Team League: Summer 2025 Season Review
Report courtesy of league organiser, Jon Shapland
The eight teams that registered for the Summer 2025 season hailed from eight different clubs, which I always think is a good thing. Ever since I first played competitive pool 25 years ago I’ve always enjoyed going to away venues, trying different beers, seeing different people, etc. Personally I much prefer visiting lots of different places than the same place(s) multiple times.
Although Triple S were crowned champions with a match to spare, no team ended up with a win or loss percentage above 80%. Similarly no player to have played more than a dozen frames of singles achieved a higher average than 80%, Jim Harrison’s (Welcome Institute) 83.3% being the highest from exactly twelve singles frames played.
Bulwell Church Institute secured second place in the table with a brilliant 3-2 road win at champions Triple S on the last matchnight of the season, pushing Welcome Institute into third place by the finest of fine margins! Triple S receive £70 and have their name added to the perpetual trophy, while Bulwell Church Institute receive £50 and Welcome Institute £30.
Final league table
The numbers of teams and available dates meant that a summer-season cup was possible for the first time since 2016. A six-red, best-of-nine format with head starts of half what they would have been in league matches made for some quick-fire action…
The tie of the quarter-final round saw eventual league winners Triple S come from 3-1 down to beat bottom-makers Lenton Liberal Club on a deciding frame. There were also away victories for Bulwell Church Institute and The Towers over Welcome Institute and Academy, respectively, while Spot On Hucknall were the only home team to progress at the expense of Carlton & District Liberal Club.
The semi-finals saw another home success for Spot On Hucknall (over The Towers) and another away win for Triple S (at Bulwell Church Institute), so it was perhaps not a surprise when a coin toss lead to Spot On Hucknall being the nominal home team in the final and Triple S “away”.
The final was played on neutral territory, with The Towers (Mansfield) very kindly affording us the use of their Star table. Spot On Hucknall ultimately vanquished Triple S in a close match where neither team was able to string three consecutive frame wins together.
Spot On Hucknall receive £40 and have their name added to the perpetual trophy, while £20 for Triple S takes their earnings to £90 for the season. You can read a report from the final here.
Cup final scorecard
Breaks of 30 or more recorded in team matches over the course of the season numbered 64…
A superb 120 by Spot On Hucknall’s Sean Hopkin in a home fixture against Academy on the third matchnight of the season unsurprisingly ended up standing as the top effort. Jim Harrison (Welcome Institute) and Adam Clift (Triple S) completed the top three with further centuries of 101 and exactly 100, respectively, while Steve Donner’s (also Triple S) 89 was the only other single-visit frame-winning contribution of the season.
Steve also recorded the top two breaks under the six-red format, a 43 clearance at Lenton Liberal Club and a 41 at Bulwell Church Institute, while Andrew Diacopoulos’ 37 for The Towers at Academy was the third highest. The top three breaks recorded in Scotch pairs (alternate shots) frames were 49 by Adam & Steve, 42 by Adam and Dave Wilkinson and, on the last matchnight of the season, 39 by Steve Barton & Jim Harrison.
Andrew scored the most 30+ breaks in total with a dozen, all coming in singles play at an impressive rate of one every 2.2 frames. Adam (one every 2.3 frames) and Steve (2.5) were close behind with ten 30+ singles breaks apiece as well as combining for a couple more on Scotch pairs together, plus Adam’s 42 with Dave.
High-break board
The season-long knock-out singles competition produced some incredibly close affairs, with the seven matches from the quarter-finals onwards counting 34 frames out of a possible 35. Ultimately it was Terry Thompson (Academy) who came from 1-0 and 2-1 down in the final to triumph 3-2 over Wayne Martin (Spot On Hucknall), Terry making a break of 35 in frame two and Wayne 59 and 47 in frame three and 35 in the decider.
As well as qualifying the Alan Cunningham Trophy (Champion of Champions) competition, Terry received £30 prize money and joins previous winners Jim Harrison (2024, Welcome Institute) and Jacob Reynolds (2023, Bulwell Church Institute) in having his name engraved onto the perpetual trophy. Wayne’s second runner-up finish in two years earned him £15.
Handicap Review
Steve Butler, Wayne and I have conducted a two-pronged review of all players’ handicaps and of the handicapping “system” itself. On the player front, we’ve looked at the results from all of Steve’s individual competitions over the last twelve months, win-loss stats from the 2024-2025 season of Wayne’s winter team league plus the same stats from the summer team league that’s just completed…
Ellis Abbott, Paul Bean, Alan Caulton, Ben Cooper, Mark Hayman, Kevin Robson, James Sloan, Lee Cuomo and Richard Sutton have all had their handicaps lowered a level. Having their handicaps raised a level are Keith Holgate, Dave Jobling, Scott McIntyre and I.
In terms of the handicapping system itself, we’ve noticed that some people are incorrectly applying the head starts – particularly in the team leagues where a pair’s mean-average handicap is not a whole number (e.g. a -7 player partnering a +14 player gives an average handicap for that pairing of +3½) or where “half handicaps” are applied in the six-red format used for the Cup. We’ve made two changes to try to make things clearer…
Firstly: where previously all handicaps were multiples of seven, they’ll now be multiples of eight. We get that multiples of seven probably originally arose because it’s one black, two blacks, three blacks, etc – but we can’t see any reason why one red and a black, two reds and blacks, three reds and blacks, etc is any less valid. This change in itself will get rid of the “half points” and all the confusion that came with them.
Secondly: we’ve realigned the handicaps so that the best players are now playing off scratch (0) and everyone else has a positive handicap. This change in itself will not actually have any effect on the head starts in frames, but not having to deal with negative numbers hopefully makes the calculations easier for everyone.
You can view all of the updated handicaps here.
Playing-Rule Change
We’re introducing a “mercy rule” to limit the number of snookers a player (or pair) may carry on for at the end of a frame…
If at any point the player/pair at the table needs four or more standard fouls (plus all the balls left on the table, including blacks with any reds) to tie, then they will be obliged to concede the frame immediately.
The default position is that this rule will apply throughout all of Steve’s VAR tournaments, singles league, home league and the team leagues. Similar to the ‘miss’ rule, however, if both players in an individual match agree not to play the mercy rule then there will be no limit on the number of snookers either of them can play on for in that match. The rule may not be relaxed in any team matches, though.
Winter Team League – Entries and Matchsheets
Entries are now being taken for the Winter 2025-2026 season of the team league.
All matches are played on Monday evenings, and it is anticipated that the season will begin on 6 October 2025 and run until mid to late March 2026. There will be a break for Christmas and New Year, with no matches being scheduled for 22 or 29 December.
We’ve noticed that some of the home-made match sheets that teams have been using aren’t really ideal for recording all of the information Wayne and I need to process results, so we ask that the leagues’ official standard match sheet and six red match sheet are used.
While teams remain free to download and print off matchsheets for themselves, to help those without easy access to a computer and/or printer we’re introducing a new “print and post” service whereby we will print off a wadge of match sheets for you and post them to a given address.
Standard entry (without matchsheets) remains frozen at £30 per team, while if you would like to avail yourselves of the “print and post” service then this will be priced at £32 per team (i.e. an extra £2.00 to cover the costs of printing, packaging and posting).
For any queries or for further information (on anything – not just the “print and post” service) please contact league organiser, Wayne Martin, on 07967455645.