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Unfortunately late on Wednesday afternoon we were advised that Black Swan Abingdon were withdrawing from the League. Black Swan who had been absent from the league for a number of years had only rejoined this season and had been placed in Section F.

Unfortunately despite the best efforts of their landlord and team captain a number of circumstances had left them unable to fulfil their opening fixtures. With the very real likelihood of that being a continuing problem we recommended that they withdraw and on Wednesday when, once again, they had been unable to raise a side they reluctantly agreed.

Any points awarded to opponents because of the Black Swan’s inability to fulfil their fixtures in the opening weeks will be removed.

Regrettably this means that for teams in Section F another 2  weeks without fixtures and reduces the league size to 7 and 12 games.; We would have wanted to avoid this, but hopefully as we know a number of sides have already arranged friendlies to fill “gaps” and hopefully this will continue as there are sides in other sections who also have “gaps” in their fixture list.

We will send to all secretaries details of all sides and their contacts who are without scheduled league fixtures for the rest of the season so those sides wanting to arrange friendlies know who might be available and when!

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!!

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!

You may have noticed our old Facebook account has been closed. This is because Facebook required a profile account to be linked to an identifiable person (with id). SO we’ve now launched a new page based on a ‘business’ setup (it’s still free). From your perspective it looks and feels the same but gives us better control and functionality.

https://www.facebook.com/OfficialAbingdonAuntSally

Or search for     OfficialAbingdonAuntSally

(we couldn’t reuse the old name).

Just ‘Like’ the page and you’ll be kept informed.

We still have our Twitter account @AuntSallyLeague 

So you can keep up with new posts with Twitter or Facebook as you choose.

And of course you can add comments so keep it respectful and let’s spread the word about the great game we love (and hate!).

Paul Stone – Chairman

P.s. I’m looking into why the email system isn’t working so we’ll get that fixed soonest – this works by registering on the site with an email address obviously and emails new post notifications straight to your inbox.

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!