SOCCER: Teams in Division One of the Licensed Trades League are now able to treble opponents.In a revolutionary move the Ipswich-based Sunday league has agreed that clubs will play each other on three, rather than two, occasions.

By Elvin King

SOCCER

TEAMS in Division One of the Licensed Trades League are now able to treble opponents.

In a revolutionary move the Ipswich-based Sunday league has agreed that clubs will play each other on three, rather than two, occasions.

This is because the size of the division had been reduced to just nine teams.

League secretary George Debman puts the problem down to lack of people who want to play Sunday morning football.

"It was not possible to promote sides to fill the vacancies," he said.

Seven out of nine of the clubs were present at a special meeting held last week following the demise of British Sugar reserves.

It was felt that clubs would face financial problems due to a lack of home games, and there were also fears that the season would be over for most of the nine just after Christmas.

Dave Markwell from FC McGinty said: "If you had a bad run in the cup matches, your season could be over in January. And players may not wait around with their clubs, but seek games with other sides. We could lose money and players as well."

It was Duncan Carragher from Silver Star Thistle who proposed that sides play each other three times. This was carried unopposed, and fixture secretary Graham Stone is to sort out a new fixture list.

League press officer Steve Carter said: "For the two clubs who never turned up, they have no room to dispute the decision, which is a sensible one."

The decision means that Division One teams will play 24 league matches, leaving the cup in it's present format.

Carter defended the league's decision to call off their entire programme because of the Ipswich versus Norwich Nationwide League derby last Sunday week.

He said that the decision was made with the proviso that there will be no Christmas break this season.

"We organised a vote of member clubs and the majority decision was to postpone the entire programme," explained Carter.

"We explored a number of avenues including kicking-off at 9.15am or playing in the afternoon. But there was still not enough time for fans to get to Portman Road and afternoon games were a non-starter because of youth football.

"Several clubs indicated that they had players and committee who were Ipswich Town season ticket holders, stewards etc and that they would be unable to field a side."