This Has Been asked to be posted by Captain Australia to get your ideas on this
I would change it slightly to go a little something like this
Tasmanian Champions League.
Going on this season’s results,
Top three from the north and the top three from the south qualify automatically for the following seasons Champions league, that would be from the south, South Hobart, Tilford Zebs and Glenorchy knights, with Northern Rangers, Devonport Strikers and Prospect Knights from the North.
4th and 5th from south and north would go into play offs at end of the year (Clarence United vs Kingborough Lions and Riverside Olympic vs Somerset Sharks) in a home and away round qualifying final with away goals counting.
At the end of each year you would have the 4 teams from north and 4 from the south, draw them into 2 random groups of four (done by FFT sometime), they would then play a home and away series (6 games in total) during the next year, we already play four games in the SWC anyway so you would be only finding an extra 2 weekends in the year for this.
Remainder of the clubs in the state will form the State Wide Vase (as in 2000 ) as a second tear comp. this gives the lower teams a greater chance of winning some silverware so it’s a win win
You would be left with the following in a State Wide Vase knock out Competition.
Hobart Olympic
Metro
Taroona
Nelson
Hobart Utd
Kingston Cannons
Newtown
Beachside
Kingborough Lions
University
Nelson
Launceston United
Launceston City
Burnie United
Ulverstone Reds
Somerset Sharks (presuming Sharks and Lions get beaten by there higher ranked opponent)
So they have 4 knock out rounds from round of 16 to the vase final any way to play during the 6 weeks the TCL would be playing.
The TCL could start a week before the season proper starts to get things rolling and finish on the week after the last round of matches.
Then following that, the top two in each group of the Tas Champions League would cross over to play each other, 1st from group one to play 2nd from group two and 1st from group two would play 2nd from group one in a home and away leg with away goals counting, the winners to advance to the State wide Champions League one game only final at KGV regardless of who is there.
If you still had the need to play the winner of the Northern League v the winner of the southern league for the State Champions game you could, but I cant see the point if you went with the above plan.
So you would have available in 2011
A Southern Premiership
A Northern Premiership
A Tasmanian Champions League Champion
A State Wide Vase Winner
Possible State Cup game.
Teams would be bustling for State Wide Champions League Qualification for the following season, while the State Wide Champions League sides would be trying to get into the top two in their group to qualify for the Tasmanian Champions League Finals.
This should in theory eliminate the all four southern teams in the State wide championship, but it still could end up that way if the random draw comes out right!
You get a far more comprehensive State Wide League taste and I think any team in their right mind would be after the Tasmanian Champions League mantel. FFT should probably make the final prize money allocation atleast even with NPL and SPL Premiers as to TCL champions winners cheque.
That’s my idea, I would be interested to hear your thoughts.
Regards
i think in theory its a fantastic idea... Only real thing i dont agree with in its entirety ( and its such a minor thing) is the final venue, unless their surface is improved i dont think it should atter if it's the "home of soccer" but i think the idea is stella and would find it hard for anybody to disagree with the idea.
ReplyDeleteI would push for it to be brought up by a president a the next meeting.
As i responded to the earlier posting by "donk", it has some merit, good points and some not so good? But without a major sponsor to offset traveling costs it would go the same way as the old concept to a state league, down the drain due to excessive costs to PLAYERS and cubs?
ReplyDeleteEven though our "best 11" can defeat the south's "best 11" in rep games, the northern clubs all struggled against southern opposition in the final series (even though all games were close and we tried hard), not one victory :(
Lets get our comp up and running at a higher standard first, City are setting an example by recruiting a few "overseas" guys to lift the standard next season, this happened in the original State League and it did work? If clubs can't afford to bring players in at least work harder with our youth and get them better skilled, before we attempt to match week in week out with our southern cousins?
The "bite" I had with CA earlier was, why raise this topic now (just because Gers on top) when CA has had the idea for some years :)
Oh well good luck to all in getting FFT to look at anything that doesn't include more southern than northern clubs, they were too scared to chuck UNI out for not having an U/19 team this year, they saved face by adding the TIS as their team? They don't like to upset anyone and this could upset the majority of state-wide clubs, as did the notion of having a State League comp this year, even though a sponsor was ready and willing to put up traveling and prize money?
I'm sorry but i can't agree there. Most clubs in the northern premier league have their own club facilities now. All clubs are non profit organizations, Clubs should be able to raise enough money for bus trips throughout the year. Our club has always charged $10 a head, now if the club has a close bond, and fills a bus then there's $400 plus, if a club is struggling to pay the difference then i think they might be in trouble anyway.
ReplyDeleteAs far as standard goes, the only way a competition will raise its standards is if we are playing better teams week in week out. The better quality of players we are playing each week the more as players we will improve.
Still looking at CA proposal, just a note to Determined though. Our bus to Lonnie this year cost never less than a $550, to Hobart last year as we didn't go this year was $880, probably add $100 for this year. As Hobart is a long way, a lot of our guys take the family for the weekend, so hard to get a lot on the bus.
ReplyDeleteDuring state league days most players, and staff, expected their travel costs be covered by the club which led to vary few buses and big bills to the club.
Its not that clubs cannot make up the difference, its just that clubs are upset to run fundraising events then seemingly waste/lose money on travel costs.
Bad Boy, the only travel involved would be perhaps two trips south a year plus one more if you make the semi's against a southern club and of course the final! If it went your way, you may only have to go south once!
ReplyDeleteIf you make it that far, I think most clubs would happily fork out a little to get the whole club to Hobart and back, after all you would be assured a runners up cheque!
Determained is correct, must clubs with a mind would be charging their players at least $10 for a bus service, we charge for all of ours and I don’t think any one traveled by car this year unless they had to get back for work! And with regard to Surface Alex, it was with exception of quarter finals of SCS the best surface in the state at KGV. they have it working pretty well at present, If its an all northern final then I would suggest Valley road, if there is a southern team I think it should be played at KGV as AFL day is at the G, FA cup is at Wemberly, rugby is at Olympic park and so forth, you know that your final destination is KGV, you plan for it, and the romance of the title builds!
That’s what I want FFT to work on, build the romance of the State Champions League if they choose to adopt it!
A couple of other things I would suggest would be,
Northern and Southern Premiers head group A and B, all the rest Random. You don’t want an all northern and all southern group, that would defeat the purpose!
A New Tasmanian Champions League Logo.
A separate web site wholly devoted to Tas Champions league results news and info, Could ask Walter to be exclusive reporter and pay him something for his trouble.
A designer trophy that the winners get to KEEP! same trophy every year and it again builds the anticipation of the CUP! Probably wants to actually resemble a cup of some sort rather than a trophy though! I really like the Ring of the A-League!
FFT showed this year what can be achieved with some work and the Final series add is proof of this, if the TCL gets up, I would hope more of the same would continue for this series.
At the end of the day, if you have a league for the elite, all will work towards being involved in it, and the only way to achieve that is to develop juniors, attract players and coaches and work bloody hard! some times the premiership is just to far out of the reach of some clubs on the fringe, I know it was for us for the last 10 years, if success is just 5th spot away, all can set their minimum achievement goal at finishing 5th, and once your there, you just never know!
As I said in my idea, the actual idea gives you the best of both worlds, conference league which you win on end of year result and the Champions league gives you something to play for when the premiership is out of reach! All you have to do is finish 5th and you’re a chance at competing for it next year! And if travel was a problem Kev, you could always say thanks but no thanks and hand your spot to the next ranked team, I think they would gladly accept it and then you wouldn’t have to worry about travel costs for poor players!
At the end of the day, we all want a state league of some sort, this gives you the best of both worlds, and until there are 10 competitive and financially strong clubs in the north, it’s a bad idea to go all out state league, what’s to become of the left over 5 or 6 teams? Look at the ntfl, a joke if Ulverstone go into Tas state league aussie rules! NTFL will die, as would the clubs and the same would happen to NPL.
ReplyDeleteIf this gets up, and I plan to ask FFT to consider it this week, I think you will find, it will strengthen the Northern Clubs ALOT!
Get behind it Kev, I Know Craig would!
Two years ago, we still finished fourth too, so it would have been in our favor back then, I just got excited the other night and decided to pull my finger out after all the talk on THIS forum about what people don’t do for us!
No point forming a rebel committee and pissing of McIntyre and FFT, we will get even less, just need to be proactive and not see a problem in every good idea my friend, whether you like me or not!
Rangers travelling costs this season were $3280 pretty much all covered by players.
ReplyDeleteBus to Somerset/Burnie costs us about $600, was about the same to Hobart.
I think this plan does have merit, would really like to discuss this at a presidents meeting just to see what people think about it. Think if put on the table I would vote for it, as long as everything involved in it was put in writing and there were NO "Grey" areas which do occur a lot.
All good can live with the current set up and willing to discuss new ones if they are for the good of the game
I am behind anything that can better develop our players and lift the standard, my point is that we had a sponsor willing to offset costs and prize money for State League this year, but it never got off the ground, the board to my knowledge stopped it?
ReplyDeleteYour ideas seem to have good thought and i agree with most CA, but I would prefer the "old style State league" with 3 or 4 clubs from each region (north - south)? As for Ulverstone leaving the NTFL, why would they want to stay, they lost 45 players from last year and still won the comp? We need to set up the same thing but with relegation so a club cannot end up like Burnie in my old days, where we won the Northern League 3 years running, kicking 100 goals and conceding only 12 then we were finally allowed in State League and were flogged each week. 3 years away from top class competition will destroy any club for some time?
Why do you keep referring to Craig for every point you raise CA? You seem to be putting him up on a high pedestal all the time (are the rumors right and he is heading to your club to coach next year)???
Rumour is totally incorrect Bad Boy
ReplyDeleteThanks Pres, couldn't see him uprooting from this end just yet? Hopefully he takes on Sharks again, as they will need to re-build and basically start from scratch again as we look to be losing quite a few through work, Uni and moving away???
ReplyDeleteBy the way, congrats to your coach Ros from me, great effort, with a great team, and special effort from Mitch your previous coach, after all he set the team up over the last couple of years, a huge amount of credit should go to him as well:)
Captain, it is a great idea, maybe a few mods, but in principal not a bad way forward, good luck convincing those who make decisions in our game :(
lOVE YOUR WORK DONK!
ReplyDeleteI hope something like this gets up as I really think it is needed, especially for the North.
Travelling is a problem, but not one that can't be overcome.
Kev, I just bring Craig up to stir ya back, I have asked him to come and apply, but he keeps knocking me back, even after generous offers of a pulp mill in his name as a signing fee, no one else wants the bloody thing up here, you cant give it away if you ask me!
ReplyDeleteI gathered that mate, not a bad one though about the pulp mill Captain, gee that might stir a few up :)
ReplyDeleteAny applications for coaches job yet? Maybe you could take it on with your "inspirational and motivational" talk on this site :) Keep up the good work, all ideas are good ideas, it beats just sitting back knocking what we have or haven't got, well done.
Donks yanking your chain again Bad Boy, we have had 3 appliants for the job hope to have something announced in next few weeks.
ReplyDeleteMay I just say also this idea regarding a champions league is an idea come up by Donk and Rohan Pooley from our club. No way is it being pushed by Northern Ranges in anyway.
Mark
Donk and I have spoken about this for a long time now. Interestiing enough check out
ReplyDeletehttp://soccertas.blogspot.com/2006/10/state-league_07.html
October 7 2006
There are alot of points that clubs need to raise, so that a competition can run succesfully along side our comp, which needs for all teams to stay competitive.
It would interesting to hear some points from southern members.
Good for thoughts but...teams that are on top one year could be down the bottom the next year.
ReplyDeleteThat may not be necessarily the top four or five.
I say it is nice dreaming but let us get down to better realities.Why do I not come up with something better? Well I may have been a reasonable player but never an administrator.
I would say discuss it with northern pres. before you go south.
Just food for thought..