Point Per Rally
By JamesSo, we’re going to be asked to vote on using the new point per rally scoring system at the league AGM this year. From the League website:
THE RALLY POINTS SCORING SYSTEM
The new Rally Points Scoring System, adopted by Badminton England some 12 months ago is now used in all events run by Badminton England, this includes County Tournaments, County Matches and Junior Events. From next season the Inter-town League will play to this format.
The time has now come for our League to make the decision whether to ‘go with the flow’ so to speak and adopt the system for play from next season.
A demonstration of the new format will be held at the new Sports Hall at RIPLEY SCHOOL, Ashton Road, Lancaster, on Thursday, 5th April, 2007, commencing at 7.30pm. This will show how the new scoring system works, together with serving positions on court. A notification has been sent to all Club Secretaries about the evening, but all of you please come along and see for yourself.
The matter will be an Agenda item at the A.G.M. in June, where it will be discussed and voted upon.
Details of the new scoring system can be found on the Badminton England web-site - badmintonengland.co.uk and go the Events page, right hand column.
Personally, I don’t think it’s a good idea to take a format which was specifically developed so that international-standard play would be more palatable to a TV audience and then try to apply it to local league standard players (a sixty-second interval at 11 points? What, really?). Keeping track of the position of players looks difficult (an assumption backed up by the number of professional player and umpire errors in evidence at the recent international in Preston) and I’d be concerned that the system will just make people more tentative and defensive, and could lead to slow, drawn out games. Also, any system where you can lose a match by serving into the net is going to suck at our level, frankly.
Take a look at the rules. Download the simplified rules below, copied from the Badminton England website.
What do you think? Feel free to leave a comment.