League cup
Dear snooker league members
Those of you who attended the snooker league AGM on Monday 1st July. Will be aware of the proposed changes to the league cup by Richard Lewis and Alan Pearson for the fourth coming season. It’s was voted on and past at the meeting.
The proposal was to change the format of the league cup. Instead of starting the competition with the first round knockout and a number of teams getting byes straight into the quarterfinals. Teams will now be drawn out of a hat into 4 groups of 5 or 6 teams. Each team will play each other once in the normal league format of 7 singles each frame will count as a point for there team in there group. So each team will play a possible 4 or 5 matches. There was some discussion at the meeting as to how it will work with who plays who and how to decide who’s home or away. Taking on board what was said at the meeting I would suggest adopting the format below. Which is as the teams are drawn out into there groups at the August snooker meeting they will be placed into the group in order as they are drawn out.
| Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 |
| 1st vs 5th | 3rd vs 1st | 5th vs 2nd | 1st vs 2nd | 4th vs 1st |
| 2nd vs 4th | 4th vs 5th | 4th vs 3rd | 5th vs 3rd | 2nd vs 3rd |
This would be the order of play for the groups if we have 5 teams in a group. Team on the left home and team on the right would be away. We know the teams who are drawn 3rd in the groups will only get one home game and the teams drawn 4th will have three home games but this will be purely luck of the draw and the fairest way of doing it. There are 22 teams registering this season with the snooker league a couple of teams have said they don’t want to enter. So hopefully we can get 20 teams registered into the league cup. We will be ringing around the teams in the next week to confirm numbers but if you have any questions I will leave my number below.
If we can get the 20 teams we need the format of the groups will be. The teams finishing 1st and 2nd in there group will qualify for the quarter finals. The teams finishing 1st will play a 2nd placed team in the quarters.
The teams finishing 3rd and 4th in the groups will qualify for a new competition. A possible name for this comp would be the league cup silver medal. The 3rd and 4th placed teams will play each other in the quarterfinals of this comp at the same time as the 1st and 2nd placed finishers play in the league cup.
To enter the league cup groups and the following comps if you qualify, it has been agreed that the entrance fee should be £10 per team. The increase in cost is to subsidise the introduction of prize money as well as the trophy for the winning teams.
The group stages will hopefully start on Tuesday 20th August and will be played out on five Tuesday nights. Normal league start times and rules. The quarter finals will be played as in previous year on the first free Tuesday after the league as started.
I hope you all like the idea of the new format and enjoy all the extra games it will create for the league it self which as the years go by seems to get smaller and shorter every year.
Yours sincerely Richard Lewis 07854977117
Alan Pearson