Tag: 7 a side

by Mike Birchall

NEW TUESDAY & SUNDAY LEAGUES

We’ve got two new leagues starting before the end of February, so if you’re looking to get yourselves signed up, here’s what we can do…

TUESDAY LEAGUE

Our new Tuesday league season starts NEXT WEEK, 31st January. We currently have just ONE SPACE AVAILABLE, so if you’re keen to get going, this could be your best bet. Tuesday league games kick off at either 8pm or 9pm each week.

SUNDAY LEAGUE

Our biggest league night is currently scheduled to start a new season on 26th February. Our current league is full at 26 teams, but for the new season we could look to extend our capacity to 30 teams. We have a couple of former teams who are looking to get back into, which (if our maths are correct) means we are looking at having TWO SPACES AVAILABLE. Games kick off between 5pm and 8.40pm, and we can try and accommodate any teams who struggle for the earlier or later games. We also try to be flexible around issues that specifically affect Sunday evenings, including United and City games.

All of our Reddish league games are 50 mins long, priced at £5 per player, per game.

For more details or to register your team, get in touch via the ‘Join A League’ section of the website

by Mike Birchall

SK BALLERS 2023

So there goes another year…

Into 2023 we go, so it’s time to let you know about some exciting new things we’ve got coming up!

But first, a quick personal one. As we hit 2023, with a now mobile 15 month old boy in the house, and a wife who now has to work Fridays, it’s worth noting that you may struggle to get a reply off me throughout the day on a Friday as I try and find ways to keep him entertained. We don’t have leagues that day, so nothing should be particularly urgent, but this is a change in my own circumstances that I think teams need to be aware of. I was able to run the business without any real restrictions on my time for the first 5 years, but as things stand I’m putting a lot of scope on doing the majority of my admin work on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, as they are the days when Charlie is in nursery. I’m aware that teams who are cancelling games might not be getting a response from me, and that I’ve become a lot slower at replying to teams sometimes, for which I apologise. Given how much I’m relying on teams replying to me to allow me to run my business smoothly, I’m aware of the hypocrisy!

In exciting news, we should be just days away from the initial launch of our new website! In fact, this should be the final article we post on the website in it’s current form. We’ve got big plans for the website going forward, but we’ll take it one step at a time.

We will be continuing to catch up with our offer of free shirts to reward team loyalty at the rate of two teams a month, so if you’ve been playing a little while keep your eye on our updates on our socials to find out when you’re due (we may switch that to the new website when it’s launched).

We may even look at our options for advancing leagues into other areas of Stockport in 2023 if the website plays it’s part in automating some of the administration that takes up a fair amount of our time.

Who knows where we’ll be this time in 12 months…

And of course, if you don’t currently play in one of our leagues and you want to get involved, or if you do currently play but would like to play more, get in touch and lets see what we can do.

As always, thanks to all of you who have taken part in our leagues over the last 12 months, and all the best for 2023!

Mike

by Mike Birchall

NEW LEAGUE START DATES

Before the end of the year 4 of our leagues will be starting fresh new seasons. If you want to be a part of our leagues come the start of 2022, don’t assume the spaces will be there if you choose to wait!

We’ll be calling time on our leagues for the year in the middle of December, so we won’t be expecting anyone to put a team out in the direct run up to Christmas, or between Christmas and New Year. After the last 18 months we’ve all had to go through, we; get the feeling a lot of people will be wanting to let off some steam over this festive period!

So, in date order, here are when our new leagues will be restarting and what spaces we have…

REDDISH TUESDAY LEAGUE

STARTING 30TH NOVEMBER

A couple of recent drop outs have meant that we have immediate availability to get any new teams started with friendlies from as soon as the 16th November. Numbers will dictate whether we remain at two divisions, or go for one big division for the new season when it kicks off.

WOODLEY WEDNESDAY LEAGUE

STARTING 1ST DECEMBER

Barring any late drop outs, anyone wanting to join the Woodley Wednesday league will be having to go on our waiting list for a spot. Sorry… If this is the league that best suits you, don’t let it put you off getting in touch for details.

REDDISH SUNDAY LEAGUE

STARTING 5TH DECEMBER

Our ever popular and biggest league night will be starting a new season in early December, and with pitch space not a massive issue we always have the option of adding more teams in at the start of any new season. If we were to keep with the current 4 division format, we currently have ONE SPACE AVAILABLE. This also means that options are there for any new teams wanting to start straightaway to come in and play a couple of weeks of friendlies to get themselves up to speed…

REDDISH MONDAY LEAGUE

STARTING 13TH DECEMBER

The Monday league will remain at two divisions for the start of the new season, just before our Christmas break. Chances are you’ll play one game then won’t be back until the new year! Friendlies are an option for any new teams over the next few weeks as we currently have a space available. Or if you fancy your teams chances you can take up a slot in the top division for some competitive action…

All league games are priced at £5 per player, but game lengths and kick off times vary depending on venue and night.

FOR FURTHER DETAILS OR TO REGISTER YOUR TEAM:

  • COMPLETE A ‘JOIN A LEAGUE’ FORM ON THE HOMEPAGE
  • CALL OR TEXT 07809252658, or

by Mike Birchall

NEW WOODLEY LEAGUES

Both the Wednesday and Thursday league seasons at Stockport Sports Village in Woodley have been a massive success since the latest lock down eased off (remember lock downs?!).

Both leagues are on the brink of finishing, with both nights set to start new leagues in the coming weeks

All Woodley league games are 40 mins in length, priced at £5 per player, per game. Kick off times on both nights are 7, 7.45, 8.30 and 9.15pm on a random rotational basis

NEW WEDNESDAY LEAGUE – KICKS OFF 2ND DECEMBER

NEW THURSDAY LEAGUE – KICKS OFF 4TH NOVEMBER

Spaces on either night are likely to be extremely limited, so to register your interest get in touch asap!

FILL IN A ‘JOIN A LEAGUE’ FORM ON THE HOMEPAGE, CALL OR TEXT 07809252658 OR EMAIL [email protected] FOR FURTHER DETAILS

by Mike Birchall

REDDISH LEAGUE SPACES

If we choose to play right through to Christmas week, there’s 8 full weeks worth of fixtures that can be played between now and the festive period. That’s a fair few calories you can shift before the festive excesses kick in! If you’ve been thinking about putting a team together and joining a league, here’s the spaces we currently have in our Reddish leagues:

As a general rule, all of the Reddish leagues are made up of 50 minute games, all priced at £5 per player per game

SUNDAY

The Sunday league is our biggest league night, with 4 divisions allowing for the greatest variety of standards that we can offer.

We have ONE SPACE in the top division, but as we approach the end of the season, this is probably the best option a new team would have of securing their space for the new season when it restarts towards the end of the year.

Games kick off between 5.30pm and 8.30pm, but if you might struggle for the earlier or later games we do our best to accommodate

MONDAY

You might need to fancy yourselves if you want to take up the challenge of the Monday league. Our only space is in the top division, which is probably the highest standard we have across our league nights. Again, by signing up now you’re securing your space for the new season which will also start before the end of the year.

Games kick off at either 8pm or 9pm on a random rotational basis

TUESDAY

While we currently, on paper have no spaces, we are keen to get back to divisions of 7 for the new season which will start (you’ve guessed it) before the end of the year! Fill in friendly games for teams waiting for a space can be arranged while we wait for an actual league spot.

Games kick off at either 8pm or 9pm on a random rotational basis

WEDNESDAY

Our ‘late night’ Wednesday league is currently full, but without any teams on standby we could find space for a new team at any time.

All games kick off at 9pm, which works well for some teams based on work shifts, and offers a fixed weekly time for their game

FOR FURTHER DETAILS OR TO REGISTER YOUR TEAM, COMPLETE A ‘JOIN A LEAGUE’ FORM ON THE HOMEPAGE, CALL OR TEXT 07809252658, OR EMAIL [email protected]

by Mike Birchall

NEW LEAGUES STARTING THIS MONTH!

We have several leagues that are heading into the final stages, meaning we have options for any new or returning teams wanting to get signed up for an Autumn of football.

TUESDAY LEAGUE

Our Tuesday league will be finishing up in two weeks time, with the NEW LEAGUE set to start on 31ST AUGUST. At the moment we know we have space for at least ONE NEW TEAM. Our Tuesday league is made up of two divisions, with all games kicking off at either 8pm or 9pm.

SUNDAY LEAGUE

Our ever popular Sunday league is also set to restart on 29TH AUGUST (possibly the week after, given that this is a bank holiday!). We currently have 5 divisions, which we hope to maintain, so we should be able to find space for ONE OR TWO NEW TEAMS for the new season. Game kick off times range from 4.30pm to 8.30pm, but we can accommodate requests for earlier or later games.

All of the Reddish league games are 50 minutes in length, all priced at £5 per player, per game.

For further details or to register your team, call or text 07809252658, or complete a ‘Join A League’ form from the homepage.

by Mike Birchall

THE 100 CLUB!

We are roughly 6 weeks away from marking a significant milestone of 5 years in business, but before we get to celebrate that, we have something else to feel pretty pleased about.

Having recently restarted a number of our league seasons across our two venues, and having been in a position to add extra teams to each of these leagues, we have hit triple digits in our league team numbers for the first time!

To be able to say that we now have 103 teams across our 6 leagues feels like a significant achievement, and should certainly cement our position as a major player in the small sided football game in the Stockport area! Hopefully a few of you will see that number and realise just how many teams we have to juggle around on a weekly basis!

If you have been with us or were with us since day 1, we couldn’t have done it without you and we’re so grateful to you all. If you’ve only recently discovered us and are part of the new batch of teams, we’re glad you were able to find us as we continue to build our dynasty. Every piece of social media commenting, liking or sharing has helped us keep spreading the word, as we don’t exactly have a massive advertising budget, so if you could all continue to do your part it would be appreciated.

Potential further venues could be in the pipeline going forward, so it’s time to start aiming at 200…!

by Mike Birchall

SUNDAY LEAGUE – AN UPDATE

To all Sunday league teams,

The last few weeks have seen numerous disruptions to what seemed like being an extremely competitive Sunday league season. It’s reached a point where we want to give you a little update as to how the league, and in particular your division, is currently up to.

When the season started, we’d made it to 5 divisions, we’d worked out how we were going to cope with teams wanting later or earlier kick off times, and we were feeling fairly pleased with ourselves. However, there have been very few ‘clear’ weeks where we would realistically have a chance that all teams could play. We know that we have some teams that will field a team, no matter the occasion, but we also acknowledge that not everyone is in a position to put a game of 6-a-side on a Sunday evening above all else in their lives. On week 1 we had to cope with the final day of the Premier league season, with fans back in stadiums and City lifting the trophy. Week 2 saw the bank holiday, week 3 was fairly clear, and on week 4 we had England playing. We’ve even had Fathers Day, then the Euros Final! These are things we just have to cope with, but it will go some way to explaining the difference in the number of games certain teams have played. Every season we expect teams to play 10 league games in a 12 week period, we expect that this season may be slightly longer. We would always rather have leagues decided on games played, rather than forfeit wins, but we know seasons can’t go on forever and we don’t want those teams who smash out their 10 games in 10 weeks having to play 4 weeks of friendlies while everyone else catches up!

Fingers crossed, all the major issues are now behind us until the new Premier League season kicks off, so we need to make some headway into getting this season back on track!

Here’s a quick breakdown of the how each division is currently looking, and the issues that have faced teams so far.

PREMIERSHIP

Despite telling us the lads were keen to carry on, Dunno 2.0 dropped out of the league before they had kicked a ball, leaving a space in the top division. Top division gaps are notoriously difficult to fill once we’re into a season, as it takes a team that fancies their chances to step up to the top flight straightaway. This past week we have found such a team, but with them joining so far into the season they will play just one round of fixtures. This means all the other teams in the league will finish their season having played 9 games, and the new team playing 5.

CHAMPIONSHIP

Long standing Bangers & Pash left us just before the season started, meaning we had a space heading into the season. After a heavy defeat in their opening game, we had to drop The McMuffin Men down a level in order for them to be able to continue. This has left the Championship with 4 teams for a while, but we have now filled both of those spaces. With one new team taking over The McMuffin Men’s fixtures, there’s a chance they could play all of their remaining games. The other new team will play one round of games, again meaning that most of the teams will finish their season having played 9 games.

LEAGUE ONE NORTH

This division has been mostly fine, there’s just a couple of teams who could really do with getting some games played in the coming weeks…! The McMuffin Men jumped in after the first week, and It Wasn’t A Foul FC came in when Team Tom dropped into League Two in order to give them a chance to survive.

LEAGUE ONE SOUTH

No major issues here either. Cale Green Canaries joined us a few weeks ago to replace Making Emile Of It, who dropped out after the first game, but they will be on course to complete the remaining fixtures.

LEAGUE TWO

This is where we got greedy… With teams waiting to join, we added two extra teams to League Two after the first week, with the idea being that all teams play each other once, then the league splits in two with the top 4 and bottom 4 playing each other for a second time to make a 10 game season. Pathetico Madrid dropped out early, and have only recently been replaced by Exeter Gently. But with Exeter being 4 games behind Holland FC, who have played every available week, it’s doubtful that we’ll be able to get them to catch up all of their missed games before we have to split the league. Our priority is to establish a top 4 and bottom 4 in the next couple of weeks so we can get the second part of the season started without having to make some teams wait around.

So there we have it. There is a chance that if all of the top places in each division are clear and sorted before everyone has played their fixtures, we may even call the season a little early so we can get the new one set up, but that depends on the results of upcoming fixtures!

If you have any questions about your division, or your team, feel free to ask away. Whatever patience you can show while we try and get certain teams caught up over the next few weeks would be very much appreciated.

by Mike Birchall

BALLERS RE-ASSEMBLE!

It’s almost time for us to wheel out all the ‘Sixes’ related puns again (we’re bringing sixy back, let’s talk about six, baby etc etc)!

From today, Monday 1st March, we are back on it! We’ve taken the opportunity during the latest lock down to have a break, do some housework etc, but from today we will be regularly checking the Ballers phone and social media pages. We’ll work out where we were at the time of lock down, work out what league spaces we have to offer, and try and make sure they are filled in time for the return! If you weren’t playing with us at the time of lock down, you best get onto us quickly as spaces will be extremely limited.

As things stand we are due to start back on Monday 29th March at Reddish, and Wednesday 31st March at Woodley.

All leagues will continue from where they left off, so you don’t need to worry about losing whatever progress you had made at the time of lock down.

As we receive any further updates on the protocol surrounding covid measures, we’ll be sure to let everyone know.

We haven’t completely switched off during the lock down, as work has continued on what will become our BRAND NEW WEBSITE, which will hopefully contain enough new aspects to keep even the hardiest of geeks happy!

With gyms, pubs and restaurants remaining closed, and crowds still unable to attend football matches, this is your best bet for catching up with the boys…

Don’t hang around!

by Mike Birchall

CHRISTMAS CUP 2020

The annual SK Ballers Charity Christmas Cup took place on Monday 21st December, with 11 teams taking part to raise money for MIND on a cold, damp winter evening. Here’s how it went…

GROUP A

At the halfway point of Group A, it was apparent that qualification for the semi finals was going to come down to 4 of the 6 teams, as Holland FC and Phantom Brailians failed to pick up a point from their first three games. The McMuffin Men and Sale Madrid had taken early control of the group, with McMuffin Men beating RNE Albion Blue 1-0 in the opening game, and Sale Madrid beating Stroke Titty 3-0 in their second game. RNE remained in contention with a 1-0 win that effectively ended Stroke’s hopes, before McMuffin Men ran out surprisingly comfortable 3-0 winners over Sale to take a firm grip on the group and confirm their qualification. The second qualification spot came down to RNE and Sale, and Sale clinched their spot in the semis with a 3-1 win. All McMuffin Men had to do to top the group was avoid defeat in their final game with Stroke, and they just about did it as they played out a 1-1 draw.

Qualifiers:

1st: The McMuffin Men

2nd: Sale Madrid

GROUP B

Group B never seemed as straightforward, despite Buttner Ballers getting off to a flyer with a 4-0 win over Workies Bogs in the opening game. RNE Albion Purples took control with a pair of 1-0 wins, against Blue Riz and Ballers, before Blue Riz pulled off a surprise, beating fellow Tuesday league side and current Champions Deportivo La Corona 1-0 to keep themselves in the running. Workies Bogs were out after they lost their third game, 2-0 to RNE, while Ballers got back in contention with a 2-0 win over Blue Riz, which dented their chances of progressing. Deportivo found some form to shock RNE with a 2-1 win to give themselves a chance of making the semis, but they ended as they were beaten 1-0 by Ballers in the final game which saw Ballers top the group on goal difference.

Qualifiers:

1st: Buttner Ballers

2nd RNE Albion Purples

SEMI-FINALS & FINAL

Having kept things tight throughout most of their group games, it was no surprise that RNE Albion Purples were involved in a tight semi final against Group A winners The McMuffin Men. Having gone through the group stages unbeaten, McMuffin Men stumbled in their first knockout game, as RNE ran out 1-0 winners. Sale Madrid and Buttner Ballers are fairly familiar with each other, having faced off in the Monday league on a couple of occasions. Both of those full length games have resulted in draws, so we expected this to be tight, but Buttner Ballers adapted to the shorter format of the game to pick up a 2-0 win.

So to the final and it was Ballers who started the better and went 1-0 up as they attempted to reverse the result from the group stages against Purples, but they couldn’t see it out as Albion hit back to level things up and take the final to penalites. In the shootout it was Albion who held their nerve as two misses from Buttner Ballers handed them a 2-1 victory and the Christmas Cup trophy.

WINNERS: RNE ALBION PURPLES

Obviously the tournament is secondary to the money raised for charity, and we’re pleased to announce that the tournament cleared £340.18 which will be donated to MIND at the end of what has been a very difficult year for many, many people.

Many thanks to all teams who took part, and congratulations to RNE Albion Purples on their win.

A very Merry Christmas to all of our current, former and (hopefully) future customers, and here’s to brigher days ahead in 2021!