Can anyone give me a good reason why the Premier league season is so short? The cricket doesn't start for a while and all the players are still raring to go, so why don't we have a longer season with more teams in our leagues?
And is their a cup competition that we can play in? Three months and 14 games is just not enough for a year. And as we always start so slowly, there's never any time to get back into the race for the top four.
It would be good to have an extended season, especially considering that the Cricket doesn't start 'til October and we finish early august. We should be able to get at least another 4 games in and play a 10 team comp. There isn't much room too start the season earlier, but maybe we could look at playing a few more trials as well???
Increase in games/ teams means the need for more fields available for play and GHFA having to inevitably pass on additional costs to players by increasing registration fees eventually
Which would you prefer - playing all 14 games and having maybe 1 or 2 washed out games or having half a season with washed out games or grounds unavailable due to weather and feeling cheated becuase you pay such high rego costs
Besides they struggle now to find a referee for many matches, how would they cope with an extended season
so maybe we should join a different league. I notice that we are in a geographical position at the axis of more than one league and could easily move into a neighbouring league to get more for our rego money. Then again, perhaps that's what GHFA want. After all they took lots of points off us in the Premier League this season and didn't show any sort of compassion to the circumstances. Hmm, am I close too close to the bone?
All players know the rules, and the competition points wouldn't have been taken away had you observed them!! As for changing to another association, why do you think we have had entire teams move from other associations in past seasons??
...all players know the rules? I think that is the most ludicrous thing to say. When you have a new manager who does not have a set of the rules (remember what date the rules were received this season) and follows all necessary precautionary steps (asking the players themselves to check on their status for example), and when you have new players who have never played in the league and wouldn't have an inkling of any crazy GHFA rules governing the release of players, how can you expect everyone to know the rules? Like it has been said, some sort of compassion and understanding would have been appreciated.
Anyway, it's all history now, the Ravens Premier League team finds itself in Division 2. I can't imagine what sort of petty band of people makes up such rules for such a short season at such an amateur level. They are clearly not real football people, just typical inward-looking blazer-wearing self-important stuffed shirts.
I think enough has been said about this. It's quite a boring subject.
Think before you leap. The KDSA, for example, basically doesn't supply referees for any thing lower than 2nd Division and even then it's pot luck. Add to this the fees in general are higher than GHFA.
GHFA, needs to address the 14 game comps - it wouldn't be a problem to run 10 team comps for all divisions and if you suffer a rain cancelled match or two what would be the difference? None.
Don't doubt if there had of been more wash outs this year that some possibly would of been an allocated draw result.
One thing the GHFA could learn from their neighbours is the running of a league cup. Yeh, yeh I can hear all the arguements but why not just charge an entry fee? That way you will get only the teams that really want to play and some of the cost will be covered.
Why should cricket get a season that runs from September, and yes they start their trials then, to March? It's just another example of the attitude displayed to football in this country.
here's a message posted on the ESSFA league leaders website www.dunbarrovers.com. Now if they can do it, surely GHFA could take the initiative to do it... Having said that, from the tone of the message, people are just never happy, and this guy is just making excuses in advance.
"Had the original rules of the competition stood, we would have won the league yesterday
After yesterday's results in the First Grade Championship, Dunbar Rovers are sitting proudly on the top of the table. That completes two rounds of the competition. Had the Association not decided a few weeks ago to suddenly change the rules of the competition because they realised that the league would be over in early July, Dunbar would have been crowned Champions.
Because of this change of the competition rules during the season, we now need to play another full round of seven games. I submitted an official letter of objection to the Association from our club about this issue, listing mainly reasons of unprofessionalism as the grounds for the objection.
However in the last week or so, having spoken to a few people in the club, it was decided to support the idea of three rounds so that the season would be extended into August and September. Our club voted to play another round.
Let this not stop us though. Let's make sure that at the end of twenty-one games that we are still on top and nobody can deny then that we will have deserved it."
...put in an official complaint, which would go straight in the bin at Oberkampf GHFA. Pah. The word 'official' basically sums it all up. Officious. I'm sure there'll be a section 3b of rule 14q, paragraph XXII that states that an official complaint must be witnessed by four stewards of the club and submitted no later than 8am on the third Tuesday of the month, otherwise we'll lose three points. Official complaint my arse. GHFA my arse.
GHFA...? why they can't even run a featherless chook raffle. look at how pathetic their website is. they might as well go back to isport for their web presence.
if you can all run a better association than those in charge, then i am sure that they would love you to do it. remember they are volounteers and amateurs. not unlike the players.
and as for other associations, try moving to Canterbury association. we just moved from there and their organisation was pitiful compared to GHFA, which is why our team moved in its entirity this year. Canterbury could not even give us a full draw at the beginning of the season. we had to find out the location and time of our games the Thursday before. the grounds were crap and we could never get referees. i am sure that if you all move elsewhere, those of us who remain will get more referees, better grounds and more games. so go ahead.
i would like more games as well, and i am prepared to pay extra for it. that is what it is all about.
ok, so what if the league gets expanded a bit, take on a couple of extra teams in the Premier League Divisions, brings in a heap more cash in rego fees, and the refs need paying for four more weeks. Is it not feasible? Is there anything I can do to make this happen? It'll certainly make a better more competitive league, and give teams a chance to be toppled off the top or escape relagation, instead of winning the league after ten games or being all but relagated half way through the short season.
I would have thought that, as the standard isn't the worst in the country, that more soccer would be of benefit to everyone.
And a nice cup competition encompassing every team in the league would help to generate some extra interest(say one comp for the first team of each club, all the way down to the lowest league and one comp for the second teams of each club - a chance for Beecroft to play North Epping for instance, or some AA7 team to play Putney, you get the picture).
I would love to see a little bit of meaningful reform in this league, to satisfy the desires of the players and those who enjoys watching. Take a leaf out of the ESSFA and give us what we want!!