27 June 2019

I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date

Nothing would get done, it often seems, without a deadline. But there is nothing like missing a deadline to leave you kicking yourself and wishing you had done something different. So if you want to join a league, don't miss the deadline!

Like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, we have a number of players whose clocks seems to be running one or two days slow. Every Thursday, the day after we have launched the rounds for that week, there is a flurry of emails asking if we can accommodate late entries.

What to do? 

Unlike the Mad Hatter and the March Hare we do not recommend applying butter, tea, jam and lemon to repair any faulty timepieces (it didn't work in the Disney film either)!  But we do wonder if there are ways in which we can help you meet the deadline. A few things to bear in mind:

  • Monday is always the deadline.
  • We do try to keep leagues open later if we can, but if you work on the assumption that you need to join by Monday, you won't go wrong!
  • We do acccommodate late players if we can. But we do not add latecomers after the first week (unless we have a very small group). After the first week, it is not fair on the others who have already begun to plan schedules and arrange matches (just because no matches have been plaed in a group, it doesn't mean matches are not being set up!).

There is no limit to the number of players we can accommodate before the deadline. Once the groups are issued, however, we do not change them. So if you apply late and find a group is full, (8 is the max), it will be because the place that would have been yours has been taken by someone else! 

Don't let this happen! Don't miss the deadline! Apply to join as soon as you know you want to play.


If those are the rules on joining, what about leaving?

We have always allowed players to withdraw from a round (minus our £2.50 admin fee) any time up until we have issued the groups. 

We keep the entry fee as low as possible and try to as generous as we can with the bonus balls and winners' prizes, but after issuing the groups, it has never been possible to offer refunds or transfers to any other round or league, irrespective of the reason. 

The groups, however, are issued, after a day of intense work organising hundreds of players into groups. Sally does this manually and you know it is launch day because it when she has steam coming out of her ears. 

If players withdraw as she is doing this or just about to launch the groups, it is not good! So we have to tweak the rule slightly.

From now on, you can withdraw, minus the admin fee, any time up until the day before a round starts. After this date, we regret no refunds or transfers are possible.