Archive | Competition News

Competition Sunday this year at Abingdon United FC was a hot one and kicked off with registration at 1pm and draws following. Played in the order below the Competitions were:-

Captains – 8 entrants

Secretaries – 8 entrants

Pairs – 12 entrants

Singles – 24 entrants

At the AGM we adopted the ‘Winter’ rules on Competitions so best of 3 legs and if drawn over those 3 then 3 sticks/1 stick/6 sticks with the same order after tossing for 3 sticks. 

Final singles games (some hard fought) ended around 6.30pm.

Teams taking part were The Bell @Grove, Croft Nomads, Abingdon Utd@Con Club, Abingdon Con Club, Berinsfield SSC, The Plum Pudding, Abingdon Utd C.

Those still standing at the end ….

Captains Finalists – D.Sapey & S.Fernback

Secretaries Finalists – B.Duff & G.Lee

Pairs Semi-Finalists  – K.Fisher & P.Adams,    B.Duff & P.Barrett,    S.Enock & I.Brook,    P.Leach & D.Bradshaw

Singles Semi-Finalists – P.Stone, B.Duff, L.Clapton, G.Lee

Captains and Secretaries to be played on Finals Night.

Pairs and Singles Semis/Final on Presentation Night. 

Many thanks for Roger Nichols for collating the entries, Claire Foster, Roy Taylor and Alan Foster for draws, recording and scoring. Also to Brian Clapton (and team) for getting the pitch sorted and the bar staff, without which it would definitely been too dry. To those who did their share of sticking up/calling in what became a free sauna in the shed – thank you!

NOTE from Roger….

I would just like to add my thanks to all who turned up and played Sunday for the Pairs, Singles, Captains and Secretaries Competitions and congratulate all the successful semi finalists in both the Pairs and Singles who will contest the remainder of their competitions on Presentation Night. Congratulations also the the finalists in both the Captains and Secretaries Competitions who will meet on Finals Night at Abingdon United on September 18th.

After a lot of soul searching over the future of the Competitions, and when to hold them,  together with lots of chasing to make sure we had  sufficient entries, which in one or two cases needed individuals to be gently persuaded we have been able to maintain our long held tradition of staging these Summer league competitions and that’s great for our game.

I do need to apologise to a couple of players, Mick Greenaway of Berinsfield  and Dave Taylor from The Bell Grove who due to a bit of confusion on my part were initially omitted from the Singles competition. Luckily we were able to accomodate Mick  thanks to Roy Taylor giving up his place in the draw, but Dave missed out altogether and for that I sincerely apologise Dave.

The confusion was caused by changes caused by both no shows of entrants on the day and late entries which we accepted on the day to boost the number of entries for each of the Comps and a bit of incompetence on my part!

It was a long  and a hot afternoon with some excellent throwing and quite a few surprises. No 6’s on the day, but a few 5’s and lots of dolls spread around all of the entrants. So well done to all and I should give a special mention to Steve Fernback secretary of the Bystander B previously (and soon to be again) The Fox Boars Hill team in Section E on reaching the final of the Secretaries comp.

Thanks to everyone for their entry, their patience and for their commitment which enabled us to stage 5 of our traditional 8 Summer Competitions. We now need to move on in the next few weeks to see if we can stage the remaining 3 Competitions involving teams of 3’s, 4’s and 5’s so you can all expect some reminders, some cajoling and hopefully that will ensure that we reach our minimum number of entries to enable these to be held before the end of the season!

Finally, it was great to see our President and playing legend John Simmons with us for most of the afternoon, it’s always a pleasure to see and talk to John and to appreciate what a great attribute he, and his father before him have been to our game.

Scoreboard photos below – sorry I was too slow to get the Secretaries scores (or Roger was too keen to get the Pairs going!). 

Click for full screen view – draws in the left column, results in the right. 

Captains & Secretaries Draw for Captns & Secs on same sheet above	Sorry no scores for Secretaries.
Pairs
Singles

Before I start with a review of last week’s highlights I need to highlight a totally unexpected situation which we experienced last week and one which led to the unfortunate abandonment of  a league match in Section E between the Bystander B and Horse & Jockey A teams. It was a situation which previously we, as a league were totally unaware of, but which we need to bring to all of our teams attention. the Horse & Jockey had a number of players unavailable so the young daughter of the team  captain was playing. She was a registered player, but is only 14 years old (there is no age restriction for registering players).

If the game had been played at the Horse & Jockey there would have been no problem, but the match was at the Bystander and although there is signage displayed at the pub entrance stating the conditions there is a licensing condition imposed on the Bystander licence which restricts under age children/young adults using the pub after 9pm including the garden where Aunt Sally is played. On this occasion, and at 9pm the 14 year old from Stanford in the Vale was told she had  to leave and as she was 14 and no way of getting home alone that caused the match to be postponed midway through the second leg. Quite rightly other members of the team had to ensure she had transport home from Wootton!! All very unfortunate.

We were unaware of this restriction as indeed were the visiting side from the Horse & Jockey before last Wednesday. After questioning this “rule” with the Area Manager from Greene King it appears this is just one of several “special conditions” that can be applied to licensees by the licensing authority. Breaches of this can, if reported, result in fines being levied and potentially the pub licence being  revoked.

Whilst on this occasion it was addressed by the licensee and affected one of our  players the restriction  would also apply to ANY under age child on the premises. So if a player was to take an under age child to the Bystander as a spectator on a warm and balmy Summer’s evening particularly during the school holidays they would/should be asked to leave at 9pm and in most events with games starting  8.15  this would be midway through the match. Fortunately, both sides were mature enough to agree a match outcome, but the evening was spoilt for both sides due to this previously unknown (until last Wednesday) restriction.

A lesson for us is that we need, before registering any team in future years,  to understand whether there may be any restrictions limiting the prospect of Aunt Sally being played there or even spectated by children!! Really disappointing at a time when we are trying,  and this year succeeding,  to “grow” the league again post Covid as well as most  importantly, getting people, via the game of  Aunt Sally back into pubs spending money on Wednesday evening’s throughout the Summer.

If that was the lowlight of last week let’s now move on to look at last week’s highlights.

In the Premier/A section the two leading teams in the Premier both fell to defeat to sides,  who are now the leading 2 teams in the A section.  Abingdon Utd/Con Club retained the Premier top position despite their 4-2 defeat at the hands of the Red Lion Drayton whose win made this a league double over Ab Utd/Con Club. This defeat was despite a contribution of 13 dolls from Dave Dix, together with 12 from Leigh Clapton (including a 6) and 11 from Phil Adams for Con Club/Utd. For the Lion Dean Bowler led the way with 11 dolls and Scottie Tabor also returned double figures with 10.

Croft Nomads lost 4-2 at the Plum Pudding and this defeat enabled the Bystander to move into second place following their comprehensive 6-0 victory over The Vine. This was The Bystander’s third win on the bounce and The Vine’s 5th straight defeat. Croft Nomads top scorer was Alan Bell with another 13 doll haul and Barry Townsend also weighed in with 10 dolls, but Paul Leach’s 11 including a second leg 6 was a major contributor for the Plum in a game where over the 3 legs were separated by only 1 doll but crucially 2 points! The Bystander top scores were all 10’s from Dave Hudson, Jason Bowler and Jumbo Mott and the collective team amassed 76 dolls on the night!

Elsewhere in the Premier Alec Chamberlain was another star with a 13 doll haul for Berinsfield SC A but his efforts were in vain as College Oak ended a 3 match losing run with a 4-2 victory.

Elsewhere last week in the B section The Croft Bar got back to winning ways with a 4-2 home win against The Plough Long Wittenham and the Fox Denchworth enjoyed their first win since the opening week of the season beating Abingdon RBL with a maximum 6 points. Notable other individual double digit scorer on the night was Mark Newman for the Prince of Wales Shippon with 10 dolls.

COMPETITIONS

I need now to move to make a last impassioned plea to save our competitions for 2024. At the recent AGM it was agreed that any Competition with less than 8 entries would not be held this summer. We have tried, now on several occasions to enrol more entries by both sending out reminders to Captains and Secretaries as well as on the website.

I am pleased to say that has, in part, been successful and we have now sufficient entries in both the singles and pairs, but we are still short in others. To run the Captains and Secretaries competitions we need 2 more entries for each, so come on, there must be some Captains and Secretaries out there who are prepared to enter and ensure the future of these competitions. Also we need at least 2 more entries for both the team 4’s and the Red Drive team of 3’s to enable those competitions to go ahead.  In our last desperate plea we have decided to allow late, late entries and we will accept entries right up until after next week’s league fixtures on Wednesday August 7th.

The singles and pairs competitions will take place at Abingdon United FC on Sunday August 11th with, probably, a 1pm draw and a 1.30 start. If we do get the additional entries we need we will play the Captains and Secretaries Competitions on the same day. The 3’s and 4’s if we do get some late entries will need to be arranged although we could possibly play those on the same day using the second throw. Unfortunately it doesn’t look as we will generate sufficient entries to stage the Tom Simmon’s 5’s trophy this year. That is really unfortunate because our President John Simmons has a vested interest in this Competition having both previously been on the winning side (more than once) and as the Trophy was presented and named in memory of his father. 

SO DO TRY TO RUSTLE UP ENOUGH PLAYERS TO MAINTAIN THE LONG ESTABLISHED TRADITION OF BOTH INDIVIDUAL AND TEAM COMPETITIONS TAKING PLACE EACH SEASON AND PROVIDING EVERYONE WITH THE OPPORTUNITY OF COMPETING! WITHOUT THESE COMPETITIONS IT WILL BE LIKE FOOTBALL WITHOUT THE FA CUP AND WE ALL KNOW THAT OFTEN THE UNDEDRDOGS BEAT THE FAVOURITES IN ALL SPORTS!!

The 8’s competition is taking place and has reached the semi final stage with ties to be played before the end of August and there is only one team from the Premier/A section left so that should give us all the hope of causing an upset!! The semi draw is available in a separate post.

Well, most of us have been distracted by the Football, some of us by the Tennis at Wimbledon and we also had 3 days of Test Cricket and that’s all in the last week and like most sports there was a mix of good and bad, highs and lows, disappointments and ecstasy depending on who you support. The European Championship Cup Final was a major disappointment, but also a good performance reaching the final of a major championship which France, Germany, Portugal and 19 other countries didn’t!

The tennis saw us have a really good number of English players reach the main competition, but there was never any real expectation of an English player making it through to the final stages of the singles competitions. In cricket we enjoyed a resounding win in the first test against the West Indies, but that was only the first of leg with two still to play!

So after missing last week to enable us to focus on our national sports it’s back to the bread and butter with the focus well and truly back on our own Aunt Sally league. We still have 50% of our games still to play so nothing can be decided or assumed yet! The one thing that is certain is that there will be winners and losers in all of our sections at the end of the season and like all sports we will be either delighted with our individual or team performances or disappointed that we didn’t play as well as we could or should have done! That’s what team sports and games are all about!

Talking of Competitions we have still not received any additional entries for the team 3’s, 4’s, and 5’s  nor the Secretaries and Captains competitions and with the closing date only a couple of days away it really does look as if we will be unable to stage these comps this year simply because of a lack of entries which is extremely disappointing when you think we have 56 teams in our league each with a Captain and a Secretary and over 600 registered players! Still not to late though, but the closing date is Thursday and that cannot be extended any further!

So what does this Wednesday look like in terms of fixtures? Well, there are a few local or near local derbys. In the Premier/A section Steventon Sports entertain Red Lion Drayton who are just 3 bus stops down the road, in the B section league leaders host their near neighbours from Denchworth, the Fox, though I doubt there are any buses from Denchworth to Stanford on on a Wednesday evening!  The Grapes B make the short trip to Abingdon United. The C section sees Abingdon Con Club make the short trip up Ock Street to play the Grapes A and might pass the Brewery Tap players as they make their way to North Abingdon to take on the College Oak B in section D where the Plough Hanney renew rivalry with near neighbours from the Chequers at neighbouring Charney Bassett. In the E section there’s a battle of the Causeway when the teams from Steventon Sports and the North Star meet at the Star, but the closest of all the near derbys will take place in Wootton where the Bystander C have to cross the road to get to the WAD’s bar!

Have a good week and don’t forget those last minute Competition entries!!

8’s Knockout Handicap

Well, the Summer Season is underway with the First Round of the Team 8’s competition providing the first competitive games of 2024. Many other sides have also made a start with friendlies and team practice nights on what, has been, a fairly chilly start to our Summer.

The 8’s Competition saw 4 games played on Wednesday night and the victorious sides were Abingdon United@Con Club who easily dispatched the challenge of a 7 player side Croft Nomads in 2 straight legs, Berinsfield SC A whose visit to The Bell Grove saw them progress by 2 legs to 1 on what was reported to be a thoroughly enjoyable evening, Steventon Sports B with a massive 10 doll advantage saw off Premier side Bystander A 2 legs to nil and in the other game played last night was  another local derby between Abingdon RBL took the honours with a 2 -1 victory over Abingdon United C.

So the draw for the next round sees

• Berinsfield A at home to Abingdon Con Club with the Con Club getting a 6 doll leg advantage
• Ab Utd@Con Club at home to The Fox Denchwoth who will get a 4 doll per leg advantage
• Steventon Sports B 0f the E section will entertain The Bell Grove B  and will have a 4 doll advantage
• Abingdon RBL  will have home advantage against Harwellian B and as both teams are in the B section there will be no handicap advantage or either side.

These games need to be completed by the end of June on a date mutually agreed by both sides.

Summer League Matches

Looking ahead to the league season which starts next Wednesday just a few reminders for everyone:-

• All fixture packs and other information including match cards have been circulated to all team secretaries
• Fixture list is also available from the home page
• League matches are scheduled to start at 8.15
• All registered players are listed on your team listing on the website 
• Hopefully all names and spellings have been checked and where necessary amended. Click here to review and notify team support if names are wrong.
• It is not too late to register additional players throughout the season and all will be confirmed immediately (before they play) unless they are registering for teams in the Premier/A sections who are subject to a handicap.
• Competition entries need to be made and fees paid by May 19th. Entry forms are available online
• 2024 sees the opportunity for teams in the B,C,D, E and F sections to enter Competitions not open to teams in the Premier and A sections. We hope to attract enough entries to hold separate team 3’s, pairs and singles competitions to be held on a date and venue to be confirmed later dependent upon the number of entries. Players and teams in these sections can of course still also enter the regular Competitions scheduled to take place on Sundays in June and August.
• All new teams/locations will need access to the website so they can input and check match scores. These will be sent to Captains/Secretaries in the next few days

That’s the official bits and pieces now for the polite reminders…………..Aunt Sally is a game with a lot of history and tradition and over the past 60+ years these have  been well respected and observed (most of the time!)

• Aunt Sally is a game that is both competitive and enjoyable and full of banter. Most of all it’s intended to be played in a good spirit enjoyed by all regardless of ability or results.
• Occasional bad language is inevitable, but continuous swearing and unwelcome abuse although rarely experienced is just not acceptable. Remember we are guests of our pubs and clubs and particularly in garden areas we share the facility with other customers including families often with young children. Let’s not cause anyone any offence or reason to complain!
• Beer legs are a long held part of our tradition and let’s wherever possible keep that going. These are  played traditionally at the end of the evening and often encourage more fun and banter which are essential to our game, also allow others who do not play regularly to take part. The nature of these legs are agreed by the Captains on the night (last leg vs separate or team vs 1:1) and although inflation has taken it’s toll with the price of drinks beer legs are still an integral part of our Wednesday nights and long may that continue!
• Food……..perhaps (for some!!) is another important part of our Wednesday evenings and many pubs and clubs are particularly attractive because of the post match food! We are always grateful to the landlord/stewards for providing this and most home teams do pay for the food provided either in full or part. Football cards are a source of income which helps with the cost so don’t be shy make sure you spend a few bob to support!

      None of the above are rules but I don’t think you will find too many teams or individuals who don’t agree with them.

Remember we are looking to maintain and grow our game to do that we need  support our pubs and clubs all of whom face real financial challenges and struggle to  survive. We want to attract more sides., more players particularly a younger generation, we want our game to be fully inclusive and it is encouraging over the past couple of years to see a significant increase in the number of ladies taking part and maybe it won’t be long before we introduce a bit of discrimination with ladies only competitions!!

To everyone old and new, enjoy the season, be fair, be respectful to each other, share the load with your team mates  in terms of setting up calling, sticking up or chalking and packing away, make some new friends, have some laughs and most of all ENJOY!

You know it’s good when you hear the wood!

The 2024 Fixture list is now available online (on the homepage) and includes some last minute changes to C Section which will not be in the printed packs. 

We have 56 teams in the league (up from 52 in 2023) including some new venues so do welcome them into the fold! 

Roger is busy preparing the packs and we will be getting them out to the venues next week. 

League starts on 8th May with Preliminary rounds of the 8s knockouts next week on 1st May.

COMPETITIONS !! – Get your entry forms in before 19th May.

Do please check your player names and Captains/Secretaries check your login still works. Any issues email Team Support.