I dunno. Altho eligible for the masters comp I play in the illustrious Sunday League, personally it would put me off if Masters was a 5/7 a side on smaller pitches. Wouldn't feel like a real game/competition would it?
I play 5 a side in the summer at Coastal, have the opportunity to play futsal, or play Mainland's summer football competition so if I wanted a smaller game.
Seems odd that now teams are sorted into groups of 8 after a random season of playing teams in all divisions, they now think about changing it. I reckon keep the discussion going and the 3 groups, and if it all goes pear-shaped half-way through 2015 then deal with it.
I think the comp has worked itself out well now.
This is our first year in Masters. We've ended in in the Div 3 grade, though perhaps would be more suited to Div 2. All of our games in the 13 round comp were close, the biggest losses were 1-3 to a CT team (8th) and 0-2 to Waimak Sliver Streaks (3rd), we also lost 1-2 to Ferrymead Navy (2nd). We managed to lost four games 1-2.
Our biggest win was a blow out in the last game 6-0 but prior to that it was 3-2 and 1-0.
Most of the blowouts occurred when the 'random' draw meant the top teams in 2013's Masters 1 played the bottom teams in 2013's Masters 3.
I for one have zero interest in playing 5 or 7 a-side and can't believe any of the teams we've played against this season would feel the same.
We have played in the Division Grades Coggan mentions and Presidents Grades in the last 5-6 years and the problem there is you often come up against a bunch of young kids. Although we were competitive (4th in Pressies A last year) it's no fun chasing 18-20 yr olds around a field all season.
In fact in direct contrast to Coggan's comments, we had 3 guys stop playing 2 seasons ago due to what i outlined in the paragraph above, but now we have moved to Masters they've all come back.
As I mentioned i believe the comp has sorted itself out. Teams that werent keen on entering Div 1 have found themselves to be very competitive (SilverStreaks, Western, Wanderers). No team wants to get thumped each week and equally no team wants to thrash teams each week.
I'd be disappointed if any major changes were made.