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Week 24 Report

25/3/2018

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The season is fast approaching its conclusion, but Week 24 only cleared up a couple of matters for the Club.
 
Team 1 knew that with two matches scheduled wins in both of those were essential for their Premier Division survival. When they lost against their nearest rivals ESC by a 6-4 scoreline Greig McDonell, David Melrose and Abby Wighton knew their fate was all but sealed. Mathematically though a big win against Murrayfield 2 could still keep them in with a chance of catching North Merchiston 2. Despite Greig being undefeated on the night, Team 1 fell to a 7-3 defeat and with it their stay in the Premier Division came to an end.
 
In Division 1, Team 2 faced a home match against Murrayfield 4 with a full team for the first time in a number of weeks. The Edinburgh outfit were too strong, however, as only Charlie Brindley picked up a win in the resultant 9-1 defeat.
 
Meanwhile Team 3 of Krzysztof Laszkiewicz, Gary McDougal and Chris Markey faced a virtual relegation decider against Murrayfield 5 at Roseburn. In a bit of a surprise, Graham Muir from Division 2 played up and turned out to be the difference on the night as he was undefeated including two 11-9 in the fifth wins. The resultant 8-2 win perhaps flattered the Murrayfield side but the victory has all but secured their Division 1 status for next year. The defeat for Team 3 means the only team they can realistically overtake in the table is our own Team 2. What an intra-club fixture that promises to be. With a much better game difference, a big win would be needed from Team 3 to give them a chance of survival.
 
In Division 3 Team 4 could only muster two players as they fell to a 6-4 defeat at the hands of University. John Bald was undefeated in singles but unfortunately, Louis McLeod could only contribute one singles victory as Team 4 fell to their 10th loss in their last 13 matches.  
 
Team 5’s Division 3 status was on the line as they faced two matches last week. First a home match against Edinburgh University. Stuart Bennett, Craig Johnson and Sean Lennon kept the fat lady away from the microphone with an excellent 7-3 win, Craig winning 3 and Sean and Stuart both winning two. They then pushed her back off stage as they defeated West Lothian 7 by a 6-4 scoreline, Sean and Craig both won 2, Stuart added 1 and the doubles win secured overall victory for Team 5. Just when they thought the miracle escape was on, however, Friday night brought news that Edinburgh International could only field a two-man squad as they fell to a 6-4 defeat to ESC, Team 5’s targets in third bottom place! Yeah thanks to our friends at EI for that. The fat lady is back on stage and just about to pick up the microphone again – all dependant on a match which is currently underway (yes on a Sunday night) between ESC and our own Team 4. No pressure there then!
 
Team 6 of Julian Taylor, Rachel Petrie and Sonny Taylor also faced two matches last week. They first took care of Edinburgh Uni with a 7-3 home win (Julian and Sonny 3, Rachel 1) before a trip to take on Division 4 winners KLOS 2.  Julian picked up two great wins whilst Sonny added 1 in the resultant 7-3 defeat.
 
And we finish with Team 7. With Kristian Skotzen STILL on holiday Phil Daly and George Wilson travelled to North Merchiston 7 a player short. With Phil only winning one singles on the night against the Merchiston youngsters, the writing was on the wall for Team 7 – but wait, George continued his excellent recent form by winning all 3 of his singles and combining with Phil for a win in the doubles to secure a 5-5 draw.
 
And so, to our Player of the Week Award for Week 24. Julian and Craig produced 5 wins out of 6 for their respective teams last week. Credit also to John for his undefeated singles night and to George and Sonny for excellent performances. For the importance of the five wins to the team’s survival hopes this week’s award goes to Mr Treasurer, Craig – well done.
 
And finally, to our Controversy of the Week Section.
 
Last week Krzysztof had pointed out in an email to the Match Secretary his view on Edinburgh University’s refusal to offer more than one night to play a rearranged match. University asked us to look into this issue as it appeared that initially Team 3 had indicated to University that they could make one of two nights, one of those nights being the 16th of March when the match was ultimately played. And indeed Team 3’s email did suggest that – immediately upon receipt of Uni’s response, however, Krzysztof emailed back to indicate he had made a mistake and they could not field a team on the 16th and asked if they could do any other days. The University response, as indicated by Team 3 last week was:
 
“….unless you are able to put out a team for 16th March, I am afraid that your team would have to forfeit the match.”
 
Let’s hope that clarifies that issue.
 
Team 3 seem to be attracting lots of controversy! We alluded to a “surprise selection” by Murrayfield 5 last week, surprising because regular third player Bob Sterling was in attendance for the game. That makes the selection of Graham a tactical one it seems? Dropping a player who lost his 3 against Team 3 in the first half and playing a player up who had also played up in the first half and won 2 out of 3? There was a suggestion made that this was not within the spirit of the rules – players play up when a regular is unavailable? In the Writer’s view Murrayfield have done absolutely nothing wrong – indeed it was a great tactical masterstroke (if indeed it was tactical) to bring in a player in a crucial fixture who seemed to have the edge over the opposing team – if we were in the same position would we have done the same? More fool us if we hadn’t. Congratulations to Graham for stepping up a Division and winning two huge 11-9 fifth end deciders – tactical genius only exists when it pays off and it was only as a result of his composure and play that it did pay off. Indeed, El Presidente had suggested this week that for Team 4’s match against ESC (crucial to Team 5’s survival) the whole of Team 4 should have been dropped and Team 5 play up en masse -  in the two matches played this season Team 5 hold a 16-4 advantage over ESC!! That proposal was rejected! There seems to have been more controversy from this match which we will no doubt return to in a future report!
 
And so Week 24 is over – this coming week should be the last week of the regular season but there are still a ton of matches to play. Whilst the relegation places are sorted in the Premier Division, everything is still to play for in terms of the title with the big match tomorrow evening at Roseburn between Murrayfield 1 and University 1. In Division 1 the title and promotion picture is still unclear but coming up on the rails to perhaps steal a place in the Premier next season (and maybe even the title) is Haddington 1. Their match against West Lothian 2 will surely be key. In Division 3 it may already be over for Team 5 whilst Division 4 has seen KLOS secure the title much to George’s delight – the tenner bet with El Presidente is all his so long as he can get it back from Club Sec Brian!
 
Intra-club fixtures abound this week (if they’re all played) – Team 2 v 3; Team 4 v 5; and Team 6 v 7. Nothing controversial to report next week then!!!

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Week 23 Report

18/3/2018

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Week 23 was another busy one for the Club with all 7 teams again in action.
 
George from Team 7 enjoyed our Report so much last week that he’s asked us to again start the round-up with the bottom team and work upwards! A feeble attempt to get some more press inches for his scrapbook. Steady on George – one week of that in a season is more than enough!
 
This week we start with matches which were crucial in terms of relegation and survival hopes. Team 2 faced an away match against fellow strugglers Corstorphine in Division 1 – the teams started the night level on points, only two clear of the relegation zone and both teams knew that a win would go a long way to securing their Division 1 status for next season. In Team 2’s case they also knew that a win here would be a massive boost to our own Team 3 in their efforts to survive. What a massive match! Oh hang on a minute - for the second week in a row only James Wighton was available! But even worse than the previous week Team 2 turned up to this match with only two players as Gary McDougal was called up from Team 3. Really??!! This even brought some comment from League Match Secretary, Ken Benjamin! A 7-3 defeat followed for Team 2 with two wins for Gary and one for James.
 
And so to Team 3 of Krzysztof Laszkiewicz, Gary McDougal and Ian Hislop, fresh from their excellent 6-4 win against West Lothian last week. Not much was really expected against title contenders Edinburgh International 2 and so it proved as they fell to an 8-2 defeat, Ian continuing his good form with the two wins for the home side. But on Friday night there was another crucial match as Team 3 travelled to take on University – a definite target for team 3 – a win here would put them in with a great chance of avoiding the drop and drag University down into the relegation dogfight. Ian and Gary turned out but no Krzysztof! Surely not we hear you cry! Without a regular third, they fell to a 6-4 defeat with both Ian and Gary winning two. John Bald played up from Division 3 and although he picked up a couple of ends, it was always going to be an impossible task for him. More on this match later in our Controversy of the week section.
 
It now looks certain that the second relegation spot is going to be filled by either Team 2, Team 3 or Murrayfield 5! Oh look – Murrayfield 5 v Team 3 is this week and the final week of the season sees Team 2 v Team 3!!!!
 
In Division 3, Team 5 fell to another heavy defeat as Stuart Bennett, Craig Johnson and Millie Bennett suffered an 8-2 loss at the hands of Fife. Craig and Millie picked up 1 win each. Last week the fat lady was warming up her vocal chords, this week it appears she’s on stage and just about to pick up the microphone! Still mathematically in Division 3 but……
 
As for Team 4 we commented last week that the wheels had completely come off their Division 3 campaign. The engine seems to have fallen out as well as they went down to an 8-2 defeat away to Edinburgh International. In Week 8, Team 4 were at the top of the Division 3 table – oh my how far they have fallen as their 9th loss in their last 12 matches results in them being 4th from bottom! In fairness their freefall down the table can be explained by the injury to Brian Bailey and the regular unavailability in the second half of the season of young Louis McLeod. Phil Daly played up from Division 4 as he and John Bald picked up one win each.  
 
Not much good news so far in Week 23! Maybe Team 1 could pull off the result of the season against Premier Division Leaders Murrayfield 1 and rekindle their survival hopes? Ok, maybe not! James Wighton deputised for Team Captain Greig McDonell and he joined daughter Abby and David Melrose at Ladywood. Scurrilously, when Greig turned up about 8.30pm to support his teammates there was a suggestion from the Murrayfield team that he had been protecting his average!! If only it was worth protecting! A 10-0 result ensued but the really bad news for Team 1 came later in the week when they discovered that Edinburgh International had picked up two wins in Week 23 to retain their Premier Division status for another year! Oh dear can we hear another fat lady approaching the stage…..
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But who cares about any of that? What we really want to know is how our two Division 4 teams fared last week! Team 6 of Julian Taylor, Rachel Petrie and Sonny Taylor faced an away match against Corstorphine 5. Their 7-3 win combined with Fife’s loss brings Team 6 within one point of 4th place – a great first season for this trio. On the night Julian was undefeated, Sonny picked up two and Rachel added 1 singles win. The father and son duo also combined for the doubles victory.
 
So what about Team 7? With Kristian Skotzen on holiday (another holiday during the TT Season!!!) Phil Daly was joined by George Wilson and Hannah McDonell as they faced a tough match against promotion candidates Haddington 3. An entertaining match filled with some great rallies but a 7-3 defeat for the home side as Phil won 2 and George added 1. Seemingly George’s win in the last match of the evening was all down to the excellent advice he received from El Presidente! Who knew you could give good advice, George was heard to say!  
 
And so, to our Player of the Week Award for Week 23. A slightly left field choice this week - only Julian was undefeated but he’s won this award on a couple of occasions! For the result of the week we have to delve into Team 3’s match against Edinburgh University. One of Uni’s top players Stefanie Koss started the night with a terrific 87% record in the Division. Up steps a man who’s played with the same bat for the last 30 years and is having, by his standard, a fairly mediocre season with a 40% record - lo and behold he holds his nerve to win 11-9 in the fifth. This week’s winner is Gary McDougal – well done to him.
 
And finally, to our Controversy of the Week Section. There can only be one topic on everyone’s minds this week – news which has rocked Scottish Table Tennis to its core. Hang on hang on – it was the Murrayfield boys that wanted this story – Our Press Officer is more of a Broadsheet Journalist than a tabloid one!!
 
Let’s stick with ELTTL controversies. As alluded to Teams 2 and 3 have been struggling in Division 1 to field their full sides. What are we playing at asked Ken Benjamin in an email earlier today. Team 3 Captain Krzysztof did not waste the opportunity of detailing the, in his view, unfairness of his opponents. The match against Edinburgh University was a postponed one. University were certainly not free of relegation worries themselves. Team 3 were the side who asked for the initial postponement so when it came to re-scheduling the rules indicate that the home side (if they didn’t request the postponement) only have to offer one date as an alternative. And that’s exactly what they did! Having made it clear that the date on offer would not enable us to play a full side the response was:
 
“….unless you are able to put out a team for 16th March, I am afraid that your team would have to forfeit the match.”
 
Thanks very much! Within the Rules? Absolutely. Taking advantage of the Rules? Absolutely. Sporting? Probably not. Would we have done the same in their position? Someone else can answer that! To avoid any misunderstanding though we think we should clarify that in Krzysztof’s email on the subject, his reference to his opponents as “donkeys” is due to English not being his first language – the actual translated Polish word is a term of endearment. Honest!
 
But let’s end on a positive – during Team 4’s match against Edinburgh International, Phil was sure he had got an edge at a crucial point in his match against Ian McLaren – the umpire was sure he hadn’t – his opponent, to prove that sportsmanship still lives on in the ELTTL, saw it and insisted that the point be given to Phil. And then on Thursday Phil “not another edge” Daly was again involved with a difficult umpiring call – this time one of his opponent’s teammates spoke up to confirm that the point should go to Phil. The fact that the two Haddington players involved are now not speaking to each other is neither here nor there! Joking of course – it’s not Clive and Brian that we’re talking about!
 
Week 24 might well clear up the relegation picture for a number of our teams – let's try and keep the fat lady in the wings for another week! 

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Week 22 Report

11/3/2018

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After a week of snow all of the Club’s 7 teams were back in action in Week 22 of the ELTTL.
 
Now our Press Officer has come in for some further unfair criticism over the course of the last couple of weeks for not spending enough time on our Division 4 teams – it was suggested to him that by the time he gets towards the end of his report he has lost some motivation, the result being that Teams 6 & 7 (really only Team 7) don’t get enough column space. Our Press Officer is nothing if not a good listener, so this week we’re going to start the round-up with Team 7 and work up to the Premier League.
 
Phil Daly, Kristian Skotzen and George Wilson (Team 7) won 9-1 last week against Edinburgh International. Well done to them.
 
Meanwhile, Team 6 of Julian Taylor, Rachel Petrie and Sonny Taylor faced Haddington 5 at Ladywood in Division 4. The 9-1 result in favour of Team 6 lifts them into 5th place in the table with ten wins and 2 draws under their belt this season. On the night Sonny & Julian were undefeated while Rachel picked up 2 wins. A terrific first season for the Team and playing regularly certainly seems to have been to Rachel’s advantage – her teammates both commenting upon her improvement throughout the season – a possible candidate for our end of season most improved player??
 
The story is not quite so rosy in Division 3 for Team 5. Last week saw Stuart Bennett, Sean Lennon and Millie Bennett take on Murrayfield 8. Our 2016/17 Division 4 Champions look like they might be returning to Division 4 for next season following a 7-3 loss to their Edinburgh opponents. Whilst Team 5 felt hard done by having to play against Alexander Asyunkin (he played up against Team 1 in the Premier and won 2!), young Aaron Barclay also won his 3 and it was those wins which put paid to Team 5’s hopes. Millie and Stuart both won 1 and combined for a win in the doubles. Six points behind third bottom ESC and with a worse game difference, Team 5 effectively need 4 wins from their last 5 matches to avoid relegation – the fat lady hasn’t sung yet, but she appears to be warming up her vocal chords.
 
After Team 4’s terrific start to their Division 3 campaign, the wheels have completely come off for Brian Bailey, John Bald and Louis McLeod. We all feel for Team Captain John – he’s struggling to hold the team together. Having turned up alone last week to face Corstorphine, he thought he had a full side for the trip away to West Lothian only to discover he was again a man short and relied on Sonny from Div 4 to make up a two! No surprise then when Team 4 fell to a 10-0 defeat, their 8th loss out of their last 11 matches. They’re still likely, however, to finish mid-table.
 
In Division 1, the result of the week probably came from Team 3 of Krzysztof Laszkiewicz, Gary McDougal and Ian Hislop as they travelled to Bathgate to take on West Lothian 3. At 5-4 up after two wins for Ian and Krzysztof and one for Gary, the last match of the night pitted the two undefeated players of the night against each other as Ian faced Andy Honeyman. Ian started repaying part of his massive transfer fee by winning in 3 straight sets to secure an excellent 6-4 victory and keeping the Team’s Division 1 survival hopes alive. Whilst the race for the Division 1 title is an absolute cracker, the relegation dogfight is equally as exciting and could see any one from five joining Edinburgh International 3 in Division 2 next season.
 
Unfortunately, Team 2 of Clive Liddiard, James Wighton and Charlie Brindley also find themselves in that relegation dogfight. With both Clive and Charlie unavailable James called upon Gary and Krzysztof to help them out against promotion hopefuls Murrayfield 3. Now we’re not in any way going to suggest that Gary and Krzysztof didn’t try but what was in it for them if two points went the way of one of their relegation rivals – as if that would ever have come into it!! From 2-0 down, the Murrayfield trio suddenly got a huge fright as Gary, then James then Krzysztof all won to take a 3-2 advantage at the halfway point of the night – a shock was on the cards. But alas, from that point on Murrayfield were undefeated as they secured a 7-3 win. 12 points for Team 2 with 4 matches left to play – a MASSIVE match next week against Corstorphine 2 with whom they are dead equal in the table – a win there would probably secure their Division 1 safety and at the same time help out Team 3.
 
And finally we reach the Premier Division where Team 1 faced a trip to Bathgate to take on West Lothian 1. Greig McDonell, David Melrose and Abby Wighton were consistent throughout the night – consistently poor - as they were steamrollered 10-0. Talking point of the night has to be the form of West Lothian’s Lukasz Kaska (defeating Greig was surely up there with his victory over the then 100%-man, University’s Johannes Laute) – he was at times unplayable – fast, sharp, aggressive, mobile and his shots were loaded with speed and spin! And a nice guy to boot. Time is running out for Team 1!
 
Ok, Ok, Ok, – a little bit more about Team 7!! On a serious note, Phil Daly, Kristian Skotzen and George Wilson are due a great deal of credit for their form over the last few weeks. They’ve won four of their last five matches played and their only loss in that period was when they played with two players against Fife. In that run George has won 12 of his 15 matches played while Phil has won 12 out of 12. The difference against Edinburgh International last week, however, was the improvement of Kristian – in the first half of the season he lost 3-0 to Alan Gracie and 3-1 to John Bradshaw. Fast forward 3 months and he turned those defeats into wins – and that’s what a first season of competitive table tennis is all about. Jings far too much time spent on these guys – let’s move on…
 
And so to our Player of the Week Award for Week 22. Sonny, Julian, Phil & George were all undefeated this week and are in the running. But for the importance of his undefeated night this week’s award goes to Ian Hislop for his terrific performance in securing the win for Team 3, a win which may yet prove to be a huge turning point for the Team – let’s hope so anyway! Well done Ian.
 
And finally, to our Controversy of the Week Section. We’ve not done anything on serves and umpiring for a while. To give Team 7 yet more column inches we turn our attention to their match against Edinburgh International. In one of Phil’s matches, having just won the first end 11-2, he raised the issue of his opponent’s serves – this had nothing to do with sour grapes on Phil’s part – he was clearly the better player. Phil had noticed that his opponent’s serves were, in his words, “wildly illegal”. He requested the umpire to remind both players to throw the ball up from a flat palm. The umpire did so and the match was played out. The opponent was, however, also obscuring the ball with his body when serving, something which Phil didn’t raise during the match but after the game when his opponent asked for some feedback on his serve, a discussion took place regarding the rules on service.
 
It was clear to Team 7 that there was no attempt to gain an advantage by the EI player – he simply did not know the rules about service. Is it the player’s duty to know the legalities? Surely it must be – you need to know what the rules are to be able to abide by them (mind you maybe not given the Committee’s various rulings this year). But surely how to serve should be one of the fundamentals that we all know, shouldn’t it? Team 7’s view was that this was a fault of the Club not the player. What responsibility do Clubs have to make sure their players all know the Rules of the game and indeed of the League? In our Club do we actually spend any time with players discussing such matters? Surely we don’t need to, do we? As anyone who reads this section knows, umpiring is one of our favourite topics! Other than a very occasional exception to the norm, the vast majority of us are never going to call a foul serve on one of our own teammates. We commented near the start of the season about an umpire in one of our matches in Division 4 who just straight out called a foul serve on one of our players for not throwing the ball up high enough. And maybe that’s what needs to happen more often. If we all started getting points awarded to our opponents, we’re pretty sure the standard of serving would improve greatly. But hey how many umpires are really going to do that? Can you imagine how many players would suddenly have fallouts with their own teammates let alone their opponents! Never mind that though – just how busy would this section be if that started happening regularly!

Finally we were reminded last week that the League will expect all outstanding matches, including the snowed off games to be played by the last week of the regular season - Really? That may prove somewhat problematic for Clubs like ours with limited hall availability. Particularly so when we get fantastic news from Ladywood that despite our block booking we can't get our premises on 14th March because there's a double booking - thanks for the fortnights notice! Oh to have our own premises.....


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Week 21 Report

4/3/2018

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Week 21 of the Edinburgh & Lothian’s Table Tennis League was an extremely quiet one for the Club. Snow, snow and more snow put paid to virtually all of the Club’s fixtures.
 
Unfortunately, Team 1 of Greig McDonell, David Melrose & Abby Wighton had rearranged their postponed fixture against Fife to last Monday night, before the snow came. Having postponed the match originally because of a holiday absence and rearranged it to a date which supposedly suited everyone, you can imagine Team Captain Greig’s response when David pointed out to him that he was on holiday last week!! As George Bernard Shaw put it “The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place and that David has listened to it” – maybe he never said that last bit!
 
So up stepped Charlie Brindley to make his Premier League debut for Penicuik as they travelled to Inverkeithing – can someone remind us in which part of the Edinburgh & Lothians do we find Inverkeithing? Some good news on arrival was the absence of Peter Aird and his funny bat – replaced with another dodgy bat though and unfortunately in the hands of a much younger, fitter, more athletic and attacking Callum Riddoch who joined Lance Stockdale and Jason Fleming.
 
Abby was unable to come to terms with Callum’s ability to counter hit from distance and the use of his pimples perplexed her as she lost in 3 straight ends. Worse was to come as Charlie’s debut against Jason was something of a baptism of fire for him as he lost without managing 11 points in total across the three ends played. Greig got the team on the board with a win against Lance before Abby lost to Jason – although Jason won in 3, the quality of the play was terrific and Abby, in truth, ought to have been 2-0 up after relinquishing game winning positions in the first two ends. Greig then defeated Callum in three straight ends (according to him playing some of his best TT of the season) before Lance restored a two-match lead with a victory over Charlie – 4-2 down and the decision made to finish the match on two tables – oh how we hate that!
 
Simultaneously, it looked as if Greig and Charlie could bring the match level as they both won the first ends of their respective matches but in the blink of an eye it was over as both lost to Jason and Callum respectively. Abby was then unlucky against Lance before the meaningless doubles became more of an opportunity for a chat than a serious match – an 8-2 defeat left the away side with a depressing journey home filled with “Oh what might have beens”.
 
And that’s it – all other 6 fixtures for the Club postponed due to the snow!! What more can we talk about…
 
Player of the Week? Oh this will be good – only one player this week managed to record any victories for the Club – for the second week in a row the award goes to………..
 
Controversy of the Week – we were criticised (by some without a sense of humour) for commenting on a postponement given by Team 3 a number of weeks ago due to adverse weather making the point that forcing our opponents to travel to Penicuik, risking their lives in the process was perhaps our best way of picking up some points! This week truly has shown what the weather can do to every aspect of life, never mind amateur sport – even Mr Scrabble Man who normally thinks our winters are tropical was forced to concede that playing TT last week from Wednesday onwards would have been completely “mental”! He spent the time instead building snowmen in his garden while in his swimming trunks.
 
We received this week the Minutes from the last League Committee meeting which dealt with the two “complaints” we discussed last week. In relation to Edinburgh Uni playing an ineligible player we are told in what appears to be a suggestion that the League were being ultra-strict on this rule, that not only were Yubo’s 3 singles games (which he won) overturned but the doubles in which he participated was also overturned turning a 7-3 defeat for Haddington into a 7-3 win. Wow – how harsh! Eh actually not harsh at all – there’s no rule which allows this course of action – the rule is abundantly clear – a team who plays an ineligible player forfeits the match 10-0. Never mind though the new set of Rules proposed for next season addresses the point at Para 5 (f):
 
“Should any team play a player who is ineligible to play for any reason then all matches won by that team, in the fixture in question, shall be void, and will be awarded to the opposing team”
 
Will that Rule be enforced with any more conviction than the current one? Who knows – the new draft Rules are out though for circulation amongst members and the League are giving us the great opportunity of voting them through at the AGM – the wonderfully worded email from the league tells us the following:
 
“Note that, in event that attendees at the AGM reject these new documents, the fall-back position is that the league would make do with the present “unfit-for-purpose” ones!”
 
Not a ringing endorsement for the Rules we have at present then! On a serious note, however, well done to those involved in the preparation of these new rules and guidance notes (Roger Thomas & Kevin Lawson particularly) – we certainly recognise how much commitment and time that must have taken.
 
Back to the Minutes from the last Committee meeting - In relation to the Edinburgh International issues, it transpires that EI2 had sought a postponement against WL 2 of their Division 1 fixture on the basis that they couldn’t field a team – the request was granted by WL but unbeknown to them the basis of the request appears to have been to allow EI’s newly registered player Jean Pierre to play – a player, who it seems, would probably walk into virtually any Premier League side – the minutes record Lindsay Muir as indicating he had seen JP practising at Murrayfield and would certainly have placed him in the Premier league rather than Division 1! In any event the postponement having been agreed there was nothing that WL could do about it. Sporting of EI not to give the full reason for seeking a rescheduling? Does it matter? Our view on postponements is well known – just don’t allow them (unless a situation like last week arises). EI pointed out that in a top of the table clash they would rather play their opponents at full strength than take advantage of a weakened team – wow what an admirable position to take – we would take any advantage we could to get a win!! As that famous saying goes – “Rise above principles and do what’s best for you” – hang on that doesn’t sound right??
 
Until next week when hopefully we can get some TT played….

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