01/05/08

With all the complications involved in the process of sorting out which teams should be in which divisions for next season, congratulations are due to EB for the speed with which the format has been sorted out and announced.

These annotated tables highlight which teams have been selected for each if the Men's divisions (and where they were last season), and alongside there's an analysis of the moves (and non-moves).

The first point of note is that only four teams have departed from the men's EBL this season. One was expected, two come as no real shock, but the fourth is quite surprising.

The disappearance of Worthing Thunder is undoubtedly due to their decision to move on the higher things, in the BBL.

At the other end of the scale, Bedford Bulls have had a disappointing three seasons in the league, finishing last in EBL3 Midlands in their first year, and relocating to the new EBL4, where they finished 7th out of 9 and 9th of 10.

WNC Mansfield did well to survive the demise of their "parent" team, Luna Mansfield Stars, in mid-season, but the continued lack of a replacement for Mansfield Leisure Centre, plus competition from another team in the town, Mansfield Giants, clearly made it difficult for them to continue.

The surprise (to me, at least) is the absence of Swindon Sonics. After relegation to EBL4 South-West in 2006, they were unfortunate to miss out on promotion at the first attempt, when they came third behind Southampton Trailblazers and Glamorgan Gladiators. A well-established, and well-organised club, Swindon had been in continuous league membership since 1990, and an eighth place finish this season (albeit only two points behind the fifth placed finishers) will have come as a big disappointment. I suspect that the financial difficulties of playing at that level (with the greater difficulty of generating income) may have caused them to decide that they needed time to regroup. A return in the (not to distant) future would not come as a surprise.

There was speculation over whether EBL Division 1 would return to the fourteen team format that was its preferred size, or go back to the twelve-team division that it should have been last season (before the withdrawal of Solent and West Herts).

In the event, the decision has been made to stay at just ten teams - due, I would suspect, to the difficulty of filling so many vacancies with sufficiently well-qualified candidates.

I shall wait, with interest, though to see whether there is an attempt to increase the number of games that they will play - either by having teams play each other three times, or by increasing the number of early-season Trophy games.

Even so, with Worthing having moved up, and two teams due to be relegated [Regulation (22.8): "For all senior EBL Leagues automatic promotion/relegation of two teams will operate"] there were three vacancies to be filled.

As expected, the top two from EBL2, Cardiff Celts and Tees Valley Mohawks, have made the step up, but the choice of the third candidate clearly proved more problematic. In the event, Coventry Crusaders, who finished in ninth place, and, for the third time in seven seasons, were reprieved from relegation.

With only College of West Anglia Fury relegated that left three vacancies to be filled in EBL2 ... and that became four when West Anglia (whose two teams had both failed to win a game) decided to run just one team in the league this season, and opted for it to be in Division 4!

So, after three seasons of struggle in Division 1, the team which rose from entry into Division 3 to participation in D1 in just two seasons have suffered an even more spectacular fall, back to a division below where they began.

The two Division 3 regional champions, Colchester Hornets (from South) and Leeds Met Carnegie (North) thus duly made their way up into Division 2, and they are joined by Southern runners-up London Met. University.

That still left one place to be filled, and I believe that Northern runners-up (and Championship finalists) City of Sheffield Saints chose not to apply for promotion - which resulted in relegated NEWI Nets breathing a sigh of relief, as their Division 2 status was restored for another year.

No last minute stay of execution, though, for Black Country University of Wolverhampton, who find themselves back in  EBL Division 3 North after just one season.