Author Archive | Roger Nichols

Week 5 Results Important

Unfortunately due to my administrative “cock up” the week number 5 which had been updated earlier in the week was over ridden by me yesterday and I failed to re-set it before last night’s matches!! Stupid boy!

 

This means than any team results submitted after last night’s matches and before 7.30 this morning would have been recorded as week 4 NOT week 5, worse still the correct week 4 scores previously input will have been deleted.

All can be resolved and it will give me something to occupy my day, but I do need to know who submitted last night’s result before 7.30 am this morning so that I can move their result to week 5 and I will also need to re-trace their week 4 scores and input those again. Can all teams who had input scores last night or before 7.30 this morning please let me know so I can start putting things right!

For a day or so this possibly means team scores, individual player scores and league tables are inaccurate, but all will be put right asap.

Sorry to all of you affected!!

 

 

 

 

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Week 4 Round up and review

Well, unless I missed it, last week was almost unique in that nobody managed to hit the ultimate leg score of 6.There were plenty of 5’s recorded, but the magic 6 proved elusive.

Top individual scorer on the night was Phil Adams with 13 dolls, but his efforts were not enough to secure a win for the Plum Pudding against Steventon Sports SC  who shared the spoils in a 3-3 drawn encounter and retained their unbeaten record in the Premier/A section.

Elsewhere Richard Berry hit 12 dolls for Croft Nomads who put on their best performance to date in beating Red Lion A 6-0 at Drayton, their first win at the Lion in their last 3 visits. Richard included a 5 in his 12 and in the first leg hit his first 5 sticks, but missed with his final stick. Berinsfield A secured top spot in the Premier section after their convincing win at Stanford FC.

Dave Dix returned after missing the previous week to top score for Abingdon Utd/Con Club in their win at the Bystander

 

In Section B Simon Skelly’s 10 dolls helped early season league leaders Fleur de Leys to a 6-0 win against Eight Bells and in the same section Andrew Wilson also recorded 10 dolls for The Plough, Long Wittenham but it wasn’t enough to prevent a 4 -2 home win for Abingdon Arms A.

Also in Section B Berinsfield B had a night to forget going down 6-0 to The College Oak A.

In the C section  Steve Fisher hit double figures and his namesake Stephen J. Fisher also contributed 9 dolls in their win against The Bell. In the same section Richard Bunce contributed 10 dolls for The Chequers Charney at The Grapes in a 4-2 win against the home pub’s B side.

In section D Croft Nomads secured their first win of the season 5-1 at home to Hanney RBL and  the RBL’s village neighbours The Plough  also went down to their heaviest defeat of the season against Bystander B  despite Mark Wheeler’s 8 dolls. For the Bystander Kevin Higgs top scored with 9 dolls.

So after 4 weeks how are the league tables looking? Berinsfield A are leading the way in the Premier, taking top spot from the unbeaten Steventon Sports A last week.

In the A section despite their second successive defeat Stanford in the Vale FC still lead the way and in the B section Fleur de Leys top the table closely followed by the College Oak A.

Section C is led by Abingdon Con Club and in the D section Bystander B have already opened up an 8 point gap  over their nearest rivals. E section  is led by The Midget who have a 100% record, but they are being closely pursued by both Harwellian B and the Prince of Wales Shippon.

Finally section F is led by The Wheatsheaf Didcot also with a 100% record, but the Fox, Boars Hill are on their tail!

 

Early days yet and there will be lots of chopping and changing over the next 13 weeks of the season and maybe even some warmer Wednesday nights for us to enjoy!

 

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Week 3 with a few surprises

Well, last Wednesday saw a few shocks and in one or two cases some shocking performances!

Let’s start with the shocking performance the match between Croft Nomads and Bystander A in the Premier/A section where no fewer than 9 blobs were registered and in the case of yours truly and your Chairman both playing for the Croft, the shed door looked to be in more danger of being hit than the doll! Fortunately for the Croft the Bystander also struggled on the night and the collective score form the 16 players on the night was 81 dolls. To put that in perspective Steve Enock, Martin Robinson and the “handicap” were joint leading scorers with 9 for the Croft and the handicap of 12 was the “highest performer” for the Bystander!

 

Elsewhere a 6 from Darren Holmes, the only maximum of the week, (welcome back Darren) in his 10 and  10 from  Leigh Clapton was not enough to stop Abingdon Utd/Con Club, missing Dave Dix,  slipping to a 6-0 defeat to the Red Lion Drayton for whom captain Kevin Regan top scored, also with 10 dolls. Red Lion hit, without their handicap,  a remarkable 24 dolls in the 3rd leg, but in the first two legs the teams were only separated by only 1 doll and that was with a handicap advantage of 5 in favour of the Red Lion so it was a close encounter!

Plum Pudding also slipped to a defeat, losing 4-2 to The Hart Harwell. Again 10 dolls was the top score on the night for The Hart it was Paul Leach who and for the Plum Pudding it was Phil Adams who hit double figures. Again overall the scores were very close with only 1 doll between the sides on the night in the first leg with the other 2 legs shared.

Stanford in the Vale FC’s heady start to the season came to  an end at the hands of Steventon Sports who by virtue of their 4-2 victory are the early season leaders of the Premier whilst Stanford retain their place at the top of the A section.

There was a good smattering of individual scores again last week with double figure contributions from Jono Worrell in Abingdon United’s narrow 4-2 defeat by the Abingdon Arms A side, Mark Jones hit double figures for Berinsfield A, and Andy Phipps, Billy Collett, Steve Fisher, John Allnutt all contributed with double figures as highest individual scorers for their teams. It is really encouraging to see so many different players from hitting the what seems to some of us the dizzy heights of double figures from each of the sections.

Early Pacesetters in each of the sections (it is early days, I know) are Fleur de Leys, Hagbourne in the B section, Boundary House and Grapes A in the C section, Bystander B in Section D, Prince of Wales, Shippon in Section E and The Wheatsheaf Didcot in Section F.

Surprisingly after only 3 weeks there is no team in any of the sections with a 100% record in terms of points although a number of teams have yet to lose a match, but all teams have lost or drawn at least one leg!

Next week’s review will concentrate on some of the scores, players  and results from Sections B, C and D.

 

Would secretaries and team captains look out for an e mail in the next day or so regarding the forthcoming Competitions to be held at Abingdon United on June 21st………….we need more entries to make these competitions work for everyone and at the moment it is not looking good in terms of numbers!

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Week 2 Summary and highlights

Firstly let me start with a week 1 apology to Scott Humphries who I failed to mention recorded a 6 in his 13 dolls against Berinsfield A, sorry Scott.

Week 2 saw some very good individual scoring across all sections so for some obviously week 1 was a necessary early season excursion after, for many, a long lay off. Week 2 was a statement of having had the initial game many of you are back on it with 18 double figure scores recorded and unusually individual double figure scores were recorded in every section. Maybe, for some, improved scoring was helped by the fact that last Wednesday was  a  little warmer than previous weeks.

Top doll man last week was Barry Townsend  who hit 13 dolls in Plum Pudding’s 6-0 win over Bystander A. Jason Bowler hit a fine 11 for the Bystander in reply.  Another 6-0 victory in the Premier/A section  saw Stanford in the Vale FC comfortably beat Croft Nomads with Garry Gibbard hitting and Rob Glen both hitting 11, but Garry was the star of the night with his excellent second leg 6 and the result leaves newly promoted Stanford with a clean sweep of 12 points from their first two. matches

12 dolls were recorded by Dave Dix for Ab Utd/Con Club, Paul Leach for The Hart Harwell,and  Phil Soden for College Oak A whilst mention should be made of Dean Bowler,Danny Hamilton, Matt Dingle, Steve Taylor , John Allnutt, Rick Selby, Billy Collett, George Gregory, Bob Duff and Mark Newman all of whom made double figure contributions for their sides last week.

Just a reminder that the Competition entries are due in by the end of the month for all of the remaining competitions which will take place on Sunday June 25th (3’s, 4’s and 5’s) and Sunday 6th August (pairs, singles, Captains and Secretaries)m so please get your entries in asap either direct to a member of the committee or via the team support link on the website.

Finally it was good to hear that some of the teams with byes in sections C and below are taking the opportunity of arranging friendlies when they have no scheduled league fixtures. That’s encouraging and ensures that not only are people playing when they don’t have a  competitive match, but most importantly we are still supporting our pubs and clubs every week.

Hope week 3 goes well for everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

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Week 1 Round up and Highlights

Well the season is now well and truly underway and on a typically cool, but refreshingly dry early May evening 42 welcomed in the 62nd year of the Abingdon & District Aunt Sally League.

Remarkably of the 21 fixtures there was only one “sixer” on the night and that was for the Prince of Wales in Section E. Not surprising the “sixer” was Dave Harris who hit another 5 dolls to record a very commendable 11 dolls for the “feathers” in their 6-0 win against visitors Sutton Courtenay FC.

There were only 3 other clean sweeps on the night (6-0) and that included newly promoted Stanford in the Vale FC who hosted Red Lion A in Section A . Grapes B also had a 6-0 home victory over the Fox Denchworth in a match notable for some individual good scoring, for The Grapes Mick Brown, Wayne Waldron and Mick Christopher all contributed 9 dolls apiece and in response the ever consistent Steve Taylor replied with 10 dolls, but if was not enough to stop The Grapes winning  the three legs with scores of 19-16,21-15, and 16-13.

In the Premier section Abingdon Utd/Con Club won 4-2 at their new home in Ock Street against Berinsfield A with contributions of 13 from both Scott Humphries and, of course, Dave Dix (at least I got to the 3rd paragraph before mentioning Dixie!)

There were plenty of other double figures recorded on the night with Ian Morrison and Colin Brind both recording 11 for Steventon Sports A against the newly established Bystander A side, Simon Reeves hitting 11 for The Hart in their 3-3 share of the spoils against Croft Nomads for who Ian Brook top scored with 10 dolls. Elsewhere Paul Ealey (Abingdon RBL), Danny Hamilton (the Vine), Stuart Wilson (Berinsfield A) all started their seasons with 10 dolls apiece.

There were a few less notable scores on the night, but on the basis it’s early days we won’t mention those who failed to know it’s good because they didn’t hear the wood! It’s early days and whilst the top scorers deserve the mentions it is the rest of you who make this game so enjoyable and frustrating in equal measures!

So 11 players out of 168 managed double figures in week 1 so 157 of us have lots of room for improvement as we approach week 2 tomorrow!

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Tonight’s the Night

The Coronation of King Charles the Third might have been the highlight of the last weekend and the excitement seems to be building for the Eurovision song contest weekend coming (although I doubt that too many Aunt Sally players will get too excited about that!) There’s also a bit of interesting football with the Champions Leagues semi finals taking place midweek and at least one Aunt Sally player I know will be looking forward to the Europa Conference League semi final, but only because it’s so long since the team he supports were in a semi final of any kind!

But in reality the highlight of the week must be the return of the Abingdon & District Aunt Sally League tonight and with an increased number of teams taking part up from 48 lin 2022 to 52 in 2023. Welcome everyone!

So what does it really mean? Well for a start it means that we enter our 63rd year as a functioning organisation and despite all of the gloom and doom that seems to surround us it means that over 200 of us will turn up to play at 26 locations every Wednesday for the next 18 weeks playing the game that keeps us both captivated and frustrated every year. It means that the good natured rivalry and banter will be back and old friendships and acquatancies  will be renewed.

It probably means that the evening will be damp and cold which so often typifies the opening weeks of our season!

Our game is really important to the pubs and clubs that we support and who support us because how many of us who play and support us would be heading off to the pub or club every Wednesday through May until September and for the publicans/managers and stewards that’s so welcome considering the financial hit they have taken over the past 2 or 3 years.

Our game is open to everyone with no minimum or maximum age, any gender, any colour, creed or religion, no minimum entry levels of ability (if there were we would soon see a deduction in the number of players!). It’s not an easy game to play, but it is both fun and often very competitive. It’s  a social game with sometimes a bit of gamesmanship thrown in, there’s no VAR to decide whether it was a doll or not, no throwing ourselves to the ground, abusing officials  and it is not likely to be recognised as a spectator “sport” or admitted to the  Olympic games anytime soon, but never say never! 

It’s a game we all enjoy and just going back, for a moment, King Charles the Third and the new Prince of Wales have both thrown sticks in the past and the photos are on our website to prove it!!

 

Enjoy the season, play hard, play fair and respect each other and your opponents!

 

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2023 8’s Competition is underway

Last week saw the launch of the 2023 season with the 1st round of the team 8’s competition and the 4 matches held on  a typically “cool” early May evening were closely contested, none more so than the one between Premier Section “giants” and the relative newcomers to Aunt Sally from Steventon Sports B.

It obviously helped the newbies from this years Section F to receive the cushion of a 10 doll handicap advantage but nonetheless they did the Stevie boys did themselves proud before bowing out 2-1 and losing the deciding leg by only 1 doll 22-23. Credit to the Stevie team, they are in the lowest section and I think the first side to enter the competition from the lowest section, that result shows that with the handicap system in place even the very best teams can be seriously challenged and under pressure in this Competition. Both teams reported that it was a very enjoyable evening and Steventon Sports despite losing the competition had the enjoyment and satisfaction of winning the beer leg!

 

Other results also showed this with Section C teams The Bell Grove, and The Fox Denchworth defeating Section B sides Abingdon United and Abingdon RBL in close encounters. The other tie saw Berinsfield A ease out Steventon Sports A in an all Premier section tie.

The next round draw, to be completed by the end of June, will see The Bystander A  pitted against Plum Pudding, Berinsfield A entertaining The Bell Grove, Croft Nomads at home to Abingdon Con Club and Abingdon Utd/ConClub hosting The Fox Denchworth.

 

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Update on 2023 Season Section formation etc

Since Registration Night there has been a few additional teams registered bringing the total number of teams registered to 52 an increase of 4 from 2022. Whilst this is great because our prime objective is always to grow both the number of teams and individuals playing our game as possible. 52 represents a not insignificant growth in numbers when you consider the challenges that pubs and clubs and their customers (us!) face in these difficult economic times.

The increase in numbers has, though,   presented us with a dilemma, but in keeping with our desire to have as many teams as possible playing we have decided to add an extra section this season. This means that there will be 10 teams in the Premier/A section and in the B section with 8 teams in Sections C,D,E, and F. This means that instead of 18 matches in these sections there will be only 14 with 4 byes in each.

It’s worth reminding all teams that positioning in sections is, as it has been for several years, based on the aggregate score of the top 8 players from the previous season assuming they have registered again for 2023. In a few cases some teams and some players did not play in 2022, so where appropriate averages from their last full season (2019) has been taken into account. This process means that some teams may find themselves in a higher or lower section this year than last and this is simply because either their average determines that or because their registered players have changed. The handicap system used for the Premier and A section is based on exactly the same principles. 

On the positive side, for those sections with less teams  we have been able to arrange  the sections so that they free up 2 teams from each section each week which will give the opportunity to either arrange friendlies or even an informal “supplementary league” with teams from across 4 sections having the opportunity to play each other. We will have to sort out how best that is organised a bit later, it will probably need to be sorted by the teams affected, but it does give the opportunity for all teams to play 18 games and every week over the season if they want to..

As a result of these considerations the production of the fixtures etc has been slightly delayed, but all of the details will be with you by the end of April. The  league season proper starts on May 10th with the 1st round of the team 8’s knockout handicap competition scheduled for the week earlier May 3rd and the draw for those games will be published on the website and to the respective teams in the next few days.

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Registration Night _Tonight

Don’t forget registration night is tonight from 7.30 in Abingdon Conservative Club. All team entries are £45 and include up to 15 registered players. 

 

Unfortunately Brian Collins, the much revered “stickmaker” is unable to make it tonight, but he is happy to take orders and we will arrange collection and delivery on your behalf.

As with everything prices have increased since our last registration night (that was 4 years ago!) 

Prices are 

Set of sticks (1.6 or 1.8 weight)                £ 40

Dolls                                                             £     9

Swivels                                                        £   13

Irons                                                            £  20   

Prices include collection and delivery on your behalf.

Unfortunately we can only accept cheques or cash and if you order either tonight or online via the Team Support facility on the web site (by the end of March) items will be delivered to you by mid April.

 

 

 

 

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Changes and vacancies on the League Committee

Earlier this week our Chairman, Reg Couch decided to stand down after 4 years in the role. Reg took over as Chairman back in 2019 and before that had held the role of Vice Chairman.

We thank Reg for his past service to the Association in his various capacities. Reg has also  been one of our longest serving players, playing most recently for The Fox at Denchworth in what has been very much a family affair with his wife and son playing alongside him, together with their good friends, Vic and Pauline Pratt.

Unfortunately it looks like Fox B are not going to have sufficient players to form a side this coming season so Reg may be available for “transfer”, at this stage I don’t know whether a fee will be required! No doubt sides based around Grove and Wantage looking for more players could be interested!

Reg’s resignation leaves a gap on the Committee so if anyone is interested and is willing to be co-opted please make contact with any of the Committee formally or informally. It’s not too onerous a job half a dozen or so  Committee meetings over 12 months, support for the Competition days (2), and being present on Finals night and  the Annual Presentation Awards Night at the end of the season.

No money is involved, all Committee roles are entirely voluntary and all decisions made by the Committee are intended to be non controversial and in the best interests of all members of the league and all of  the people who play our game.

As a result of Reg’s resignation Paul Stone has been asked, by the Committee,  to take the Chair for 2023. Paul has accepted that role and we are confident that having Paul back on the Committee and now taking on the role of Chairman will be a real plus for the League going forward.

Once again on behalf of the League our  thanks and best wishes to Reg and a warm welcome to the Chair Paul!

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