ESCA Updates @ 7th May ’21

An update to all parties on where ESCA are with various matters.

Fixtures

Fixtures for 2021 have been released to club secretaries and are on the ESCA website.  The exercise has been somewhat “challenging” this year; pitch issues / availability, EPL Fixtures incl Sundays / runs of Home / Away and “lop-sided” nature of the season.

We have scheduled all matches for Saturdays, however there are some “ground clashes” and together with reduction in pitches and a lack of certainty of availability of some does mean that there will require to be a number of League matches played on Sundays and possibly some later starts on Saturdays. We would ask for your support on this and appreciate everyone taking a flexible approach to help each other and get games played.

A further couple of points to note:-

• Champ to Div 5 – to get to 15 matches (10 team League) there are no “reverse” Fixtures for Weeks 1, 8 & 9. Please read H2 of season carefully as not perfect “mirroring and take particular note of week / date for each match on schedule.
• Divs 6 & 7 – 8 team Leagues playing everyone twice from 22 May to 21 August.  We have rescheduled 3 matches for Saturday 28 August to ease “ground clashes” (on earlier weeks). There are still one or two “ground clashes” that could not easily be resolved through utilisation of 28 August. Again, please read H2 of season very carefully as fixtures do not “mirror” H1 weeks and take particular note of week / date on schedule for each match.

We ask that clubs review these fixtures as soon as possible, highlighting any issues.  We have noted a couple of minor tweaks to the original documents in a follow up email and these are reflected on the ESCA website.

If clubs agree any changes, these must be highlighted to the Competitions Committee Lead (Ramsay Allan) Divisional reps.

 

Development League Fixtures

Development League fixtures have also been released to club secretaries for those involved.  Note that these were drawn up in advance of the League fixtures being finalised and we know that there will be a number of clubs in the Development League who may need to change fixtures because of the need for some clubs to play League games on a Sunday.  The fixtures were drawn up based on requests made as far as was possible – we appreciate that they are not perfect.

As noted above, there are major issues in Edinburgh with the availability of Edinburgh Leisure pitches on Saturdays whilst in addition their are a number of Eastern Premier League games allocated to Sundays as well as various cup competitions.

Rather than re-casting the fixtures we would ask clubs to be in touch with their opponents as soon as possible if there are potential challenges with the fixtures so that they can be re-arranged or at least if a club cannot fulfill a game there is an option to find different opposition.

 

SGM & Rules

As part of other necessary planning, we have needed to revise our rules and constitution with respect to picking up various changes. Some of the rules are ones previously put forward and not voted on in 2020, which had been scheduled for the abandoned SGM in March 2020. Others relate to aspects such as the new CS Code of Conduct and discipline procedures.

We cannot plan for every eventuality, but these rules are meant to give ESCA some framework within which to work and give clubs a heads up around what we would look to do, so there should be less ‘we didn’t know you’d do that’ if we do need to react at short notice.

These proposed changes were previously emailed to club secretaries and will need to be voted upon in an SGM. We are proposing Wednesday 12th May ’21. Further details will be sent in due course. ESCA note that this is shorter than we’d like to get these rules reviewed and to clubs, but we are still having to react to a moving situation. We ask that clubs work with us on this and we will happily take comments via email in advance, or on the night, including any proposed wording changes.

 

Contacts

We are aware that a number of clubs have had changes in personnel / office bearers.  We have sent fixtures out to club secretaries, based on contact details we have.  We remind clubs that they need to check and update their club contacts through the match return portal.

 

As always, if there are any queries, please contact us.