so0 early in the season and with lots of teams featuring players who are new to our game there were a fair share of “blobbers”, but we are sure that tthose who failed to record a score in week 1 will soon be celebrating their first doll and going on to score many more over the season so don’t despair we have all been there!

It was noticeable that one ore two teams in the lower sections struggled to turn out full sides so don’t forget you can all add players to your teams to make certain you have enough players each week to cover those on holiday, working away or just unavailable all you need is to do is add their names your teams and they will be eligible to play straight away, but no transfers are allowed during the season if players have  already played for 1 side .

Looking forward to week 2 and the promise of a warm Wednesday!

Welcome to the Abingdon & District Aunt Sally League Summer season! Tonight sees 30 matches taking place across the region with hopefully 60 teams and 480 players old and new on the oche from 8.15 at 30 venues.

We are delighted that a very late additional team were registered late last week to bring our 6 sections all to 10 teams apiece so no byes necessary over the next 18 weeks. The Horse & Jockey at Stanford in the vale were those late entrants after fears over the future of the pub were resolved only in the last couple of weeks. Your Committee had strived to achieve a total of 60 sides so we, together with all of the other teams in the F section who have warmly welcomed back this season.

We are pleased to welcome some new teams to our league and also welcome back some who have missed a season or two and of course we are delighted that our stalwarts who have been with us for many years and have maintained the league through some tough times are all still with us. We especially welcome everyone who is playing Aunt Sally competitively for the first time. Remember it’s not always about the result it’s the taking part that counts and our game can be competitive, it is often frustrating, it can divide opinion, but most of all it is both enjoyable and fun and always played in a good spirit and with lots of banter.

The other thing that stands Aunt Sally apart from other sports is that there are no referees, no automatic technology interventions, no VAR, no appeals or reviews! Every decision is made by humans and always by people who play the game!

So like in any other sport there may  be a few errors over a season, but rest assured any of these these will have been made in good faith and like in other sports mistakes and errors often level themselves up over the course of the season!

Enjoy your evening and may the weather on Wednesday’s be good to us throughout the Summer! That would be a first!

The season starts in earnest next week, but while the sun is shining many teams have been preparing for their season with practice sessions and many friendlies. The enthusiasm seems to be high this year and although we fell just short of our target of 60 teams entered (we actually have 59, a 4 team improvement from 2024) a host of new and some returning teams are most welcome. We hope they all enjoy the next 4+ months of competitive, friendly Aunt Sally and we especially welcome all those players who are looking to play our sport for the very first time!

All the fixture packs etc have now been distributed and left either at venues, or with secretaries or team captains. Many of you have already checked your team lists for name and spelling accuracy so thank you for that, especially those of you who have spotted our not deliberate mistakes!

Tonight our first competition gets underway with the opening round of the Skol Trophy 8’s which this year has attracted 13 entries. All of the remaining competitions take place during the summer months and the closing date for entries is only 6 weeks away and this includes for the 2 new pairs competitions where entries are restricted to team members from Sections B and C or Sections D, E  and F. Competitions are an essential part of our season and we really want as many entries for all of these. Most Competitions have already scheduled dates and venues, details of which are already published on the fixture lists.

Don’t forget you can continue to register additional players throughout the season subject to Committee approval which will, in most cases, be immediate unless the “new” player has significant previous “form” which would either affect the handicap (Section Premier/A) or create a significant inbalance in one of the other sections.

Looking forward to the next 18 weeks and as always enjoy, be good hosts and/or visitors, be grateful to our pubs and clubs who look after us and enable our sport to maintain it’s long tradition of representing Abingdon & District Aunt Sally!