On Saturday the new league structure started in Eastern Counties. An overview of this has been written by Andrew Sarek which looks at some of the issues with mis-matches and call offs. This can be read HERE.

Looking at Eastern Counties 4 (North) where our Pedlars team plays there was only one game in the league played. Thetford 2s beating Broadland 3s 70 – 7. Every other game was called off. In our case at close to midnight on the Friday night by West Norfolk.

However, that means that 4 teams should have had home games. They would have expected some income over their bars, 15 or more of their players had organised their Saturday afternoon / evening and 4 referees had equally planned to have a run out. None of that happened. On the first weekend of the season. Maybe the season for these teams started too early, maybe people are still playing summer sports or on holiday. We can only hope that as the season progresses in this league, at least, we see games taking place otherwise the impact on all of our clubs is going to be difficult to manage.

The Pedlars team must be congratulated though as 20 players turned up to North Pickenham Road to take part in a training session and a bit of a social. The sad thing is had West Norfolk have travelled even with a handful of players they could have had a game.