Scheduling of league fixtures

[J T Melsom]

I have spent a happy hour or so this morning wearing my league controller hat dealing with correspondence from one of the local clubs whose team are in a two horse race for the league. The club was concerned that there was a week long gap between the final fixtures of the respective teams, and wondered whether there was scope for rearranging fixtures, to ensure the matches started simultaneously. I have declined the request as impractical.

Fixture lists are subject to many variables, numbers of teams in each division, numbers of teams per club, size of venue, and the nights that team meet, to name but a few. Given this I wonder whether anybody has ever tried to alter a fixture list mid season to ensure critical matches start at the same time, and what the reaction was?

[Martyn Harris]

I have spent a happy hour or so this morning wearing my league controller hat dealing with correspondence from one of the local clubs whose team are in a two horse race for the league. The club was concerned that there was a week long gap between the final fixtures of the respective teams, and wondered whether there was scope for rearranging fixtures, to ensure the matches started simultaneously. I have declined the request as impractical.

I wonder whether anybody has ever tried to alter a fixture list mid season to ensure critical matches start at the same time, and what the reaction was?

Can't write from experience - I write fixtures but am not a league controller - but I suggest that declining the request is sensible. There is a tendency to believe that for all chess players chess is not merely their number one activity, but their only activity. In practice many players will enter fixtures in their diary as soon as published, and start filling empty dates with other commitments. They would be justified in being less than pleased to find dates being altered, and this would be true whether you are talking about a team in contention who find themselves unable to field their strongest side in an important match because of prior engagements, or opponents simply looking to complete the season.

If league rules permit postponements the teams can see whether they can sort better dates out themselves. If not, tough. Otherwise one season you will be expected to synchronise all the last round of matches as the majority of teams are in contention for the title or in danger of relegation. Unless yours is one of the small minority of leagues that stipulates the day of the week clubs use as match nights, this will be impossible. Of course you could have a 'last night of the league' held at a central venue, but that wouldn't go down well with clubs losing a home match.