Hi guys, a quick update on how the current Thursday league is looking.

Generally, it hasn’t been great! Holidays, the return of the 11’s season, injuries, illness etc have meant that most teams have had spells this season where they have struggled to field a side. No one’s fault, just one of them things.

We’ve also had 6 teams drop out since the start of the season, and although we have teams lined up to come back in in the near future, I’m desperate to get this season finished as soon as possible. From my point of view, going to three divisions has been a mistake. Divisions of 6 are more affected by teams dropping out and cancelling, and it means we have fewer options for getting league fixtures on when teams cancel, so we will be returning to two bigger divisions for the new season. Three divisions of 6 does have it’s place, but this wasn’t the right time.

Over these next few weeks we’d appreciate as much patience as possible from our teams. Once the titles are decided in each division we will end the season and get the new one started. Obviously we still have our pitch fees to pay (the agreement with Life Leisure is that if we have any games on we have to pay our pitch costs in full), so we’d appreciate teams taking up the option of a friendly on the weeks where we can’t get you a league game

Here’s a quick breakdown of how the individual leagues are currently looking.

Premiership

In the last few weeks, Inter Yanan have dropped out, leaving us with 5 teams. Unfortunately, one team had played them twice, a few teams had played them once, and one team hadn’t played them at all. This means it would be unfair on those teams who’ve played them to give the other teams a forfeit win, so we will remove the results for those games and the season will be an 8 game season.

Championship

GX FC dropped out early on in the season and were replaced, Surf On Turf dropped out a few weeks ago and TNF have dropped out this week. We do have some teams due to return (GX FC being one), but the title looks like it is pretty much decided so the games that get played in the next few weeks might not make that much difference to the final league table.

League One

We had a team drop out before the season started, and The Fellas dropped out without playing a game. Stockport Athletic took one of the spaces, but they also dropped out last week. CS FC have moved over from the Wednesday league this week, but as with the Championship, it looks likely that the title will be decided in the next couple of weeks.

Again, thanks for your patience in recent weeks, it’s not been ideal. We will hopefully have the new season starting as soon as possible, probably early October.

So, we were extremely pleased to be able to be able to return to 4 divisions for the start of the new Sunday league which kicks off this weekend, and we know a lot of the new teams are reliable as they have been playing friendlies for weeks. Happy days!

But then more teams kept getting in touch wanting to get involved for the new season, so at the end of the current season we were left with 26 teams for 24 slots, and in the last couple of days we’ve had a couple more enquire about joining up. We find it very hard to say no to people, so here’s the plan…

We are still going to have 4 divisions. The top two divisions will be made up of 6 teams playing each other twice (nice and straightforward). The bottom two divisions will be made up of 8 teams. Each team will play each other once, then the top 4 and bottom 4 will be split with the teams in each half playing each other a second time. Both formats make it a 10 week season. We know we will have to add weeks on for games missed, especially as April contains City v Liverpool at 4.30pm on Sunday April 10th and Easter Sunday on 17th April.

As we also don’t want to have to start games at 4.30pm or 9pm, we are having a play with the kick off times, and this is very important. Where we have previously fit a 50 minute game into an hour long slot, we are now going to be fitting them into a 55 minute slot. This means there is NO SCOPE FOR GAMES RUNNING OVER IF TEAMS ARE LATE. If your game kicks off late it will still need to finish by the time of the kick off time of the next game.

The new kick off times are going to be as follows:

5pm, 5:55pm, 6:50pm, 7:45pm and 8:40pm

Once your game is done, please vacate the pitch as quickly as you can so the next game can get kicked off, out of respect to the other teams.

We are so grateful to be having to work out a problem of this nature. To have too many teams is something we could only have dreamed of, and though we got to 5 divisions last summer we know a lot of that was down to the release from lock down meaning everyone wanted to play. To get back to those team numbers is a vindication for the work we put in, and in no small part an indication of the quality of our referees, as teams wouldn’t stick around if our refs weren’t up to scratch!

We can’t wait to get going for the new season. Let’s have a good one!

So, we’re basically a month away from the due date of the Ballers baby. Without being dramatic (I’m not the first person to ever have a baby to look after…), one of my biggest stresses at this time is how I’m going to be able to keep the business running smoothly at a time where my personal life is going to be facing a massive (but happy!) change. I’m a bit worried about a lack of sleep too…

I want the leagues to continue with minimal disruptions, but I’m going to need all the help from you, the teams, to make that happen. I have people who can cover the evenings in terms of taking the payments and being a point of contact if there’s any issues on the nights, but in terms of the day to day organisation, that will continue to be all me.

Over these next couple of months, for the sake of all the other teams, I’m begging you to manage your teams by getting the numbers confirmed extra early, getting your squad lists to us in plenty of time, or letting us know of any issues as soon as is humanly possible,

From my end, I’m going to try and ensure I’m getting the kick off times out as early as possible, so if you’re getting your kick off time 4/5 days before your game, try and start organising your numbers there and then. If you struggle for time to start organising the numbers in advance, give me the number of another lad from your team who I can include in the confirmation texts so they can help you. I don’t mind sending the text to as many people as is needed, if it helps.

It’s doubtful that I’m going to have the time to be scrambling around for players in the hours leading up to the games, but if you tell me a day or two before your game that you’re struggling, I’ll find the time to ask around, but please ensure that you’ve exhausted all of your options before you put it on me to help you out. We have over 100 teams now, it’s a lot to manage… Don’t forget we have the SK Ballers Player Pool on Facebook that you can use to ask about for players yourself (request to join if you aren’t already in it).

As things stand, I don’t intend to cancel any league nights, but without knowing exactly when the event is going to take place it’s hard to guarantee. If Hayley goes into labour at a time and on a day where a lot of work needs doing to confirm games for that night, that night may be cancelled. In an ideal world she’ll go into labour on a Friday morning…

Life feels like it has fully returned to normal now, and the heady days of Ballers being one of the only things people can do seems like a long time ago. We have teams having issues with holidays, isolation, the return of the Premier League and 11-a-side football etc, so I understand at times it’s difficult to get the numbers.

I apologise in advance (and retrospectively) if I’m not as quick at getting back to people at the moment. I’ve been trying to find some time over Fridays and Saturdays to get things ready for the new arrival. If anything is urgent I will regularly be checking the phone and will get back to you as soon as I can.

If you and your lads really want to play football, we all need to work together to ensure that the leagues run as smoothly as possible going forward.

Mike