I'm confused

[Katie]

Can someone please explain to me why Durham Aquatics are allowed to enter the Speedo league as a club? I thought the Speedo was for single clubs, and that was why Nova don't enter as a club and they split up into smaller groups for Speedo. I have no problem with them doing that, but it just seems a bit weird and possibly unfair as they're made up of 10 clubs. Anyway! :D

[Swimmymum]

What about West Suffolk?

[Katie]

What about them? Are they made up of lots of clubs too?

[Pete]

I think it depends on the region you are in. A few years ago an amalgamation of clubs, one of which I was involved with was refused their application for Speedo South. It might be that things have been relaxed now because the small clubs struggle to compete and drop out. Anyone on a Speedo Committee able to answer?

[swimmer]

my opinion: clubs should compete as intervidual clubs and not in their imalgimated form for the speedo league otherwise its an unfair advantage on the smaller intervidual clubs. eg: im sure LSC wuld hav greater sucess if we joined with portsmouth for the speedo but i dont think thats right, it should be a compeition between intervidual clubs.

[lane4]

Indeed. I agree it should be just for individual clubs. In fact ALL meets should be. Composite teams are a joke and should be banished from the sport ASAP. Many meets have already been completely ruined by composites entering them. If Durham Aquatics are allowed in the Speedo League then the whole meet will be a waste of time and defeat the objective of what the league is about. Then again I suppose they will be allowed because Tayside Swim Team have been allowed in the past and TST is a composite of EVERY single club in the whole of the Scottish Midland District! :mad: Yes, that's right, what a disgrace. However, its good to know that my club can still beat a whole District when it comes to the National Champs.

By the way, there will be no Scottish teams at the Speedo league final this year as Speedo league organisers have kicked them out for not holding a proper league qualifying format.

Ooops!:eek:

[Bazza]

erm.. :(

I hate composite teams too as it seems does anyone who does not belong to one. I can understand clubs joining together for training sessions/camps or other aspects, but why do they need to compete together? Southern Counties is even more boring now (if that's possible) that T5 have on average about 4 finalists in every event, sometimes up to 7 (I'm probably exaggerating but it feels like that!)... :o

[Katie]

I'm getting a bit lost with T5, do they still exist? They don't seem to do many galas as T5 anymore, I certainly see lots of Ealing swimmers around but not many T5. One more thing about the Speedo League -- it appears that there will be 2 East Midlands teams in the Cup Final and 2 North West teams in the B final. Um???? :confused: But then again it does also say that Leatherhead will be in both finals so I don't know! :p :D That stuff came from http://www.speedoleague.org.uk/ by the way!

[ktcute]

Maybe there should be some kind of separate team competitions for groups of clubs to compete it. It might make for some good competitions, being able to raise really good teams.

These should really be separate entities tho shouldn't they?

[Katie]

Originally posted by ktcute
Maybe there should be some kind of separate team competitions for groups of clubs to compete it. It might make for some good competitions, being able to raise really good teams.

These should really be separate entities tho shouldn't they?

I thought the idea of the Speedo was to have separate teams competing, but it seems I was wrong!

[BigFish]

Doncaster Dartes is a collection of all the clubs in Doncaster (about 8 in total). Together we can field pretty good teams in most age groups (various National Champion teams through the years), separately though, we'd be struggling to enter teams in most age groups from any of our clubs at Yorkshire champs.

I believe CoLeeds is a collection of clubs from around the Leeds area (I'm sure someone on here can shout me down about that one), and I think KuHull are a similar collection too. BoKirklees (again, shout me down if you like) are a single club, but use so many different pools around the Kirklees area that they actually resemble what we have in Doncaster, and you could probably argue the same about Rotherham Metro in the past (although I think they've lost a few pools recently). CoSheffield are also made up of a few local Sheffield teams (I believe).

Just to give a Yorkshire flavour to the discussion.

So it all comes down to what you mean by separate teams. Each pool (8/9) in Doncaster (large town) has a club attached to it, in many towns/cities the same big club uses a number of different pools. Who can compete fairly against who?

I agree that entire counties or districts shouldn't really be put under a single banner, but then again, how else do you get the sponsorship to provide the best facilities and staff? The bigger the team, the more success it has (everything else being equal), the more sponsorship you can attract, the more money you have -- repeat ad infinitum...

[bobby]

I think that what Leatherhead achieved makes it even more spectacular as they are a small club who have not amalgamated with any others.

[Bazza]

I wouldn't exactly say they are a small club...

[swimmer]

i cant help thinking that bazzas last post was meant to induce a responce, so here it is!!
yeh we most def are a small club! we have not that many swimmers, are a wholey self funded club, and by all sense apart from our sucess. we are a small club compred to the other "premier" clubs, we just have some great great coaches and swimmers and a great team atmosphere. :)

[lane4]

Originally posted by swimmer
we have not that many swimmers,

How many exactly do you consider constitutes "not that many"?

And how many swimmers do you need to stop being a small club?

[swimmer]

wel i duno exactly how many we have. we have 3 main squads. i would say that we are a small club compared to CO leeds thats a big club, to put it into context.

[bobby]

There are probably around 280 - 300 swimmers at Leatherhead which includes teach to swim. In the top squad there are about 25 - 30 swimmers. I would say that this compares to other clubs around like Woking, Guildford City, Rushmoor etc. To me this is a small club in comparison to the 'C' clubs or amalgamations discussed. Also as Swimmer pointed out, the only sponsorship the club receives regularly is free use of a pool for 6 hours a week and the odd piece of clothing for Speedo finals or such like.

[bobby]

Lane 4 - what happened at the Scottish Speedo gala for no teams to be abe to go forward to the finals? It seems a shame for the swimmers not to be able to compete.

[rogant stard]

Originally posted by bobby
Lane 4 - what happened at the Scottish Speedo gala for no teams to be abe to go forward to the finals? It seems a shame for the swimmers not to be able to compete.

I'll answer for him as I know the deal but wasn't aware that Scottish teams had been outlawed...

The team(s) to represent Scotland have traditionally been selected from a one off Speedo Scottish National League final held in January/February each year.

It was (outgoing?) Director of Technical Services Alan Lynn's idea to scrap this competition - largely to save a bit of £££ and free up some time in the competition calendar - in favour of a League table based on performances at the Scottish Nationals each June i.e. the top two would go forward to represent Scotland in the following year's Sppedo League final.

I guess the Speedo League organisers just didn't go for this.

[bobby]

It does seem both a strange way to select the teams and unfair to the clubs now not to be able to compete through no fault of their own. I presume it would be too late to still hold a gala?

[Bazza]

Originally posted by bobby
There are probably around 280 - 300 swimmers at Leatherhead which includes teach to swim. In the top squad there are about 25 - 30 swimmers. I would say that this compares to other clubs around like Woking, Guildford City, Rushmoor etc. To me this is a small club in comparison to the 'C' clubs or amalgamations discussed. Also as Swimmer pointed out, the only sponsorship the club receives regularly is free use of a pool for 6 hours a week and the odd piece of clothing for Speedo finals or such like.

Well I don't know Leatherhead, Guildford, Woking inside out, but we've competed against them enough to know they are significantly bigger than ourselves. We have ~200 members, which I would consider smallish. Guildford and Leatherhead in particular to me seem bigger than small. I would say they are medium to large clubs.

Also we have zero sponsorship, with the exception of our annual open meet which sometimes gets a little support from local businesses (if we're lucky).

[Katie]

Bazz have u ever BEEN to Leatherhead? This might be a little off topic, but it's a hole. Anyway,the very valid point I think Bobby was making was that what Leatherhead has achieved, in view of all these amalgamated clubs (who, although they may be made up of microscopic clubs, have many more swimmers to choose from than us!) is huge and as you can probably tell we're all very proud of it! If we're going to go to the final to face however many huge teams made up of 1 million different clubs, so what? We got there on our own which is more than a lot of them can say! :)

[master2003]

It's just so difficult to know where the boundaries between big clubs and composites are. Is a city club really any different to a composite of a few rural places when the catchment population and number of pools used may well be the same?

I guess really there isn't all that much 'fairness' anyway since there's always going to be variations of all sorts between clubs, so it's easier not to have any rules against composites I suppose.

The best any club can do is set challenging but achievable objectives for itself. Realistically that may not be winning a league.