Division 1
2006/2007 turned out to not even be a two horse race. Walpole & Cookley led from the off and were never in any danger of being challenged, the only way they were going to be caught was if they made a mistakes, or should that be several mistakes, and they never did, losing just 3 games all season, all of them away from home and finishing with a superb home record, with 10-4 being their worst result.

The only possible disappointment for them might have been failing to achieve a record points haul, by just a single point, but their winning margin of 25 points was a record and shows how dominant they were as they became the first team to take the title in 3 consecutive seasons.

The race for the runner-up spot was a good deal closer, with 3 teams in the running for the best part of the season. In the end it was Kelsale who hung onto the position, although they had spent most of the season there, it was mostly by virtue of having played more games than the other teams. Knodishall A ended up third and extended their record of having never finished outside of the top 3 to 10 seasons. And fourth spot went to Sizewell B, who had a poor final 3rd of the season which saw them slip out of contention for second place in the last few games.

It was left to the remaining 6 teams to scrap it out in the battle to avoid relegation. None of them were really safe until the last games had been played.

It was Wenhaston A who ended up the best of the bunch, although they had had to pull themselves up from a bad start to the season. In the end they won half their games, but still that was only good enough to leave them 5 points clear of relegation.

The early part of the season had seen Knodishall B as one of the group of teams in contention for 2nd place, but they gradually slipped back to end up just 3 points away from the drop.

Sizewell A had a terrible start to the season, but decent results half way through the season and then at the end in the final game saw them escape demotion by a single point.

And so to the final three and the teams that would be spending next season in Division 2. Orford spent most of the season at the foot of the table, but their position was never really that bad, they had games in hand throughout which ought to have been enough to have seen them safe, but in their final game they could only get 12 of the 13 points that they needed to stay up. Meanwhile Thorpeness, if not looking exactly comfortable, had spent the season quite nicely above the relegation zone, their undoing however, was a disasterous final three games which saw them muster only 10 points from a possible 42. And final place went to Darsham who never seemed to gain any momentum to their season and ended up last which meant that it would be the very same trio of teams that had been promoted last season which would be demoted this time around.

Division 2
Just like the First Division, the favourites took the title and in just the same way, did it by a comfortable margin. Snape were in the lead all the way through and finished fully 20 points ahead of the opposition.

The runners-up however, were not so easily predicted. In the end it was Reydon who got themselves promoted in their fourth season in the league, a huge improvement on last year's 7th place. Joining them in promotion were Riverside who will bounce back up after their demotion last season.

As usual the fight for promotion was up in the air for the most part of the season, and just missing out were Middleton in 4th place, who had a much better showing than their dismal and surprising last place the season before. Saxmundham finished 5th for the second year on the trot while Yoxford might have been expected to do better than sixth, having just dropped down from the top division.

Wissett were another team from whom more might have been expected and indeed they had been in contention for promotion, but a poor final third of the season meant that they could do no better than 7th. Wenhaston B ended their season in eighth place again and Leiston St Margarets FC and Amber will have been disappointed with 9th and 10th after having finished in the middle of the table the previous season.

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Almost inevitably Knodishall A reached this year's Cup final, I say inevitably becuase this was the 8th time in 9 seasons that they had done so.

What should have been their toughest game came in the First Round against Kelsale, as it was they eased through by a margin of 13 shots. A comfortable win against Wissett followed in the second round, after which they met their toughest opposition, Darsham who reduced a 16 shot deficit from the away leg to just 4 shots by the end of the second. The Semi-Final against Riverside turned out to be far and away Knodishall's most comfortable win as they romped home by 60 shots.

Orford reached their first ever final with a narrow 10 shot victory over Wenhaston B in the second round and an even narrower 6 shot margin over Reydon in the Quarter Final, after which they were drawn to meet Walpole in the Semi Final.

It was a match which Walpole should have won, they were three time Cup winners and reigning Cup and League champions. But the seemingly inevitable did not happen and Orford produced a stunning effort to win both home and away (Walpole's first loss at home since 2004/2004) and take the match by 43 shots.

The Final
The first pair of games saw 2 wins for Knodishall and gave them a lead of 18-6. The next pair were also won by Knodishall, although by smaller margins and gave them a lead of 32-13 at the break. A consolation win in the final pair of games helped to reduce the gap slightly, but in the end Knodishall took the game by a comfortable 17 shots.
Knodishall A 46 Orford 29

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Both teams in this year's final had made it there courtesy of having been knocked out of the Cup by Knodishall A

Wissett had a comfortable 20 shot win over Yoxford in the first round, which was followed by victory over Thorpeness by only 9 shots and then a Semi-Final which saw them get past Saxmundham by a 14 shot margin.

Kelsale eased past Wenhaston A by 25 shots in the first round before coming up against the reigning champions Snape in the Quarters. Trailing by all of 24 shots from the first leg at Snape it needed a massive effort to claw the deficit back to win by a single shot with the outcome of the whole match coming down to the final shot of the game. The Semi against Sizewell A saw them win by 24 shots to reach the final.

The Final
The Plate final went much the same way as the Cup, with Kelsale leading 17-5 after winning the first 2 games. The second pair resulted in a draw and a win for Kelsale who led 33-16 at the break. The honours were shared for the last 2 games, leaving a 15 shot margin in Kelsale's favour.
Wissett 27 Kelsale 42

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Division 1
I told you so.

Is that enough or should I say more?

Ok, perhaps a little more. Walpole & Cookley are going to win the First Division unless something very miraculous happens. The only real question seems to be whether or not they will be the first team in Division 1 history to average 10 points per game and at the moment they are on target to do so.

The next question is who will make the runners-up spot. At the moment it seems to be very close between Knodishall A and Sizewell B. A little bit further back off the pace are Kelsale and Knodishall B. These top 5 teams appear to be well away from the danger zone, which leaves 5 others in contention for the 3 relegation spots. The top 2 of these are Wenhaston A and Thorpeness who seem to have formed a little group of there own, with a small margin over the 3 teams most a risk of going down, Sizewell A, Orford and Darsham.

Mind you things are far from over as Sizewell A have shown in recent games, after a terrible start which saw them lose their first 6 games, they have now won their last 2, both away from home and nearly doubled their points tally in doing so. Which just goes to show you it ain't over 'til it's over.

Division 2
Again my main prediction seems to be correct. Snape are the team which have so far proved to be the main frontrunners, despite the odd hiccup. They should take the title with some ease. The big question is who will join them in promotion.

There is currently a tightly packed group of contenders in Riverside, Reydon, Yoxford and Middleton, with Wissett just a step back and in a position to become contenders with just a couple of decent results.

I would like to say that I picked all of those teams, except that I underestimated Middleton who are much improved afer a disasterous time of it last season.

So one of the promotion spots already seems to be taken and the other 2 probably coming from a group of 5, with the distinct possibility that the same 3 teams who were demoted last year going right back up again.

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I will get round to this at some point.

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Of the 30 teams entered for this year's event only 1 was able to get through the round-robin stage with a 100% record. Reydon B had sauntered through with 4 wins out of 4 and into a Quarter Final game against Kelsale C who had had to make do with qualification by virtue of being Runners-Up in their group. Halfway through the game all looked good for Reydon who held a 3-1 lead with just 3 ends to go, but Kelsale came back at them to draw level going into the final end where they then took 3 shots to defeat the hitherto untouchable Reydon.

The only other team not to have been defeated was Sizewell A, although they had dropped 1 point from their first 4 games. They were drawn against another group winner, Knodishall A. Although Knodishall won the first end, by the time the fourth end had arrived Sizewell had a decisive 7-2 lead which they were able to defend to eventually go through 7-4.

Sizewell B had also won their group and were paired with Kelsale A who were through by virtue of being runners-up. The game was pretty much no contest as Sizewell strolled through with an 8-1 victory.

The final group winners were Knodishall D who were drawn to play runners-up Wenhaston B. This one went right down to the wire as the game swung first one way and then the other. An apparently comfortable 3 shot advantage held by Wenhastone going into the final end was wiped out by Knodishall who drew level at 4-4 and forced an extra end, but having come back from the dead Knodishall then suffered the heartbreak of losing out to a single shot as Wenhaston went through to the Semis.

The first of the Semi Finals saw Sizewell A up against Kelsale C, yet again a Sizewell team had things all their own way against a Kelsale team as they sailed through to a 13-0 lead after 5 ends at which point the game was conceded.

The other Semi was a different affair as Wenhaston B first cruised to a comfortable looking 5-0 lead over Sizewell B after 3 ends and what seemed to be an unbeatable 6-2 lead with just one end to play. But Sizewell took 4 shots on the 6th end to force the game into an extra end which they won to seal a remarkable comeback.

The Final brought together the 2 teams from the same club for the first time in the fours. Although the game was close for the fist few ends, Sizewell A holding a 3-1 lead after 3 ends, they then blitzed the opposition in the next 2 to take the game 11-1 with an end still to play.

This was the second year in succession that this same team had taken the title and remarkably the fourth time in 5 seasons that David Fisk and Michael Battle had been in the winning Fours team.

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Unfortunately the timing of this year's event meant that the number of entries was lower than would normally be expected. Finding a gap in the calender had been difficult and even then we ended up clashing with outdoor competitions and a big tournament in Essex. Nonetheless entries from within the League held up and in the end we had an entry of 40 teams and were able to donate £1200 to Aldeburgh Cottage Hospital, all but matching last year's efforts.

The Round Robin stages saw 16 teams qualify, 3 each from Kelsale and Knodishall, 2 from Sizewell and Reydon and 1 each from Barking, Hadleigh, Darsham, Wissett, Middleton and Hitcham.

The First Round of the Knockout saw easy wins for Barking, Kelsale A, Knodishall D and Reydon B. Knodishall E held on to win over Hitcham despite losing 3 shots on the final end and Knodishall E edged a narrow victory over Darsham. Meanwhile Kelsale D needed 2 shots on the last end to beat Middleton and Sizewell C needed 3, again on the final end, for a last gasp victory over clubmates Sizewell B.

In the Quarter Finals Kelsale A held on to an early lead to take a win over Knodishall D, Reydon B came from behind to hang on to a win over Knodishall E and it took an extra end for Knodishall A to beat Sizewell C. And finally there was the match between Kelsale D and Barking, it was close all the way through and was tied 3-3 with one end to go, Barking were holding with 1 wood left to bowl for each side, Kelsale's final shot took the jack to the very end of the carpet, only clinging on by virtue of the label to hold 7 shots and Barking were unlucky to miss the draw to take the match. The final score of 10-3 looked easy, but trust me, it wasn't.

In the Semi Finals Kelsale D took a comfortable victory over Kelsale A while Knodishall A won 6-4 against Reydon C in a game which swung first one way and then the other.

The Final between Knodishall A and Kelsale D saw Kelsale take the lead from the very beginning and held on to take the title for the second year in succession, albeit with a (mostly) different team.

We would like to thank everyone who contributed to the day, those who organised, made donations, brought equipment and of course those who turned up to play, all of whom made the event a success yet again.

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Division 1
If what follows sounds rather like I'm stating the bleedin' obvious then I apologise, but if you take one look at how Division 1 has finished for the last few seasons then it appears that there are only really going to be 2 teams in contention for this season's title.

After taking the title 3 times in the last 4 seasons Walpole & Cookley have to be hot favourites not only to take the title again, but to do so for an unprecendented third consecutive season. The only hope for the rest of us in that they didn't win by quite as big a margin last time out as they did in 2004/2005. Not much of a hope I will admit, but hope nonetheless. And if there is going to be any team out there capable of challenging Walpole it has to be Knodishall A who have not only been runners-up for the last 3 seasons, but have never been out of the top three in the last 9 years and have been in the top 2 for 8 out of those 9 years.

With records like that it would be huge surprise if this season's winners did not come from one of those two. As for the rest of the teams, you can expect a massive battle for all of the remaining positions, from the minor placings all the way down to relegation. Realistically any of the remaining 8 teams could face the drop so it looks certain that there will be at least one surprise relegation come the end of the season.

Division 2
If Division 1 seems like a done deal before it's even begun the Second Division is somewhat less certain, although you would have to say that the standout team must be Snape who are red hot favourites to bounce back after their surprise relegation last season.

As for the other promotion spots, they really could be filled by anyone of a number of teams. The usual suspects would have to be Riverside, Wissett, Yoxford and Leiston St Margarets FC with Reydon and Saxmundham there or thereabouts and we should fully expect Middleton to bounce back after a surprisingly lacklustre 2005/2006.

Of course if experience has taught us nothing else it is that you should expect the unexpected and after the way Darsham came from several seasons of mid-table obscurity to romp away with the Division 2 title last season, no one would discounted or written off just yet.

Finally
I would just like to apologise to anyone whose name I have neglected to include as potential challengers and ask you to please not take offence. I am doing this so that I can look like a smart arse in retrospect and of course we all enjoying nothing more than a smart arse being taken down a peg or two. So please feel free to prove me wrong, in fact I would go so far as to say that I hope you do.

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