Tag: league

by Mike Birchall

SK BALLERS PROMOTIONAL VIDEO!

Covid might have come along to slow down the Ballers momentum, but work continues on the very first, in house Ballers promotional video.

Pre-lockdown, Delph & Safety were subject to the first batch of filming, with player interviews and match footage taken on the night by Viaduct Video. So far the 60 second clip below was the initial teaser of the footage that we got on the night.

Recently we were finally able to film part 2, as long standing Team Tom gave us some of their musings before getting involved in a highly entertaining game against fellow Ballers veterans Inter Your Sister.

Part 3 will hopefully follow in the coming weeks, with the full Ballers promotional video hopefully ready to be unleashed by October. As well as the full promotional video, we’ll also be turning the footage into three full team profile videos, which will become a regular thing as time goes on.

The team for the third profile video will be confirmed in the near future…

by Mike Birchall

NEW REDDISH LEAGUES STARTING SOON

A thoroughly successful first week out of lockdown is out of the way, and we have new leagues starting up in the next few weeks for anyone looking to sign up a new team or bring an old team out of retirement…

NEW SUNDAY LEAGUE STARTS 9TH AUGUST

Our biggest league night starts another new season in early August, and with pitch space almost limitless we can always find space for new teams to expand the league.

We have numerous options to incorporate teams in the first couple of weeks of the season, so if you miss the start date don’t let it stop you getting in touch to see what we can do.

Earliest games kick off at 4.30pm with latest games starting at 8.30pm, but if you struggle for later or earlier games we will do what we cna to accommodate any requirements.

NEW WEDNESDAY LEAGUE STARTS 19TH AUGUST

A bit more time to gather the troops for this one! Our Wednesday evening league is ideal for those teams who would like a fixed later kick off time each week. Our Wednesday league is one division with all games kicking off at 9pm every week, and we currently have ONE SPACE AVAILABLE for a lucky new team. We can squeeze a ‘pre-season’ friendly in on Wednesday 12th for teams who want to limber up ahead of the start of the new campaign.

All league games are 50 minutes long, priced at £5 per player, per game.

Head to the homepage, fill in a ‘Join A League’ form and we’ll be in touch to talk you through how everything works.

by Mike Birchall

TUESDAY LONGIES LADDER LEAGUES!

Here’s something new…

As we don’t know how much longer it will be before we can get back to full contact football, there is no point in setting up any more standard Longies Leagues, so here’s one that can run until we get the ok to start up again.

LADDER LEAGUE – How it will work!

  • Games kick off at 8pm every Tuesday, from 7th July
  • Maximum of 6 teams per week (first 6 to register play on the first week and have first ‘dibs’ on the second week, but new teams can join if spaces come up)
  • Each team will play 5x 8 minute games (2 mins between games = 1 hour total)
  • Pitch 1 is the top of the ladder, pitch 3 is bottom
  • If you win your game, you move up the ladder, lose and you drop down. Win on pitch 1 and stay at the top of the ladder, lose on pitch 3, stay bottom!
  • Win the final game of the 6 on the top pitch, and you win that week’s tournament!
  • All 6 teams will get points from 6-1 depending on where they end the night (winners get 6 points, losers of the last game on the bottom pitch get 1)
  • In the event of drawn games, the team that scores first is declared the winner. We have plans for deciding winners of games that finish 0-0…
  • Teams who lost their previous game will kick off, giving them that very slight advantage
  • To increase the pace and intensity of the shorter game, the time for each team to get their shot off is reduced to 5 seconds from first touch. If you fail to do that, the ball is returned to your opposition.
  • All other rules remain as per the standard Longies rules
  • We will play until the lockdown allows full contact football again, then the team with the most points will be the LONGIES LADDER LEAGUE WINNERS!

The league will start next week as long as we have 6 teams ready to go. Get in touch to reserve your place.

by Mike Birchall

LONGIES PLAYING RULES

We’re ready for a return (of sorts…)!

Much as we’d love to burst straight back into regular Ballers action, it’s extremely unlikely that we will be able to return in full anytime soon as social distancing measures quite rightly remain in place. But with the government now confirming that up to 6 people can engage in sporting activity as long as social distancing is observed, we have an opportunity to get the lads back out on the pitch. Here’s our plan, now with updated and confirmed rules following our first trial game…

Essentially it’s 3-a-side, socially distant longies!

Basic rules:

3-a-side

Each team remains in their own half and is responsible for maintaining the required social distance between themselves.

One team kicks off from anywhere within the blue goal area, and the restart after a goal is also from the blue goal area.

You have three touches to get the ball into the opposition half, preferably via a shot at goal, and a 7 second limit to get your shot away from the time of the first touch.

No goalkeepers, and no players can go in the blue areas by the goal to block a shot (see pitch layout below). If a player blocks a shot in this area a goal is given, regardless of whether the shot is on target. The same rules apply if you block a shot with your hand. You can go in the blue area when the ball is in your half of the pitch.

To maintain social distancing rules, only one player can defend on the edge of your own area within the width of the goal (you can’t line up all three players in a line blocking the goal!). All other players must be at least 2m away

No player can go into the area 1m either side of the halfway line

If the ball goes out of play behind the goal the play restarts with a kick in from within the blue area – this counts as the first touch of this ‘play’

If the ball goes out of play at the side of the pitch, a kick in is taken from the place where the ball went out – this counts as the first touch of this ‘play’

If you block a shot and the ball goes out of play, the block counts as the first touch of the three you have to get the ball back into the opposition half, the kick in would be the second, making the third touch the one that would have to be your shot at goal. The 7 second count to get your shot away would stop when the ball is out of play, and restart when the kick in is taken.

The below ruling has been replaced by the following rule (we’re leaving it in there so you can see what we have changed!):

Each team has 15 ‘plays’ per half, so 30 attempts to score across the whole game (this number will be reviewed before we start in full, as we want to ensure that everyone gets a reasonable amount of playing time, but the games will have to be shorter to hopefully fit more in!)

Each half will be 19 minutes long (in a fast paced game each team could have as many as 50 shots on goal in this time), and each team will have the same number of plays per half, meaning if you kick off a half you will face the final shot of the half. You have 7 seconds from the time of your first touch to get your shot away. That time clock stops if the ball goes out of play (ie, if you block a shot and it goes out for a kick in). We will run a multi-ball system, so teams will be expected to get the ball back in play as quickly as possible to avoid any time wasting. If you take too long the referee reserves the right to give the ball back to your opposition.

If you fail to get the ball back into the opposition half within the three touches or the 7 seconds, the opposition restart the game from their blue area.

For a very brief example of how games are going to work, check out the below video!

by Mike Birchall

We have a plan…

We’ve had 7 weeks to come up with something that can get people kicking a ball around again, and we think we may be getting closer to being able to do something.

We’re not suggesting for one second that we’ll be able to get fully competitive football back on the go for a good while yet, and we certainly don’t want to play any part in putting anyone at risk, but if we can find a way to get lads back on the pitch and kicking a ball round sooner rather than later, why shouldn’t we do it?

We don’t want to give too much away about our plans as we don’t want anyone nicking them, but if you want to know what we’re up to, you only have to ask!

Get in touch on 07809252658, email [email protected], fill in a ‘Join A League’ form from the homepage, or message us on any of our social media pages.

by Mike Birchall

Christmas Cup 2!

We didn’t even get chance to advertise the first Christmas Cup tournament on here before it was full!

With the first tournament, in support of the Teenage Cancer Trust taking place on Monday 23rd December, we are toying with the idea of running a second Christmas Cup a week later, on Monday 30th December at 7pm.

All cleared proceeds will be donated to a nominated charity, with the chosen charity for the second event still to be clarified.

In order to make it a viable option, we need teams… You can dictate whether we do it or not by letting us know you want to take part.

If we get the interest we will make it official within the next week, so to force our hand, get in touch.

by Mike Birchall

JOIN THE NEW REDDISH MONDAY DIVISION!

We have a bit of free pitch space available on a Monday evening in our Reddish leagues, so what else are we supposed to do other than start a new division?!

This means we have spaces for 6 new teams to get involved in a BRAND NEW DIVISION that will filter in with the current Monday league at the end of the existing season.

If you’re new to us or haven’t played at our Reddish venue, here’s what you need to know…

Super long 50 minute games

Just £5 per player, per game

Kick offs at 8pm or 9pm weekly (we’ll always do our best to accommodate kick off requests…)

Full results, stats and player profiles housed on this very website

For more details or to register your team, click on the ‘Join A League’ link from the homepage, send us a text on 07809252658, or email [email protected]

Do it. Now.

by Mike Birchall

BRAND NEW SUNDAY LEAGUE – THE FORMAT

We’ve had a little play with the format in the Sunday league in recent seasons in an attempt to accommodate all teams who wanted to take part while also attempting to expand the league where we can.

At times this has meant we have had some divisions containing 6 teams, playing each other twice, while others have contained 8 teams, with the division being cut in half after everyone had played each other once. Both of these formats meant that the season remained at 10 weeks in length, but to be honest it started getting quite messy last season.

The other issue we have is that with kick off times that vary from 5.30pm to 8.30pm, we have a number of teams who want / can only do early games, while others only want / can do later ones. Having these teams in the same division can cause nightmares…

So, here’s our plan for the new season:

DIVISION SIZE

The 8 team division experiment is OVER. We are going to limit the Sunday league to 4 divisions of 6 going forward, unless we have an influx of teams that could make up an entire extra division.

KICK OFF TIME ISSUES

We think we’re being dead clever here… Of the 4 divisions we currently have, the top division will be the top division, the bottom division will be the bottom division and the teams in those divisions will still have to play the variety of kick off times (though we will do what we can to accommodate). The two divisions in the middle will effectively become two ‘Championships.’ One of these Championships will primarily have earlier games, the other will primarily have later games. This won’t be an exact science, but will only be used to try and accommodate those teams that specifically struggle for the earlier or later games. This will make it a lot easier for us to schedule games in general, but also easier for us to give the teams what they want.

Fingers crossed for a strong Autumn 2019 season!

THE BRAND NEW SUNDAY LEAGUE KICKS OFF ON 22ND SEPTEMBER – GET IN TOUCH FOR DETAILS!

by Mike Birchall

NEW REDDISH LEAGUES STARTING IN SEPTEMBER

It’s never nice to have to think of another summer being over, but as the darker nights start to set in we think this could be a perfect time to sign up to an Autumn of football!

We have three of our existing Reddish leagues restarting in September, so here are your options for starting up in the next few weeks.

SUNDAY

Our biggest league night starts another new season on 22nd September, with minimal spaces for new or returning teams. We’ve played with the format a little in recent seasons in an attempt to find a way to increase the number of teams we can accommodate, but this season we will be going back to the standard 4 divisions of 6, meaning 24 is the maximum number of spaces available. At last count we currently had 23 teams, so there’s no time for messing around…

Sunday evening games kick off between 5.30pm and 8.30pm, but we will always try our best to accomodate teams who have issues with the earlier or later kick off times. Feel free to ask…

MONDAY

The very next day, the 23rd September, the new Monday league will ge getting underway, and like Sunday there is currently only one space to be had. The option we have with the Monday league is to ‘overfill’ both divisions with an extra team, so we can find a couple more spaces if the demand is there. Games on a Monday kick off at either 8pm or 9pm.

WEDNESDAY

Barring any teams signing up late, it looks like the new Wednesday league will be kicking off on 12th September. The Reddish Wednesday league has always been a model of consistency, but a couple of recent drop outs mean we have a couple of spaces to fill before the new season kicks off. If you like the idea of one set kick off time every week, nice and late to help avoid any work related issues, the 9pm Wednesday kick offs could be for you!

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

For more details, to register a team, or to book in a one off trial game, head to the home page and complete a ‘Join A League’ form.

by Mike Birchall

BRAND NEW WOODLEY WEDNESDAY LEAGUE

Following the successful start to our Thursday league takeover at Stockport Sports Village, attention now turns to getting a Wednesday league off the ground.

We’ll be hosting a one off tournament on Wednesday 31st July, with the league set to start on 7th August.

One off friendly games are available on 24th July, so if you want to give it a go with a one off game before deciding whether to commit, get in touch asap.

When the league starts, here’s how things are going to work:

40 minute games

£5 per player, per game

Kick offs between 7pm and 9.15pm

For more details, to book in a one off friendly or to register a team for the tournament or the league, complete a ‘Join A League’ form from the homepage.