Here is the third edition of this season's 'Worcester League News'.

Hi everyone,

Quite a few things to mention so let's start with -

Last Tuesday's Delegates Meeting - Well, the League is now £150 better off as the following clubs failed to attend and so receive the automatic £25 fine for non-attendance - Brunswick, Inter Express, Martley Spurs, University of Worcester, Wessie and Worcester Raiders.

Thank you for the warm applause afforded to Graham Russell on the occasion of his 75th birthday and 47 years of participation in local football.

Submission of Results & Referees marks - 16th & 17th October. All referee marks received on time. Martley Spurs Reserves and New AFC Barbourne failed to ring in their results and both clubs have now lost the first of their two 'lives.'

Monthly draw - The following clubs were winners !

September: £40 - Brunswick (15), £30 - Blackpole Sports (12), £30 - Malvern Town Reserves (19) and £30 - Coppertops Athletic (19)

October: £40 - AFC Claines (3), £30 - Perrywood (49), £30 - Nelson (41) and £30 - Coppertops Athletic (19)

It became evident at the meeting and also after it, that not all of our clubs have their own bank/building society accounts. In fact enquiries made since would support the view that it is very difficult and long winded to set up such accounts. Your Management Committee will look at this closely before the next delegates meeting in December and see what we can come up with - watch this space !

Dishonoured cheques - Still on the subject of bank accounts, the WFA Disciplinary Secretary, John Lovegrove, has asked me to warn you all about sending him cheques that subsequently 'bounce' ! A 'bounced' cheque means that payment has not been received and will automatically attract an automatic £20 fine and more importantly - a club suspension until payment is properly made !

Latest Hand Book amendments: -

< AFC Mazak- New home venue - Nunnery Wood Sports Centre

Malvern Victoria - Colin Brown - new mobile - see email

M.T.F.C. Athletic - New colours:
Home - Blue/Black shirts, Black shorts, Black socks
Away - Red/Black shirts, Black shorts, Black socks

VFC Keyz - Nathan Wanklin - new mobile – see email


Fixtures - The next batch of fixtures to 5 December are now on the website. Please have a look at them carefully and if you have any issues, get in touch with Bob Usher straight away.

Booking a Worcester City Council pitch - One or two clubs have experienced difficulty in booking pitches this season. Every club who applied at the beginning of the season for a council pitch has been allocated one and if the following procedure is followed, you should not have a problem (famous last words !!)

1. e-mail football@worcester.gov.uk before 12 noon on the Tuesday preceding the date you require a pitch. That is the latest time you can book but there is nothing to stop you applying from seven days before ! I'm also told that the council will accept advance bookings of up to 3 weeks in advance but I'm a little nervous on that one and would recommend a weekly application.

2. In your e-mail make sure you provide the following information; -
The name of your club and if you have more than one team, be specific i.e. 1st team, Reserves, A team etc.
The time and date you require the pitch
The type of pitch required - in our cases, obviously a senior pitch
The venue you are asking for - in normal circumstances you will get the pitch you were allocated at the beginning of the season, but this may change due to unavailability (e.g. flooded, unfit, or in the case of cup matches too many teams applying for the same pitch)
Your full name, address and contact telephone numbers

And finally - your debit/credit card details - which you should only need to supply once as the council will then have them on record. If these details change, obviously the council needs to know !

Unfortunately, due to staff resources, you are unlikely to ever speak to anyone directly at the council and are likely to encounter answer phones. Not ideal I know, but we do not have any power over staff numbers at the council I'm afraid ! My advice to anyone who thinks the service is unacceptable is to contact your local councillor and have a good moan at him/her !!

The council does have a Football information line - 01905.752963. This will give you recorded information on pitch conditions/cancellations (or you can leave a message about a forthcoming or cancelled fixture.) Personally I would use e-mail every time as you will (or should !) at least get a written reply.

If you have followed the above instructions to the letter and still have a problem, then get in touch with me on my mobile (07789.827809)- but don't contact me after 1.00 p.m. on a Friday as I probably won't be able to get hold of anyone myself as it's POETS day !

One final thing on council pitch bookings - if you require a pitch on 18/19 December or 2 January, you must book no later than 14 December please.

Matches on 3G pitches - from what I've been told, there have been no problems with playing on the 3G at Pershore High School where the two Hornets teams play their home matches. All players have arrived with either moulded boots or trainers and have enjoyed playing on the surface I believe. I have been asked to mention that could spectators also be kind enough to wear appropriate footwear if they are watching from the touchline - in other words leave your stilettos in the car please ladies !
The University of Worcester also played a match on their 3G pitch at the Uni last week and again, the surface looked fine when I popped down to have a look.

Referees - If you were at the meeting on Tuesday, you would have heard Jeff Widdett implore you to contact your match referee on the Thursday/Friday before your match. Several clubs are still not doing this and if it continues fines will be on the way - you have been warned !!

Jeff also mentioned that our local referees are more than happy to attend club training evenings and answer questions from players on problems they may have encountered in their matches. Give Jeff a ring if you'd like someone to go along and he'll probably send someone who would benefit from the training at the same time!

That's all for now - a reminder that the next Delegates meeting is on Tuesday 14 December - 7.30 p.m. at Archdales

Full downloadable copy of WDFL News - Season 2010/11 No. 3 - Download / Open