Tag: Premier League

by Mike Birchall

ALL YOUR LOCKDOWN LONGIES OPTIONS!

Right, we’ve successfully trialed a full Sunday evening of socially responsible lockdown Longies, and have come up with a full programme of nights and options for the foreseeable future. Some of this may still be subject to change, but for the time being here is what we have to offer.

LEAGUES

For the time being, the only 3-a-side Longies Leagues we will be running will be on a Sunday, starting this weekend (14th June). We are offering up leagues at three separate times of the evening:

League One: 40 minute games at 4.30pm and 5.15pm

League Two: 40 minute games at 6pm and 6.45pm

League Three: 40 minute games at 7.30pm and 8.15pm

CASUAL BOOKINGS / FRIENDLIES

Casual bookings are classed as groups of 6 making a booking and taking a slot on a pitch and having a game between themselves.

Friendlies are groups of three contacting us and asking us to match them up with a game against another group of three.

All bookings come with a referee who will help to ensure social distancing is maintained, as well as ensuring the rules of the game are enforced as normal! The times these bookings can be made are as follows:

Monday: 8pm and 8.45pm

Tuesday: 8pm and 8.45pm

Wednesday: 9pm

Sunday: Whatever time slots are available between league games (we will try and keep some slots free at most of the available times)

PLAYING RULES

LONGIES PLAYING RULES
Click the link to be directed to the Playing Rules page

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

LONGIES REGULATIONS
Click the link to be directed to the Regulations page

If you want to book in for any of the above, head to the homepage and complete a ‘Join A League’ form, call or text 07809252658, email [email protected], or get in touch via any of our social media pages.

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

BALLERS PROJECT RESTART – UPDATE

Afternoon current / former / future Ballers, we hope you’re all still well and plodding along. When we went into lockdown scarves and wooly hats were still part of the Ballers nightly uniform! Here’s a quick update on what our restart plans currently are…

It remains unlikely we’ll be given the go ahead to start up full contact football for a while, but as soon as government guidelines allow we will be going ahead with our previously proposed Longies League which allows for us to manage social distancing (https://skballers.com/2020/05/06/ballers-longies-league/ for details).

We’ll keep a close eye on what Boris has to say in the coming weeks, and will look to get something started within 7 days of any change that allows us to. This effectively means that if the lockdown is eased this Sunday, 31st May, we could be getting started on Sunday 7th June, which is just over a week away! We will start initially with Sunday, and will be happy to run leagues at pretty much any time of the day. We hope everyone understands that half the number of players at any one time means we will only be making half the money, so we won’t be able to justify coming entirely off furlough full time just yet, but we obviously want to give people the opportunity to start kicking a ball around again in a semi-competitive manner. So in an ideal world as many teams as possible will find a suitable time on a Sunday to play. We will look to roll out alternative nights once we’ve got Sunday started, based on demand.

What we need you to do now is have a chat with your lads (or in the case of any potential new teams, round up some lads!) and let me know your thoughts. I could do with answers off all potential teams on the 4 following questions:

  1. Are your lads up for it, or would they rather wait until we are back up and running fully?
  2. How many lads are up for it, and therefore how many teams you will be wanting me to find space for (if there’s 6 or 7 of you, that will presumably be two teams!)?
  3. Can your lads do Sunday, and if so what would be your preferred time of day? We would entertain running leagues in the early afternoon (2pm-4pm), early evening (4pm-6pm) and later evening (6pm-8pm), so please let us know of any times you definitely couldn’t do. These times are just examples…
  4. If Sunday is a no go, what other nights between Monday and Wednesday could you do?

Please understand that this is effectively going to be like starting up a brand new business, and we don’t know how long we will have to do this for. There will also undoubtedly be teething problems, so a bit of patience would be appreciated.

Please help to make things as simple as possible for us!

by Mike Birchall

NEW LEAGUES – STARTING SOON!

As we head into March with the lighter nights on the way and the recent spate of storms hopefully out of the way, we have some new leagues starting soon that may suit the fair weather footballers out there!

REDDISH SUNDAY LEAGUE

The biggest Ballers league night will be starting up it’s latest new season as spring kicks in, with new campaign starting on 29th March.

Spaces are already at a premium, but we’re always happy to try and accommodate more teams.

Games are 50 minutes long, priced at £5 per player per game, with matches kicking off between 5.30pm and 8.30pm. We try our best to accommodate teams requests to avoid certain kick off times, so if you would struggle for the earlier or later games, just let us know when you sign up.

WOODLEY THURSDAY LEAGUE

A few days later the Woodley Thursday league will be getting underway. The first league night of the new season will be on 2nd April, and we currently have spaces for up to 4 new teams.

League games kick off at 7pm, 7.40pm or 8.20pm, and are priced at £30 per team, per game. Again, we will try and accommodate any requests for kick off times.

CURRENT LEAGUE VACANCIES

If Sunday and Thursday don’t do it for you, here’s what spaces we have on the other nights for an immediate start

REDDISH MONDAY LEAGUE – ONE SPACE

REDDISH TUESDAY LEAGUE – TWO SPACES

WEDNESDAY REDDISH LEAGUE – ONE SPACE

WOODLEY WEDNESDAY LEAGUE – TWO SPACES

FOR MORE DETAILS, TO REGISTER YOUR TEAM, OR TO BOOK IN A ONE OFF TRIAL GAME – GET IN TOUCH!

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

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.