Proposed county championship changes

[MartinCarpenter]

Just to add to the confusion by answering a question from Roger here I'm not sure about the history.

The Yorkshire - Lancashire matches are often played on the Sunday after a Yorkshire league match. That can be a deterrent if it was a really big Yorkshire league on the Saturday beforehand but is mostly OK because the travel to Heywood/Bradford is relatively minimal.

If you started having the main K/O stages during the main season the only real place we could put them would be those Sundays, but they'd naturally involve a long trip down to the Midlands to play some southern county. Just wouldn't get teams out.

Mind you, it really doesn't look like anyone likes the idea of playing the matches in the main season

[Roger de Coverly]

Mind you, it really doesn't look like anyone likes the idea of playing the matches in the main season

The minimalist change, provided you got 16 entries or under for each section, would be that entries are invited by the end of January with a view to playing the last 16 in April, last 8 in May, last 4 in June and the finals in July. Other than a possible increase in April matches, that doesn't impose any stress on existing schedules. Downsides seem to be that it wouldn't increase the participation of those with exam commitments and suggestions that if a team's place in the Summer Knock out is assured, it's not going to compete so hard in the tail end matches of the Winter league.

I'd suspect a sort of self selection, that teams doing badly by Christmas wouldn't want the extra organisation of a summer campaign as well. Thus national entries would be the more successful of the teams in the regional competitions.

If the existing rules remained, would it be too much to insist that the Unions define their nominations before pairings are known if not in terms of named counties, but by places in a League or match result? If there are three nominations, you give a perk to the first such as a home match or non-involvement in a last 16 match, whilst the third is likely to start with an away or an April match.

[Alan Walton]

Fundamentally you could have all the competition played over 2 weekends (based at 4NCL Midland hotels)

Rd 1 : 16 teams played on a seeded basis
Rd 2 : Winners play each other for Championship, Losers play each other for Plate
Rd 3 : Semi Finals and 13-16 & 5-8 Playoffs
Rd 4 : Finals and Positioning playoffs

If you have more teams and require an extra round, then you can easily use the end of May Bank Holiday to accommodate

The only problem would be that different sections would require different venues/weekends depending on volume of players

[Richard Bates]

Fundamentally you could have all the competition played over 2 weekends (based at 4NCL Midland hotels)

Rd 1 : 16 teams played on a seeded basis
Rd 2 : Winners play each other for Championship, Losers play each other for Plate
Rd 3 : Semi Finals and 13-16 & 5-8 Playoffs
Rd 4 : Finals and Positioning playoffs

If you have more teams and require an extra round, then you can easily use the end of May Bank Holiday to accommodate

The only problem would be that different sections would require different venues/weekends depending on volume of players

You could, but then that IMO makes the mistake of assuming that people play in the Counties Championship just because it is the Counties Championship. As opposed to because they like the format of a single serious game that only takes up only a portion of their weekend (the point has been made elsewhere that the Yorkshire league fulfils a similar role). So changing the format to a weekend type event would deny/reduce access for the existing players of a format they like, whilst expanding the market already occupied by the 4NCL.

[PeterFarr]

I was about to post something more or less identical to Richard''s point; I like county chess because it's one tough game on a Saturday, for which I can feel fresh and fit; leaving ample time over the rest of the weekend for the family to enjoy my company while I brood over the latest inevitable loss.

[Mike Truran]

Indeed.

In just the same way as allowing 4NCL teams to play in the Nat Club Championships would run the risk of diluting the essence of the competition by turning it into a 4NCL "me too" event.

As the saying has it, "different strokes for different folks".

[PeterFarr]

Yes that too. I do admire the attempt to do something different with the National Clubs though - whether successful over time or not, it is at least a good try; the county competitions are not yet in such a parlous state.

[MartinCarpenter]

Yes, considering the Yorkshire league as ~equivalent to the large scale qualifying competitions elsewhere - and I doubt anyone is too shocked we prefer playing each other - the various qualifying competitions do seem to be doing quite nicely.

The knockout stages though? Not brilliantly robust and definitely logical enough to examine those. Quarter final byes in the open/U180 are not a good thing Neither really is Lancs/Yorks being able to lose one, win 2 and be champions.

To rephrase the idea of direct qualification, is it genuinely better to restrict the number of SCCU qualifiers to retain motivation in your qualifying event when it means quarter final byes in the open/U180 competition? Definitely worth asking the question I'd have thought.

The basic idea behind letting people play prelims in the Open then drop into the minor counties equivalent if they lose definitely isn't mad either. There seem to be plenty of counties who can field teams good enough to give a fair account of themselves in the open but would also be overall underdogs to the extent they prefer the minor counties as they stand a decent chance of winning it.

I'd have thought they might quite like the idea of having a preliminary match in the open with a shot at an upset but being sure of dropping back into the minors if they lose. It'd deal nicely with the byes of course, and make sure everyone had to play ~4 K/O matches to win the thing.

[PeterFarr]

Yes agree with that - it is worth considering at least; I wasn't saying its all rosy in the garden.

[Paul McKeown]

Why not allow those Unions whose County Championships are in good health and are used as qualifiers for the national stages to continue as they are, whilst allow all other counties to participate in a national qualifying competition held over three Saturdays or two weekends, sometime during spring?

[MartinCarpenter]

You need quite a lot of teams to do that Mostly well short I'd think. (also of free time and enthusiasm for the travel!).

If you want extra matches in the top section it'll involve fiddling with a prelim stage involving the minor counties teams and winners/losers dropping into the relevant event. You'd want to seed say SCCU1/NCCU1 through direct, but numbers (16 overall) don't really seem to allow that.

[Richard Bates]

If teams can't be persuaded to prioritise the Open/Minor competition at the expense of other teams then there's no future in the competition anyway IMO.

[Roger de Coverly]

The SCCU website is reporting that Lancs (N2) are defaulting their quarter final against Middlesex (M3). This reduces the Open to 5 teams.

http://www.sccu.ndo.co.uk/matchbcf.htm

[MartinCarpenter]

Oh dear Sincerely hope that's a one off. They did win it very convincingly as recently as 2010 of course, and a truly wonderful history in the competition.

I've been a tiny bit worried in recent times mind. Seemingly always had the option of 12 vs 16 in the NCCU stage matches but its been 12 in recent years. That proposal of there's to take the whole thing down to 12 board matches definitely didn't suggest they were that confident about their ability over 16.

The slightly odd thing is that they're not short of very strong juniors right now, but can't seem to get them involved.(McPhilips/Martin Brown say.).

If this is a harbinger of future events, you really would have to wonder if the open remains fully sensible in its current form.

[David Robertson]

I understand from one prominent member of the Lancs open team, telling me through grinding teeth, that the default has been caused by priorities given to the u-rubbish teams, leaving the Open team short. Quite pathetic if this is the case