Archive | Special Events

Singles World Championship 2024

The intrepid 8 from AASL

 

Glasses at the ready! Half pint souvenir glasses complete with beer vouchers.

 

 

 

 

Someone thought we ought to enter into the World Open Singles Aunt Sally Championship which is held each year at the Charlbury Beer Festival held at the Cricket Club. 

So Paul Barrett organised our entrance, registration for the Aunt Sally and a mini-bus to get us there and, more importantly, back.  We started off with breakfast at the Beans and Blends cafe at Peachcroft at 9.30 and the bus came for us at 11am getting us to the Charlbury Cricket Club just before opening at noon. This early entry allowed us to bag some of the covered seating next to the no.1 pitch, which was nice, as the draw for the matches would take place at 1pm.

This festival is in its 26th year and the Singles competition has been going since 2011 so this was the 12th year (due to covid omissions). Of course we were following in the footsteps of the greats of Barry Parker (2016) and Phil Adams (2019) as champions from the Abingdon league and other league winners like Trevor Dyer, Steve McAteer, Henry Johnson, Roger Goodall, Kevin Powney and latest champion for the last two years Rod Bradford. 

League Players in capitals

Our contestants were Bob Duff, Ian Brook, John Miles, Micky Neal, Paul Barrett, Paul Stone, Steve Enoch & Tom Baldwin. 

With the League players and walk-ins we got to the magic 64 contenders for the challenge.

The draw allocated 32 each side of the ‘board’ – this allowed the organiser (Nick) to split the sides of the board over the two pitches.            

(The league players are in capitals the tryers in lower case)

We were the furthest away from the Beer tent which wasn’t such a bad thing as we still had to be able to see the doll! Beer vouchers were £10 for 4 halves and the bartender just crossed off your sheet.  You can take your own pint glass but the half pint must be used to it fill up.

We were also farthest away from the music tent – one band was ‘giving it all’ in my first game and it made me stop and concentrate! There was a wide variety of performers playing through the day. There must have been 70+ beers available so don’t try testing every one. The free programme listed them all with tasting notes and Cider and Wine drinkers weren’t forgotten.

Anyway back to Aunt Sally and Paul Barrett was first up on pitch 2 drawing Tracey Denton and losing a straight 2 legs (2-1, 3-2). Not a great start and one which he got a ribbing for on the bus home. At this point previous champ Henry Johnson had gone through to be beaten by Semifinalist Alan Goodgame who ended up beating his brother Ian Goodgame to get into the final who’d beat me in the last 32 after one of the lowest scoring tight games! Legs 2-2, 1-1, 2-2 and a 3sticker 1-1 then 1 stick 1-1 then 0-1 in what I thought was back to 6 sticks but it was Oxford rules 1 stick! Never mind – I went out to a solid player on sudden death.

I can tell you its SO much different to a league match when its just you, the sticks and the doll and if you don’t enter competitions you’ll never be able to understand how to control your nerves. 

Steve Enock couldn’t find form but strung it out against Luke Manning with 1 stick killer – legs (0-1, 1-1, 2-1 3 stick 1-1 1 stick 0-1) so another one bit the dust. 

With the luck of the draw Tom Baldwin played Ian Brook in the first round – so we were guaranteed someone in the next 32! However Tom played his socks off with a straight 2 leg win 3-1 and 4-0! I’ll be honest I wouldn’t have put money on that given Ian’s pedigree. Just shows anything can happen in singles. It was just before this game that I got interviewed live on BBC Radio Oxford who were there reporting on all the proceedings with regular ‘updates’ on Aunt Sally. 

John Miles went out to Mark Poulter (1-3, 1-2) who was eventually taken out by Roger Goodall. Micky Neal was also taken out in the first round by Dick Walsh over 3 legs (1-2, 3-3, 1-1). Dick was recounting the Black Prince trophy (Woodstock) which is no longer played due to the pub closing last year. Dick eventually went out to Ian McAteer. 

Meanwhile on Pitch 1 Bob Duff took out Darren Grant (2-1, 1-3, 2-1) and then John Bradshaw again over 3 legs (1-1, 3-0, 2-1) and then into the quarter final after taking out Dave Fry (3-3, 2-1, 1-1).  Unfortunately I didn’t get to see Bob play last year’s champion Rob Bradford as I was queuing for food (for a good 20 mins!) and as you can see I didn’t get a snap of the scores on the board. Suffice to say that Bob did his best and it, as it goes sometimes, was not his best.

World Champion Trophies

Roger Goodall’s winners trophy, sticks and his trademark bottle of talcum powder used on his sticks.

So the final was between Roger Goodall and Alan Goodgame. I did record the event and it’ll be on AuntSallyTV

Roger became the champion once again (previously 2017) so deserved congratulations to him and a big thanks to the organiser Nick and his team and the bricky (Rob Tudge) who stuck up what seemed like most of the time in the sunshine and set out the pitches!

The Abingdon Eight can certainly recommend going if not for the beer and entertainment then for the Aunt Sally, after all anyone of us COULD have been a winner!

Paul Stone
Chairman

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ONE WEEK TO REGISTRATION and we go International!

We have 1 week to go until Registration Night so get your Team and Competition forms together.

Meanwhile in Australia…. Carl Sanders, son of ex-pat and ex-AASL player Frank Sanders is starting a league in Oz as well as an international Istagram account @AuntSallyInt so get following.

He’ll be over in the summer to start an international match between Oz and the UK. We’ve already sent him two dolls to get him going over there.

 

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Radio5 Live – Aunt Sally!

Last summer I spoke to one of the Didcot Women’s Institute (WI) groups about Aunt Sally explaining a bit of history and how to play the game. This inspired the AuntSallyTV video on the history which you can find here.

This week we were emailed from BBC Radio5 live to see if we can come on Gordon Smart’s late show to talk about the same thing after they were told about the game by a listener called ‘Jaqueline’.  They feature unique items local to an area each week. 

The Chairman duly obliged (after being volunteered by the committee, I tried to share the fame but there we are).

If you want to ‘listen again’ catch it on BBC Sounds at around 47 minutes into the recording.

Don’t forget Registration Night on 11th March and forms are online. If you can encourage another team at your venue or a new venue to join us please do!

 

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Twixmas – a good time to think about the AGM!

As it’s now Twixmas (between Christmas and New Year apparently!) and that means it’s fast approaching AGM time on the 15th January AND rule 26 says any items for the AGM need to be in writing to the Chairman 14 days before, you might like to get a glass (or mug) of something, sit down for a bit and think of how we can improve our marvelous game. 

Please get your suggestions, comments or observations in to the Chairman either by email chairman@abingdonauntsally…. or comment on this post as it appears on our Facebook @AbingdonAuntSallyLeague or facebook.com/OfficialAbingdonAuntSally and if you’re not following why not? 🙂

Of course, if you’d like to help run the league, even in a small way, we will always welcome new (or old, or young) faces onto the committee – so have a think about what you could help with even if you don’t want to be officially a committee member. 

At the moment we really could do with a website revamp so if you know, or know someone who knows WordPress/MySQL/PHP come and help – otherwise we’ll have to pay someone – more at the AGM.  If you don’t have technical skills we still need people to help organise and administer the league – most of the effort happens from Registration Night (11th March) to league start (May) then competition organising and then run up to Presentation Night so it’s not an all year effort for everyone. 

Oh and if any teams have trophies from 2019 or 2022 please let us know – we didn’t get all the trophies back in for Presentation Night this year which means we are losing track partly due to the disruption of non-playing previous years. It’ll be a shame if we have to charge the previous winners/runners up for replacements.

In the meantime I hope you’ve all had a great break and enjoy the New Year,

Looking forward to 2024, hearing from you and seeing you at the AGM,

Paul Stone
Chairman

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History: 1990 to 2020 the next 30 years….

This Abingdon and District Aunt Sally Association was founded in 1960 by Basil Collins and collegaues. Basil sadly is no longer with us but when he retired from the league in 1990 he wrote a document cataloging the League in the first 30 years. A reproduced copy is available in the History section on the website.

At the AGM this week Roger Nichols suggested that we should collate the ‘next 30 years’ so we are looking for any historical artifacts you may have to get us started. If you want to volunteer to help please do!

We already have a few photographs in the Photos section but we are lacking a complete set of Finals Night programmes since 1991 and any other stories or newspaper articles that we can summarise and form ‘The Second 30 Years’ booklet. 

Check out the The History Books in the Photos section as well. 

Contact any member of the Committee if you’ve got any:-

  • Old photos
  • Old programmes
  • Old final league tables/scorecards (with important events like this one)
  • Any stories or anecdotes about the game, whether about the weather or great players past, passed and present.

Alternatively login and leave a comment and we’ll be in touch.

 

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Xmas 2020 Update

A Christmas update for all

 

Well, we are approaching the end of 2020 and the country is still in the grip of a pandemic which, as we all know led to the cancellation of our season for very obvious reasons. Whilst many of us would all have wished for a different outcome the reality of a loss of the season was nothing in comparison to what so many have suffered in terms of health, jobs and financial hardship including many of our own Aunt Sally community.

As 2021 fast approaches we would normally be planning for our AGM and subsequent 2021 Registration Night. That would be in anticipation of a season ahead, but at this stage with the virus still raging that would be at best insensitive and at worst just plain foolhardy.

 

So no AGM, no registration night planned until the Spring at the earliest and maybe not even then. There has to be a real and sustained improvement in the situation before we can even contemplate thinking about a 2021 season and what that might look like. Your 2020 committee will let you know what next, but in all likelihood it will be March before we are able to even think about it.

 

In the meantime, we know Aunt Sally is the very last thing on everyone’s mind even the most avid supporters of the game. We hope you can have an enjoyable Xmas, look after yourselves, your families and your friends and here’s hopefully looking forward to a better year ahead for everyone.

Best wishes and most of all stay safe

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Summer league 2020 Update

Unfortunately and after quite a lot of soul searching regrettably the Committee have decided that like the league all of our planned competitions will be also cancelled for 2020. The reasons for this are quite simple,the Covid virus is despite all of our hopes clearly still with us.Despite the easing of the lockdown several of our pubs and clubs have still to reopen and of those that have it will difficult to maintain the guidelines particularly social distancing. there is also a genuine reluctance of many individuals to return to normality particularly time spent in pubs.That is not surprising as many of our players are classified simply because of their age and known health conditions in the vulnerable category.

We have not taken this decision lightly and we did consider several options, but on balance it was felt the right decision was to cancel this years league and competitions entirely. The only exception may possibly be The Founder members trophy where no pre – entry is required you just turn up and play at a single suitable location.We will look at the possibility of holding that perhaps on a Sunday in the latter part of August and will let you know.

Competition entry fees already paid will either held over,donated to an NHS charity or repaid to the entrants.Please could secretaries/Captains let The Treasurer know your preference by the end of July who  will be arranging repayments including to those  teams who have already asked for their entry fees to be repaid.Please also indicate to whom cheques should be made payable to as we have no record of who made payments back in February !

On a slightly brighter note we know that a few teams have or are arranging friendlies which is great and we are sure your venue is also delighted.In doing so can we please ask you to follow all the relevant guidelines relating to social distancing,sanitizing hands, equipment (dolls and sticks) regularly,ensuring track and trace is in place at the venues.You might also want to consider using a lazy doll, picking up your own sticks and giving food a miss !

Sod’s law that much of the summer so far has been really good weatherwise and cruelly it seems especially so on Wednesdays !!

Stay Safe,take care and lets look forward to all getting back playing together again safely in 2021

Your 2020 Abingdon Aunt Sally Committee

 

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Summer League 2020

As a result of the government advice issued yesterday the committee have met and discussed options available to us, it has been decided to delay the start of this seasons league and competitions until further notice in the interests of all of our players.

The committee will keep this decision under review and if government advice changes we will endeavour to facilitate some play this year, one option we have discussed is to play fixtures from the 8th July which would mean teams only playing one match each and fit in as many competitions as possible. We have  planned to review this situation at the end of April and will communicate any plans as soon as we are able.

This situation is beyond any of our control and the first major interruption to our league since inception 60 years ago, we hope that you will accept that in the best interests of us all we had no alternative course of action, when we make final decisions we will keep you all informed, in the meantime stay safe, we want to see you all ready to play again as soon as is humanly possible

Abingdon Aunt Sally Committee

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Summer League AGM

Please note that our Annual General meeting will be held as usual at Abingdon United FC Northcourt Road on Monday 27th January 2020 starting at 8.00pm.

We need to have representatives from as many teams or venues to attend to see how the league is performing and to assist the committee in the  running of our league, it usually only takes an hour or so of your time so please make the effort you will be very welcome.

Registration night details will be made public when agreed at The AGM watch this space  this years Team registration forms will be also published on the website  after confirmation at the AGM.

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