Norfolk & Suffolk Cup
For the first time in many, many years, there are more than two clubs competing in this season’s Norfolk & Suffolk Cup (Suffolk section). Manningtree have joined in the fray, and will play both Ipswich and Bury St Edmunds.
To date, only one match has been played, when Bury St Edmunds and Manningtree drew 3 – 3, with the former club winning on board count.
Ipswich entertain Manningtree next week, on 24 January, whilst Bury St Edmunds will play Ipswich at home on 16 February.
Bury St Edmunds have won the Suffolk section for the past three years and have faced Norfolk Champions Broadland each time. Bury won in 2014 and 2016, whilst Broadland triumphed in 2015.
It is premature to state that Bury St Edmunds won on board count. There is no provision in the rules for this. As I understand it, there is a proposal retrospectively to introduce a rule that would favour Bury. You can imagine what the Manningtree players think of this.
Hello Leon,
Perhaps as Vice President this protest could have been made more formally than on this website.
It is not premature to declare Bury St Edmunds as the winners, the decision was mine as comp sec. See rule 1.2 where the comp sec is empowered to resolve disputes. This is a solution to the problem of draws when playing in an all play all format with rules stating the competition is to be a knockout and when we need one team as the eventual winner. As Tim Lunn points out the rules for a knockout don't fit all play all very well so I applied a temporary fix until the AGM can approve the change. Before I did this my fix was put out to consultation at Ipswich, Bury and Manningtree. Jim Buis of Manningtree replied at length to that consultation and his solution was no better and would have seen Bury awarded the win.
In order to change the rules (see the constitution section 11),it takes a minimum of 7 weeks to call an EGM if a correctly formatted request is made over this issue. That means about the end of March before we would get a decision so in the interests of efficient administration of the competition, another of my responsibilities under rule 1.2, I had to do the best I could.
Regards
David Green
SCCA competitions secretary
I see the rules state bottom board elimination, but unfortunately mentions for knockout phase and finals.
TL.