Grading Games & Honest Discussions

Having played Captail Football since leaving college in 1996, the current set up for the lower grades leaves a lot to be desired. I certainly don't have any silver bullet solutions, but possibly an open discussion could sew the seeds for one. Retention of players is important and a change here would help that.

With all new teams (talking teams created from scratch) coming in at the very bottom of the pile, it takes 3 or 4 years of them storming their way through the grades to find their natural level. This results in a few things happening:

• Incumbents in the leagues just above (Divs 9, 10, 11, 12 etc) have good close games against other incumbents, and then every 4 weeks or so, get taken apart 7-0, 10-0 etc by teams who are obviously destined for a higher grade.
• Incumbents RARELY get a shot at promotion and the best fun is the fight to avoid relegation.
• The attitudes of the teams dishing out the beatings is often hard to take, given most are more interested in playing people around their same level. Arrogance from a team destined to play Cap 5 becasue they destroy a team with players at a Div 12 level is like Bayern Munich crowing over beating Plymouth Argyle 5-0.

Having plenty of discussions on this topic, I see a few options, again, not silver bullets but an opportunity to discuss:

• As club captain for a cricket team, I have careful conversations with all new teams about the level of their players, what their aims are and what they want out of there football, and then, working with Cricket Wellington, attempt to get them into a grade that best suits them. this isn't always possible and relies on other teams dropping out of needing to be replaced but it does have significant success. On the occasions where we get the grade wrong, it only takes one season for them to drop down/get promoted to something more fitting. More responsibility on the club captains/chairmen to ensure teams are positioned fairly.
• Why make the grading league at the bottom? Surely, if the grading game was positioned in the middle (say around Div 7-8) then teams would find their level up or down much quicker. This is not about replacing Div 7-8, rather moving the grading division in between them. 
• If teams are set up as development teams, i.e. college kids getting a second game in with a view to joining a club, create an under 20 social league maybe?

Just a few ideas...anyone?

yeah I have a few mates in a team who used to play cap9 for karori, they moved the team to IBU and had to start from cap14 again as a result. They've been putting a lot of goals past some teams, and being evenly matched with 1-2 others. 

Its a pretty awkward topic to get right I suppose. You're always going to get it wrong somehow, or annoy someone 

Posted before I'd finished so had to edit. Couple of solutions there.

There is a team in out grade who has scored 45 goals in 10 games and conceded just 7. All young, all talented and all destined for Capital 4 or 5 when we know we belong in the slums of Capital 10 (or at least, we did in the past).

Teams coming from Kapiti or Wairarapa automatically go to Cap 3 after wining local comps.

I have always thought there should be a seperation of "social" say Cap 6 down  and more serious say Cap 5 up. Call the Social grades "presidents 1, 2 and 3 etc(or something similar)" and when a new team comes in that is considered to be a serious side, they could start at Cap 5. More social teams start in Presidents 5.

 Teams wanting to enter the Cap 5 competition could have some sort of playoff with the two bottom Cap 5 teams.  If they are unsuccesful, they play somewhere in Presidents grade. "Playoff games would need to include some rules to avoid stacking of sides.  

A system such as this would aid the Seatouns of this world whose 1st team climbed the ranks way ahead of their second team, meaning that even all going well it would be 4 or five years before they even reach Cap 5.

social football lads

This seems like a good idea. I know a guy who wanted to start a brand new club, but when he realised it could take 15 years to get to Cap 1 he didn't bother. Capital Football were less than helpful.

Yeah, that comment doesn't equate to much.

Social generally means having fun, which is hard when you get battered by teams who should be playing higher (and want to play higher) but have no choice but to start at the bottom.

if they are that good then shouldn't their club put them ahead of one of their other teams?

Starting a new club is not a serious proposition is it? Plenty of clubs already, some struggling, others merging etc. What would it take to really start a 'club' as opposed to a 'team'

Plus there's Sunday League, which offers a different social 'product'- many social teams without clubs find their home in the Sunday League (See Tuskan Raiders and Sunday Blazers as examples of quite good teams who have never aligned with a club)

Agree something needs to be done in the lower grades- who really benefits from floggings? Solution may be simple but it would require some meaningful engagement from Capital Football.

I guess my subject is purely aimed at new teams who have aligned with a club, pure and simple. One of the best ways would be simple discussion. There is enough natural attrition across the grades to slot a team in here or there as needed up the pecking order if it is felt they would suit that grade (or thereabouts). It won't be perfect, but it will be better.

There will always be floggings but when you see a team scoring 4-5 goals a game over 10 matches and conceding just 7, it's quite possible they're in the wrong grade

This chap didn't by chance happen to go to have his hair cut about 8 years ago when he had that idea did he?

why can't it be left to the club to rank their teams?

Well, it can be hard to tell how well teams will go in social grades. In our grade there are only 3 teams in it from last season, finishing mid tableish last season, and those 3 teams are the 3 teams bottom of the table by some distance. Really, if promotion/relegation was working there should be 6 teams from last season but for some reason teams have been put in the grade not via promotion/relegation that are far superior to the teams that were there last season. 

I must say however that our team is much weaker than previous seasons and could probably do with a drop in grades - again, hard for clubs to know how social teams recruit when it is inevitable that a few players come and go each season.

As long as they are in the right grade to begin with, any personnel changes that result in demotion/promotion will mean they find their 'new' level a lot quicker than if they all just start in level 16. It's not about Team 1 being only a little bit better than Team 10 to even things up, it's about all teams being competitive. You may still lose the odd game 5 or 6 nil on a bad day, but an 8 nil bashing won;t be a semi-regular occurrence.

Totally agree with you LeighboNZ that something needs to be done about the current structure of the grading system. But like Tegal said above I think no matter what you do someone is still going to be unhappy somewhere...

We are in Capital 11 and have worked our way up from capital 15 3 years ago. We are averaging over 100 goals a season we only get about 4 or 5 challenging games each season. We play guys out of positions against the teams we feel aren't up to our standard some weeks to make it a bit more of a challenge and more fun for our guys but even then we still spank some of them 7 or 9 nil. This becomes quite boring after one season. 

We have asked the club to get us up higher but they can't as they have said "Capital football can’t jump you up grades as it wouldn't be fair on all the other clubs who also want to do the same". Also we have asked the club to maybe switch us with a team we have in capital 9 who we are better than and have beaten them many times. Problem being is we are a social side and the team in Capital 9 is out 4th team who switches players with the 3rd team and them with the 2nd team and so on. We don't want to switch our players as we are all mates and that would defeat the purpose of playing social football. So they won’t switch us with them.

What's a team to do in this position? I bet we aren't the only ones in this situation....

change clubs

Along the lines of what Feverish said. If clubs ranked their teams better then mis matches in lower grades would be less likely to happen.

How do clubs know how competitive teams are?

Wharfies offering?

Isn't that what pre-season is for? We usally play the other club teams near us to get an idea roughly where we are. 

RE Leithal am assuming you play for Olympic. The next Olympic team above you are in the bottom couple of their grade and the team above them are not in the top half either.. Seems like there is a pretty logical solution to me.

Call me in Feb ;)

I play for the Stop Out Werewolves. Olympic Motorboaters are one of the teams in our grade who gives us a real good challenge and we always look forward to playing them even though we both don't get along that well :) In their Situation that would make perfect sense to switch with the other Olympic team as the motorboaters  are an amazing team and if I dare say I would rate them slightly better than us.

Someone asks the new team if they are any good. They say yes or no. Maybe play against another team to gauge it

some clubs have even put good teams down to try and win promotion to more teams to a higher level for there club in the past i can recall.

as feverish said it is the clubs who can make the biggest change so perhaps some clubs need to look at football and not administration and political issues in there clubs.

too many clubs seem to be run by mums and dads who follow the process of junior football because thats what they already know and they want to help further with there child's progress so have got on the committee but senior football is a whole different picture and to run a successful club you need to understand the football first and foremost, as you could lose some good players by not paying attention to who you have in your club and what level of opportunity they are given.

it's not all about participation and fair play so everyone gets a turn when playing senior football at top level

so in my opinion the first step is clubs need to get there team selections better by understanding what potential they have in there club.

second step i like the idea to re introduce the presidents grades and create the break in the middle so new teams can start at the bottom of either the presidents or capital divisions depending on what there club think is best.

no more regrading half way though the season and lets all play 18 games except the bottom div which may play more or less depending on numbers.

I was looking after a team a few years ago that was put in too higher a grade. Our club had a spare spot in the league but there was absolutely no way we had the skill or depth to be there. A Tawa team from Cap 14? who had scored as many as we had conceded got in touch with us and asked if we were keen for a swap. Both teams and clubs were happy and CF had no problems. Might not work these days and not all clubs would be willing to give up a position in a reasonable div but could be an option? 

Edit: Obviously only fixes one offs and not the core problem 

I remember that (i think) team that went up was Tawa ACs & they came into Div 9- a good team, competitive and fair. But we still wanted our go at the other Tawa team-lulz-classic cake and eat it too scenario

The key problem is legislating for it. How do you have something in the regs that allows for fair selection of a team into a higher grade? No matter what you do, you're going to piss someone off and then CF get the inevitible "favouring certain clubs" accusation.

Currently there is no room for fast tracking. It has happened in the past but the operations team has moved on from the old school system.

The mid-season promo - relegation is there as a clear workable solution.

I don't think you can have some mid-level entry point as what's to stop every team that's lower than that point asking to be entered there? Including those who have maybe just been relegated from it. Doesn't sound easily manageable to me.

As has been said already, the club can shuffle their teams how they like so I'd look to them first.

But I like the idea of thinking of other options for how it can work better. The current situation isn't perfect but it's not completely broken either.

I know CF are open to smart, easy to manage solutions so keep throwing the thoughts out there.

how did they get away with that name haha

11 team leagues?

More games. Why not?

It would rely on the clubs having good conversations with new teams and then having a good relationship with Capital football and being able to say to them, "I believe this team is too good for Capital 10 or below".

the next step is again, shoehorning teams into grades that are already full. some ways this can happen.

1) Next season, all teams from Cap 7 below (arbitrary number, could start anywhere) go through grading games for the first 4 weeks to 're-set' the grades and give us a clean slate.

2) As new teams come in after that, natural attrition (defunct teams/moving to masters) would create space for these teams and they can be dropped into the right area after a good discussion between the new team, the club and then Capital Football

The potential problem is demand and supply, how many new teams a year are joining? If new teams are being created, are the players coming from teams that have lost numbers? Should clubs be looking to merge teams rather than create new ones?

well done lads we got promoted this year. Oh hang on someone is trying to solve a perceived problem by wiping out all the tables. I think we'll flag next season.

Positions belong to the clubs. Let them sort it out (as mentioned a few times).

Yeah, in Cap 10 we finished 6th last year. If promotion/relegation was working there would be 6 teams in our league this year - 6 teams we would be competitive with along with 2 promoted and 2 relegated - and the relegated teams could be even ability with the other 6, but this season there are only 3 teams from last year, 1 of which should have been relegated, in the grade and all now fill out the bottom 3 positions. No idea what happened to the other 4 teams that should still be in the grade and why the one team that should have been relegated wasn't. None of the teams from cap 9 that finished in the bottom 2 positions are in our grade when they should have been.

So promotion/relegation isn't happening

probably because you had four Karori teams in your grade last year and we made a lot of changes

There has to be a solution. They did it a few years ago (5 or 6 maybe) when things were getting out of whack with all the cancellations and insane mismatches. Maybe it's time to do it again?

I think the feel is that it's working pretty well. Clubs have ability to shuffle teams if required, Cap11-15 have mid season promo-relegation to speed things up down there and the rest aren't too bad. Especially considering most people prefer full two round system which you'd lose if taking mid season promo-relegation higher up grades.

That's fine for Karori as a club but then that totally discounts your comments re promotion; when a Karori team that didn't finish in the promotion spots gets put up 2 grades and another that should have been relegated isn't. 

If having evenly matched teams is something to aim for, maybe promotion relegation should be more strictly adhered to. Then at most the 2 newly promoted teams into your grade could be superior to the rest of the grade as they work their way up.

Having played in Capital Grade ranging from Cap 1 to Cap 12 across 17 seasons, I've never seen this many mismatches. Feel broken to me but maybe I'm in the minority,

How did you arrive at that? My comment about promo was that someone who earned it wouldn't get it if we chucked all the current leagues out the window. Totally different.

With us losing teams (like the Marmosets who shipped off to sharktown) from various grades it was decided to shift some teams based on their potential ability (or lack of). We foresaked some league spots (not just the lowest). Sealords and Glory seem to be doing fine so the call to put them up the grades (filling a vacant spot) was justified. Which is just what I have been talking about (clubs making the right call)..