Venues for Cup matches

One of the players in the League has sent me an email as follows:

Quote :

My team are concerned about the way the venues for the cup draws are decided. Could someone explain the rationale behind, for example, two Congresbury teams travelling to Lulsgate to play a cup match or other teams criss-crossing North Somerset to play their ties?

We will probably propose that, as with all other cup competitions we are aware of, first name out of the hat is the home team or ask the committee to find a different way of choosing the venue so it is equidistant from the two teams and doesn't favour one team or another.

I hope we can add this to the off-season discussions.

Any views?

The venues are chosen at random with the intention of the match being played on a table that neither side has an advantage on. The matches are distributed evenly amongst the pubs. So what if people have to travel a bit for a couple of matches each season - it's not that far.

The suggestion of having the match played on the home table of one of the teams is never going to work. No one will want their opponents to have the advantage of playing on their own table. Will the away team be allowed to have a practice first? This would cause a lot of arguements particularly when the home team have what is seen to be a difficult table.

If you pick a pub that is equidistant from both teams you will end up with most matches played on the two or three pubs that are in the middle. We've already had enough (unjustified) complaints from landlords that they haven't had their fair share of cup games - this will make that 10 times worse. I don't think it's fair to expect Fred to spend his time hunched over a map with a tape measure trying to work out the minimum travel time for each team for every cup game. How much effort do you think this will take? How about applying it to individuals and pairs matches - you'll never be able to please everyone.

I don't think there is much to be gained from taking on these two suggestions. I think they would create a lot of unnesessary extra work for Fred and generate a lot of friction between teams.

Neil Devereux wrote:

The venues are chosen at random with the intention of the match being played on a table that neither side has an advantage on. The matches are distributed evenly amongst the pubs. So what if people have to travel a bit for a couple of matches each season - it's not that far.

The suggestion of having the match played on the home table of one of the teams is never going to work. No one will want their opponents to have the advantage of playing on their own table. Will the away team be allowed to have a practice first? This would cause a lot of arguements particularly when the home team have what is seen to be a difficult table.

If you pick a pub that is equidistant from both teams you will end up with most matches played on the two or three pubs that are in the middle. We've already had enough (unjustified) complaints from landlords that they haven't had their fair share of cup games - this will make that 10 times worse. I don't think it's fair to expect Fred to spend his time hunched over a map with a tape measure trying to work out the minimum travel time for each team for every cup game. How much effort do you think this will take? How about applying it to individuals and pairs matches - you'll never be able to please everyone.

I don't think there is much to be gained from taking on these two suggestions. I think they would create a lot of unnesessary extra work for Fred and generate a lot of friction between teams.

OK but what is the sense in having teams travel many miles when a small bit of common sense (i.e. talking) could sort out a more mutually acceptable solution?

Surely the whole idea of having a cup match is to play on a board that you have not played on before in the league. What is the point of having a cup match on your home board, does that mean we have to play two legs home and away? What a load of nonsense. Fred is doing a great job in organising the cup matches which can't be easy in keeping all the different pubs happy. The pubs are not that far away from each other. Perhaps the person who raised the query would like the job of organising the cup matches next season?

Ian, some people may be willing to organise the time and venue for their matches but there are plenty of people who will not and it's the people who will not that are the issue.

Some people just don't have the initiative to arrange these things for themselves and, even if they do, just imagine the number of arguements there will be over picking a venue. People have tables they like and tables they don't, pubs they like and pubs they don't. Who is going to take responsibility for deciding the venue when the captains/players can't agree?

There is also the issue of making sure the match is played in time for the result to be given to Fred in time to draw the next round. Fred had trouble enough last season with captains/players not telling him the result of matches that had been postponed. For example, in the quater finals of the individuals cup I was listed as playing against one of three people because none of them had bothered to tell Fred the winners of the postponed games from the two previous rounds. If we leave it for captains/players to do themselves it will just get a lot worse.

In the UEFA Cup Final a team from Russia are playing in Manchester.

In the Champions League Final a team from Manchester are playing in Russia.

That's how it works.

If it's good enough for the world's most professional sport...