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| Pub Pool Rules | Killer | 14-1 | ||||||
Free Banner Exchange for Pool Websites from uk8ball.com
Running a pool league
Questions to ask yourself before starting..
Check back regularly for updates - if you would like to contribute in any way, we would be VERY grateful!
This is a very long page, it is put together to make it easy to print out if required. You can either read it through or click on a link below to go straight to that section.
- If you are on your own then give up now..
- What night of the week are you going to compete?
- What rules are you going to play? Pub Pool Rules, BAPTO, EPA (old EPA), World Rules, Black Ball rules or local rules of some sort?
- Home and Away or played at the same venue?
- Who is going to run the league?
- How many committee members are you going to have and how long are they going to serve.
- How many players are you going to have per team?
- How many frames are to be played?
- How many teams per division?
- What will be the minimum and maximum number of players per team?
- What time will you start?
- Will you handicap the league?
- What will your costs be approximately?
- How much will you charge for entry fees?
- How will you communicate with teams?
- Who will receive and post or post out results?
- Will you distribute money as prizes and/or trophies?
- Misbehavior & Misconduct rules.
The Main Officers usually consist of:
| Job | General Description of normal duties | About the person.. |
| Secretary |
| Someone with plenty of time on his/her hands, known by as many people as possible - with thick skin! This is the toughest task and you NEVER get any thanks! |
| Chairman |
| Someone respected by all, either an older member of the league, perhaps a senior or well known local business man or a well respected player. Must be able to control crowds &/or meetings and speak publicly.. |
| Treasurer |
| An accountancy background would be ideal but not essential, perhaps a local business man - someone used to dealing with money in a formal manner.. |
Other jobs to consider as time goes by..:
- Webmaster - we offer free services to pool leagues, check it out here..
- Competitions Secretary
- Discipline Secretary
- Results Secretary (You will need some league software, probably, unless you are a programming genius, or you can run your league online completely free - ukleagues.com)
- Interleague/Superleague Captain/Liaison
- Representative's at county level (if you affiliate your league to a county association.
In any event it is wise to have other or 'ordinary members on your committee, these members, ideally, should come from a variety of teams and help to give balanced opinions for decision making.
Tough questions, you will have to work it out for yourselves. I will give you three examples of leagues I have been involved in below.
Regarding the number of frames to play..
You cannot reproduce match play in friendlies or pre-season trial time sessions. You can only work this out through experience. therefore as a rough guide:
With this in mind, my experience is that the following will just about fill a night:
| Mid Week | World Rules | Singles only | 12 - 13 frames |
| Singles & Doubles | 12 - 13 frames | ||
| EPA | Singles only | 10 - 11 frames | |
| Singles & Doubles | 9 - 10 frames | ||
| BAPTO | Singles only | 12 - 13 frames | |
| Singles & Doubles | 12 - 13 frames | ||
| Sunday | World Rules | Singles only | 14 - 15 frames |
| Singles & Doubles | 14 - 15 frames | ||
| EPA | Singles only | 12 - 13 frames | |
| Singles & Doubles | 11 - 12 frames | ||
| BAPTO | Singles only | 14 - 15 frames | |
| Singles & Doubles | 14 - 15 frames |
Singles and doubles usually means that one third of the frames are doubles (i.e. 6 singles, 3 doubles)
You are looking for players to play at least twice possibly three times based on a perfect number of players. In other words, pick the number of frames and the number of doubles (if any) first then look at the following table for further help.
In my experience a safe number is 5 or 6, any more is pushing it - in the summer especially, some venues can struggle to find a full team and you really don't want to upset people if you don't have to.. Therefore if you are going to play 14/15 frames, then you are not going to be restricting to 2 each..
Here are some ideas.. Come to your own solution from these examples..
| Format | Legs | Players | |||
| Ideal Number | Minimum | Maximum | |||
| 3 legs of 5 singles | Home players play fixed order 1-5, away players play back one in the order - ensures no 2 players meet more than once | 3 | 5 | 3 | 5 |
| 3 legs of 5 singles | Each player can play in each leg once only but the captain can play up to 15 different players once each or any combination | 3 | 5 | 3 | 15 |
| 10 singles 2 doubles 1 decider | 5 players play 2 singles each, 4 of those players play 2 doubles, the fifth player plays a deciding single - tough decision who to pick! | 3/4 | 5 | 3 | 5 |
| 5 legs of 3 | 5 players play 5 opponents best of 3, this works well for knockout cups.. | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| 5 legs of 'best of 3' with doubles | 3 singles, 2 doubles each best of three, alternated - another good format for team knockouts.. | 5 | 5 | 2 | 7 |
The first question is how many times a year are you going to play? If it is once only, then the number of teams per division does not really matter (but 10-12 is usually spot on).
If you are playing a summer and winter league, diary issues do then come into play, this can be compounded if you have knockout competitions too. Remembering that there are 52 weeks in the year and you will need to allow breaks for events such as presentation nights, Christmas, general meetings, etc..
It might be tempting to put some of these events on nights other than the night that the league plays. This is not wise at all, many players you will find are involved in other things (darts leagues, snooker leagues, could be a players partner is involved in something else..) so you have to factor these in too.
How longs a piece of string? You will need to think of all the following:
- Trophies (are you going to front load the cost of perpetual trophies or spread the cost)
- Telephone calls (lots more than you think!)
- Stationary (you can't 'borrow' stuff from the office forever!)
- Photocopying
- Computer equipment - try asking local companies - we have had several computers donated over the years. Computers no further use to a company will still be good enough for league purposes, porbably
- Computer consumables
- Web site hosting - we do this for free for pool leagues - click here for details
- Postage
- Travel
- Affiliation fees
- Interleague entry fees
- Interleague team shirts (if not sponsored..) - contact us, we may be able to help you here..
- Table fees(?) - finals, etc
- Presentation Night - (entertainment, professional player exhibitions, etc..)
All of these costs can quickly rise so be wary of thinking you can swallow your own costs... Your job is to run the league not sponsor it..
How much to charge for entry fees:
Simple. Divide Costs above by the number of teams... If only it was that easy..
Obviously, the minimum must reflect these costs, you also want to think about a mini slush fund for seasons where team entries drop (this is natural - teams will chop and change..). If team entries continue to rise as the league goes on, you can always reduce them or use the excess funds in a positive manner (upgrading perpetual trophies.. etc..).
£30 per team per season (2 seasons a year) for 30 teams is about right - providing for a decent set of trophies (30 teams will require around 70-100 trophies per season!) and covering all costs...
