Putting the *bad* in badminton…
Hot off the presses, the final standings have just been published here.
No great surprises, and, as far as our teams go, no promotions or demotions. Here are our teams and final positions.
Well done everybody!
So, 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.
Amongst the things discussed at the committee meeting last week were social matters, and we realised that it’s high time we sorted out another social event, particularly as we’re at the end of yet another season now.
Since the League end of season bash is happening at the end of the month (31st March at Heysham Golf Club again), and then it’s Easter weekend, we picked Saturday 21st April to go for a meal. For a change, we are suggesting the new Thai restaurant on Chapel Street, Mung Mee. A couple of us have eaten there and the food is very good.
I’ll be distributing a flyer with the details around the remaining matches and club nights, and I’ll include a copy of the menu. We’ll book for around 8 o’clock, I would think.
Let me or Stuart know if you want to come. Partners are welcome, of course.
For those of you that may be interested, there are results, details of the draw and near-live match scores for the All England available at http://www.horizonsolutions.tv/live/badminton/07engopen/. It’s pretty slow at the moment, but then they’re probably getting like 20m hits an hour, or something.
Earlier, in the mixed doubles…
1/4 Final M 2
Nathan ROBERTSON & Gail EMMS 1 – 2 ( 17-21, 21-18, 21-23 ) ZHENG Bo & GAO Ling CHN
If anyone has any proposals for either the League AGM or our own AGM, please pass them on to a committee member (Stuart Allan, Lorraine, Cynthia, James, Pam or David Sowerbutts) for discussion at the next committee meeting on Thursday 8th March.
Just find out this evening that the ‘A’ team home match against Sunnyside ‘B’ next week has been re-arranged for the following Monday (19th February), This also has the effect of changing the club night next week. There will now be a club night on Monday evening (12th Feb) 8pm – 10pm.
Hope to see you there.
For information, the ‘A’ team lost their cup match this last week to Ripley ‘A’ by 30 points. The handicap was 68 points in Ripley’s favour. The excitement as we opened the envelope at the end of the night was almost too much to stand.
Last chance to come in on the semi-official club group booking to see England/Germany at the Preston Guild Hall on 22nd of this month. That’s a fortnight this Thursday.
It’s semi-official because there’s not many of us going at the moment, and I’m putting the word around quite informally. This is partly because nobody seemed really bothered about the last one, which is fair enough.
Play starts at 6.45, so it’s an even bigger rush than getting to a home match…
Tickets are a tenner, and we’ll have to sort out some sort of car sharing. There are 4 of us in the the ‘official’ party at the moment, so that’s nice and easy.
I’ll be booking in the next day or so – I’ll probably ask around club night tomorrow (Monday 5th) and then book on Tuesday, if they haven’t already sold out, that is.
James.
Noticed this article in The Guardian this weekend.
Not sure what the point is!
Since, through some weird arrangement of the cup draws, neither the ‘A’ nor the ‘B’ team were ever going to have a match during the next cup week (W/C 22/01/2006), we’ve decided that we should have a friendly match instead of cancelling the hall. So, there you go, Torrisholme ‘A’ versus Torrisholme ‘B’, Monday, 22nd January. Usual time and place. Possibly go for a beer afterwards…
The ‘A’, ‘C’ & ‘D’ teams all won their cup matches last week, and I’m still awaiting the results of the ‘B’ team match. So, next cup week we have the ‘A’ vs ‘B’ on Monday evening, and, if my calculations are correct, the ‘C’ away on Monday night at Ingleton ‘C’ (have fun) with the ‘D’ team away on the Wednesday to Storey’s ‘C’ (St. Martins College).
News just in: The ‘B’ team lost their game. They were some 50 points up in normal scoring at the end, but Storeys ‘B’ had a +90 boost from the handicap committee.
What did you all think of the envelope system for the handicaps, by the way? I think it’s rubbish!There isn’t the interest or excitement of trying to work out how you’re doing against handicap as you’re going along, no room for tactics and the familiar (but meaningless) ‘we just need 10 per game’ stuff! It might as well be just another league game (and it’s easy to forget that it isn’t). We had a cup game last year where we knew going into the very last game that we needed just 8 points (or whatever) for a win. Now that was exciting, watching as we edged closer and closer… We got 6, so lost, but it was exciting at least. This year holds no prospect of such enjoyment.
The previously-trailed club Christmas meal was last night at Quite Simply French. See the handful of pictures I took. With apologies to the club’s newest member, Catherine, whom I failed to picture, for some reason – it certainly wasn’t intentional! Otherwise, I think everybody is in at least one of the photo’s. Enjoy.
From the League Website:
INTERNATIONAL BADMINTON COMES TO LANCASHIRE
On Thursday, 22nd February 2007, Lancashire will once again host an International Match, ENGLAND -V- GERMANY. The Venue will be The Guild Hall at Preston, commencing at 6.45pm, and will be recorded by the BBC for transmission on Grandstand the following week-end.
Germany are rapidly becoming one of the stronger squads in Europe and when the two countries last met it was a very close match. It will be a full international match with 5 events, mens and ladies singles, mens and ladies doubles and mixed doubles. Gail Emms and Nathan Robertson will be playing, together with the new Danish Open winners, Donna Kellog and Anthony Clark. England have probably one of the best squads for many years, come and see them in action.
The last two matches at The Guild Hall have been sell outs so avoid disappointment the Ticket Sales Hotline is 01908 268400 (Badminton England, Milton Keynes)
More information will follow, so to avoid disappointment get ringing!
Anyone fancy it? The last international was quite entertaining, and you may even get on telly, like what I did. I’ll put it in the calendar, anyway.
The Christmas meal has now been booked at Quite Simply French, 27a St. Georges Quay, Lancaster, for 8 p.m. 2/12/2006. This will be the second visit by the club this year, and the last one was thoroughly enjoyable.
This year the meal is £20 per head for 3 courses1. There are no drinks included in that price, and any ‘additions to compliment’ must be paid for separately on the evening (don’t order in advance).
Places are strictly limited and available on a first-come-first-served basis. We require a £5 deposit and your starter and main course preference by 31/10/20062 – Give your money and choices to one of:
but Stuart should be your first port of call, really.
Here, for your convenience, the menu3.
All Starters served with Freshly Baked French Bread
All Main Courses served with Fresh Seasonal Vegetables
Additions To Compliment -
As a quick reminder to all club members, the annual subs (GBP70, but see the ‘welcome’ page for exceptions) must be paid in full by 31/10/2006 for you to qualify to receive the 5 free-club-night vouchers.
Our treasurer, Lorraine, is making a list, and checking it twice, trying to find… well, you know the rest.
Seriously, if you haven’t paid in full, no vouchers. It’s a £15 saving, think about that!
You may or may not have noticed that the calendar link and mailing list link went missing from the sidebar on the main page recently. This is because of a long overdue change of host for the site because of the rubbish service offered by the last provider. Hopefully we should see better availability on the site now than previously. It does mean that I had to remove the calendar and mailing list links, though, simply because these services were hosted by the previous provider.
I have now set up a new calendar for the club, hosted by Google Calendars. You can access this in several ways: If you have a google account yourself (maybe you’ve already got Gmail or a Google calendar of your own) you can subscribe to the calendar and the events can then be overlaid on your own (Google) calender – this is what I will be doing and part of the reason I’m trialling Google for the club calendar – do this by clicking the very obvious button on the side-bar; You can link directly to the calendar using this address; or you can view the calendar on this site on the Calendar page (see also the side-bar, Pages section). I’ll gradually populate the calendar with all forthcoming events and matches. I can’t be bothered to do the whole season right now in one go, but I’ll do the next couple of weeks to be going on with.
Speaking of events, the Golf day I had been going on about for this Saturday looks like a no go at the moment – several people who wanted to come have cried off, and it turns out there’s a comp on at Morecambe anyway on Saturday. I really need to get one of our expert golfers on board to organise the golf side of the day – I don’t mind trying to organise the people to get together, but it would be handy to have someone who’s well into it to help organise tee-times and a format and help out the erm, less able with handicaps and stroke indexes and how to do stableford scoring and things. I’m thinking the Brian Forrest’s and Dave Carney’s and Dave Sowerbutt’s of the club can help out with that side – how about it guys? We’ll try and get something sorted in the next few weeks, yeah?
Follows the text from a document circulated at the end of the last Monday club night before matches start next week. Not sure how many read it, as the team selections may have held more interest. I’ll put up a page with the team selections soon, and then will keep it as current as possible.
Once again, the selection process has been extremely tricky – new faces and an additional team to select have only compounded the usual problem with selection at this time of year, namely the farcically limited time available to observe players and to select teams before matches start. With holidays and other commitments, some players have only been seen once by the selectors prior to this evening, which, as you know is the final club night before the competitive season starts next week (W/C 25th September).
Aside from observation at club nights though, the selectors have, without exaggeration, spent several hours ‘off-court’ deliberating and agonising over the opening selections, so please remember that these were not simply dashed off in the pub in a few minutes, or rashly chosen during the heat of a club night. Nevertheless, we don’t expect to get it absolutely right first time, or expect that the teams will not change throughout the rest of the season. In fact, quite the opposite, the selection process will be ongoing, and we are required by the club to make constant assessment of our choices. Remember, also, that it is our job to select teams, not players, and to select the best teams possible to ensure that the club is as successful in the league and cup competitions as it can be.
Finally, as always, if you have any concerns or queries, or if the selections have puzzled or annoyed you in some way, come and speak to us about it. That goes for the team placings and also for the pairings we’ve made. We’ve spent a long time on this and all of our selections are made with good reason – if our reasoning turns out to be faulty or groundless, we need to know about it.
James Illingworth
Pam Clemmet.
18/09/2006
‘B’ Team
‘C’ Team
‘D’ Team
For information, the Yonex All England Championships 2007 take place between 7th & 11th March 2007.
See here for official information.
Not certain whether we’ll organise an ‘official’ club trip, there’s never been any interest in such a thing in the past, so I don’t imagine that’ll be any different this year.
A few of us did go down a couple of years ago, and had a thoroughly weird time…
As a follow on from the post about the league golf day, I spoke to a couple of the golfers in the club at the bowling night, and we think the club golf day is a definite goer. I’m suggesting we pencil in Saturday 23rd September – this gives us a couple of weeks to get ourselves sorted out, and hopefully the weather will have turned around a bit by then.
We have a choice of Morecambe or Heysham since we have members at each, meaning the non-members can get guest rates (£15 at Heysham) and this will help keep costs down. Personally, I’d prefer Morecambe, cos I’m a member at Heysham and like a change from time to time, but we’ll work out who’s up for it and get a concensus going – the Morecambe members might prefer Heysham for the same reasons (but we can always do it again and switch ends). We’d probably work out something where we split the total cost over all the players – this would seem a bit harsh on any of the players who are members (and so have effectively paid already), but would even out if we do it again at the other venue, I suppose.
I’ll catch up with most of you Monday night, hopefully, unless you’ve gone to the league golf event and don’t make club night!
Feel free to leave a comment about any of this, by the way…
Well, the social committee finally got their collective fingers out and sorted some bowling. By happy coincidence the date we chose for the night, 31st August 2006, was also a charity event at Morecambe Super Bowl in aid of the North-West Air Ambulance, so we were able to have 2 lanes from 7.30 until after 11 plus a buffet for £15.
Great fun, we must do it again sometime.
Pictures available on my Flickr account.
I’ve only just had word of this, and don’t know many details, but it appears that the third annual LM&D Badminton League golf competition will be held this Monday (4th September 2006) at Heysham Golf Club. As far as I know, you need to just turn up at Heysham GC at 5pm. Don’t know about the cost, can’t remember what it was last year. Don’t know if there are any restrictions either, like handicap or something. I told you I didn’t know many details.
I don’t know how long this has been ‘organised’ for, but the timing is absolute garbage as far as I’m concerned – 5 O’Clock on a Monday afternoon, and the first Monday in September?! Our first club night is on Monday at 8, so there’s no way any of us could do both. I bet other clubs are starting Monday, too.
I suggest we organise our own intra-club golf day – do it on a Saturday somewhere and have a laugh sometime before the Autumn/Winter weather really kicks in. Any takers? I know of at least 8 golfers in the club off the top of my head.
I’ve added a mailing list to the site. The intention is to use it for general club announcements and social news and such. Subscribe via this link.
If you are a club member, I strongly urge you to subscribe. You won’t be deluged with pointless mail, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
I toyed with the idea of setting up two lists, one for general club information (e.g. cancelled matches, club night changes and so on) and one for social matters. The idea was that you could sign-up for club news without needing to hear from the social committee ever, if you didn’t want to, but, on reflection, there’s going to be so few mails over a season it seems a bit pointless. If there’s any demand for it, it can still be done. Let me know – email or add a comment to this post.
The link to the mailing list is also in the side bar =====>