club knockout cup competition

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[ausdrexler]

Is there any cup style knockout comps for clubs played anywhere in australia?

Kinda like the Enlgish FA Cup for football/soccer.??

[JiMMM]

There isn't in South East Queensland, although it would be an awsome thing to have.

[ausdrexler]

I am busy doing the prep work for something in the Hunter region, but was hoping it has been done elsewhere and I can learn from that competition.

[JiMMM]

Well FA cup or the Euro Hockey League are both different but good models for knockout comps. I guess it all just comes down to what you are trying to achieve.

I've been doing some thinking on this since I saw the topic but I really don't know enough about the structure of Hockey in the Hunter Valley to offer much in the way of advice though, although I would still like to help as much as I can.

[ausdrexler]

Basically we have 3 large hockey associations with strong mesn comps. The smaller associations have mens teams participating in the big comps, OR they have mixed local competitions. We have access to 8 syntehtic surfaces in the area, and by my estimate 25 or so mens clubs.

My goal is to have a 32 team comp, straight knockout, random draw each round establishing home and away teams.

Some problems I forsee are:
* 3 hr drive from Taree to Wyong on the CC. They may not be keen to travel that far.
* Turf availability. The synthetics at Newcastle are used constantly, so the opportunity to get game time on them is limitted. There is 1/2 the comp. However there is Cessnock and Maitland turfs just 30 mins drive away.
* Cost. If you get an away game you have to cover those costs.
* Time to play. Games need to be scheduled so they dont impact on the running of the local league competitions. This means games would be most likely a weeknight or saturday arvo. This could impact on player availability.
* Effort needed to control the competition. I want to keep it simple, but no doubt there will need to be a lot of work done in terms of rules, because clubs WILL try and push the rules especially if there is prizemoney on offer. i mean tournamanet rules rather then game rules.
* Gaining support of the local hockey associations. If they dont support it, it will never get off the ground.

[JiMMM]

Ok I can't respond to every point at teh moment because I am at work but on the teams competing, what do you envisage the being the qualification to gain entry into the competition. For example will it be only teams with a team in thier local top grade (or regional comp) or will it be open to any clubs top team.

Before any of the other stuff is dealt with this point needs to decided, because if you are going to limit the qualification it could resolve some of the other issues you have raised. However if you don't you might need to look at a different option for the way teh competition is run (it is very hard to run a straight knockout competition if you don't have an incremental increase in team numbers).

If you do want every club involved (and there are only about 25) you might need to look at the EHL model and this model could resolve a lot of the issues as well.

[Goalie64]

Can you run it in the off season to give you a better chance of getting pitches?

Perhaps try 3 regional qualifiers - one for each of the local associations. Winners and "best loser" go through to semis.

You could have the semis on a Sat and final on a Sun at one venue, and try either to get a ladies competition running at the same time, or some other hockey at the venue for semis and final to get more people to come

[dodgeyumpires]

hmmmmm, I love the enthusiasm! I really hope it works out and you can get it off the ground. And I think all of us here are happy to help in any way we can! Please, if you need any help, ask and I know I am happy to help as much as I can.

I think Jimms got a really good point... you need to establish how entry is gained. Is it just any team enters, or is there a way you have to qualify? The EHL has a system based from the european championshipshmmmmm, I love the enthusiasm! I really hope it works out and you can get it off the ground. And I think all of us here are happy to help in any way we can! Please, if you need any help, ask and I know I am happy to help as much as I can.

I think Jimms got a really good point... you need to establish how entry is gained. Is it just any team enters, or is there a way you have to qualify? The EHL has a system based on the UEAFA Cup which you can look at here I think something to consider if it does get off from the ground and is a success, how will it be played or will it be played in future years? Again, the EHL has a ranking system you may want to look at here

I think the key to success is sponsorship. If you can get one or two really good sponsors, then you can either offset the price of away games or you can use the sponsorship for the prize. This would mean entry fees into the comp would be cheaper and more likely to have support.

Just looking, you want a 32 team comp and only have around 25 teams (grade 1 mens or whatever it is) maybe invite teams from outside associations... Surely there are quite a few Sydney Uni teams who would be keen for some great hockey and a pi$$ up. Just a thought.

Running it in the off season? I dunno, I would think that they all have cricket or some other sport or commitment. Turf time and allocations would be an issue.... but I think goalies got a good point with the double header Idea. maybe quarters and semis or KO32 round and KO 16 round is played on the same weekend

Keep in touch and up to date, Im really keen to seee this happen

[ausdrexler]

25 clubs. I think realistically, we would get 16 nominations, or near enough. If we got more, then we have a "qualifier" round.

I was thinking a lower end of the scale, but I think from discussions in the hunterhockwey forum that people would like to see any mens club get the chance to strut their stuff. true English FA style. The little boys mixing it with the big boys.

It would be a maximum of 4 games on a 16 team competition. And if you play the SF's and the Final at a neutral  ground, say Maitland which is central to all of them, it could help with travel costs and so forth.  But obviously 3 hrs each way on a weeknight would not be good.. on a Sat arvo, not a big deal.

I know Mens games in Newcastle are predominately sundays, Central Coast is predominately sundays, I need to work on Mannign Valley a bit more, find out more information. The bigger clubs also have a heap of players playing in sydney on Saturdays, so it could help to balance the competition a little if thier superstars are absent.

[JiMMM]

Now that I’ve finished work and have a chance to fully respond with all of my thoughts here it is. Beware this is long because I wanted to look at everything, so note you have been warned

As I have now had a chance to have a decent look at how Hockey in the hunter is structured with the 3 main associations (Newcastle, Central Coast and Manning Valley (Taree) and 4 minor associations (Cessnock, Maitland, Scone and Port Stephens). Ausdrexler will be the person to give a better idea of the distribution of the clubs across the Hunter region.

There is a Hunter Premier League, once again I don’t know how teams qualify for this competition, maybe some more information Ausdrexler can supply, and I presume that involves teams from everywhere except Scone. So I will presume that the knockout competition is going to run in addition to this league not instead of.

If we work on the basis that every club in the region can enter a team in the knockout competition, and that every club will, then we have a basis to work off. Ausdrexler you said that ideally it would be straight knockout from 16 teams, this means that there will need to be some form of pool qualification before this.

So if 25 clubs enter the competition there are really only 2 options, 7 pools of 3 and 1 of 4, or 3 pools of 6 and 1 of 7. I believe that the first option is the best, basically because there are fewer games to organise and this should be easier with limited turf time. The only other question relating to this is how you organise the games, I prefer 1 pool at one location and all games played in one day, but you could give the clubs involved a number of dates and let them organise the games between themselves.

If you go with the first option obviously the top 2 of each pool would qualify after every team has played each other once, with the second option the top 4 would. After this is done you would have reached a top 16 teams and then it is just a case of how you assign the matches between the teams. I think that the FA cup model is a good way of doing this (draw the teams and the first team drawn is the home team), the other option though is that you draw the teams to play and they play “home and away” with the winner on aggregate to progress. The second option is obviously very turf intensive and this makes it difficult, hence why I believe the first option is best. This would obviously continue until there is only 1 team left.

The only remaining issue would be the cost, however I believe that if you promote it correctly you should be able to find a major sponsor who would be willing to contribute enough to deal with that. Another way of doing it would be to if 2 teams are in the same competition (note teams not clubs) then try and organise the game so you can run a normal fixture game and use it as a knockout game as well (or vice versa), the only game that you definitely would not do this with would the final, this would obviously also reduce the demand for turf time and eliminate travel issues.

This model would leave teams only playing 6 additional games, and maybe less if games can be run concurrently.

That is how I would run a knockout comp based on the little I know of hockey in the Hunter Valley, but I hope this helps, and I am definitely going to follow any such competition.

[ausdrexler]

The Hunter Coast Premier League (HCPHL) is basically a 21 round competition between the 6 BIG newcastle clubs, and the 2 big Central Coast clubs. The Taree clubs compete in a similiar competition with Port Macquarie clubs. There is no interaction between these associations on a club level. There is no qualification or entry requirements. for the HCPHL the 8 original clubs still make it up, with any other club interested in competing having to apply and be accepted by the HCPHL committee. This was done several years ago with the Norah Head club from the CC, but in 2 seasons they were beaten well in every game, and as such withdrew from the 3rd season, although I suspect they may have been on the verge of being flicked anyways.

Maitland, Scone, Port Stephens all run thier own local competitions, but they are mixed or womens only. Maitland and Port Stephens enter mens teams in the Newcastle competition. Maitland is in the HCPHL, Port Stephens is not, they play lower grades in the Newcastle competition. Cessnock has a wonderful synthetic surface, but they have no winter hockey there, just summer comps. They have 1 mens team in the NMHA comp. Thier facility sits idle in the winter. Benefit of a rich council which gets plenty of diosh from the hunter valley wine community so they can afford to waste money on a turf that is rarely used I spose.

Scone and Port Stephens play on natural grass with their local comps.

Club setup would be similiar to this:
Newcastle Clubs- Souths, Norths, Wests, Tigers, University, Colts, Crusaders, Cardiff, Cessnock, Maitland, Port Stephens
Central Coast clubs - Gosford, Erina, Wyoming, Norah Head, The Entrance
Manning Valley - Taree West, Taree tigers, Chatham, Sharks, Foster. They also have 3 clubs from Port Macquarie in the top grade.
Scone - mixed comp. Could compete as a 'rep' team.
Port Association isnt strong enough, would be represenetd by the mesn club in the newwy comp. Same as Maitland Association.

There is likely to be a team or two i missed.
some clubs have 5+ teams, others are 2 or 3 team clubs.

[JiMMM]

Looking at that lsit, If the Manning Valley clubs are taken out you are left with 17 clubs including Scone who are no guarantee to enter. So if Scone decide to not enter (and there are no other clubs to come out of the woodwork) you will have a top 16 knockout comp. If Scone do decide to enter you can do one of 2 things at the start of each year have a qualification round with the team from Scone and the bottom club from Newcastle and Central Coast with the top 2 qualifing. If there are clubs who do come out of the woodwork then the same principal can be used (essentially a seeding process that still includes the bottom clubs in the whole process).

So if the Manning Valley are taken out that will eliminate the travel issues (except for Scone), and they can do a similar thing with the Port Macquarie association. It makes sense if they are competing up there regualarly as well, unless you decide that you want the Port Macquarie teams involved as well.

It will just be a case of quaranteening a number of spots that can be used in case you need a qualifing round. Other than that just go a straight FA cup style draw, and decide if the games are required to be playeed on Turf (possibly eliminating Scone).

The only other thing I can think of is to try and get Sponsorship and media coverage for the competition, but I don't know if tehre is going to be a huge amount that I can do for that.

[ausdrexler]

Manning can be involved in the comp despite thier top sides playing with the port macquarie/hastings mob. There is talk that Port Macquarie/hastings will be joining the Hunter conference for thier hockey needs, which would bring them in line nicely to compete in this comp.

[JiMMM]

Club setup would be similar to this:
Newcastle Clubs- Souths, Norths, Wests, Tigers, University, Colts, Crusaders, Cardiff, Cessnock, Maitland, Port Stephens
Central Coast clubs - Gosford, Erina, Wyoming, Norah Head, The Entrance
Manning Valley - Taree West, Taree tigers, Chatham, Sharks, Foster. They also have 3 clubs from Port Macquarie in the top grade.
Scone - mixed comp. Could compete as a 'rep' team.
Port Association isnt strong enough, would be represenetd by the mesn club in the newwy comp. Same as Maitland Association.

If we Add
Port Macquarie - All stars, Camden, Port City, Rovers, Thunder, Wachope

There are 28 clubs (not counting any other clubs hiding out who will want to enter a team). So that gives you 2 options, 1) try and find 4 more clubs and have a 32 team knockout comp, or 2) have a larger qualifying round (there Rae a number of different options here with the larger area). Either way if you are going to include Port Macquarie and Manning Valley it is definitely going to exacerbate the travel problems  and therefore the cost, but it might make it easier on the turfs.

If we view the whole area as a region, I think the best way to move forward would be to have 2 district qualifiers (Newcastle and Central Coast, and a Manning Valley and Port Macquarie Scone can go where ever it prefers). This would eliminate some of the travel and possibly some of the turf issues (with co-located matches as I mentioned before), until the round of 16 where teams would be traveling all over the place. If this system is used and the Upper Hunter gets it's act back together you could then form 3 "districts" and continue without to many changes to the system. I would recommend proportional qualification for the round of 16 (IE one "district" has 3/4 of the total teams participating then that "district" gets 12 of the spots).

And if the HCPHL can be increased to 10 teams (2 from Manning/Port Macquarie) it will free up at 3 rounds which you would not have had before. I think definitely try and get these associations involved it will make the whole thing a lot easier all round, and the more I think about it the more that I like it.

[ausdrexler]

Just some more on this.

Invitations have gone out for 12 teams to compete in the first edition.

Decided due to some teams not liking the sand surfaces to limit the event over 2 days, on hybrid or watered surfaces only. So to make sure we get everyone happy, have taken on the pools approach.

4 pools of 3 teams in each, with 2 pools on Maitlands hybrid and 2 pools on Tarees hybrid on Feb 28th, with the pool winners coming together in Newcastle on the 7th march for semi finals and the final. 7th march is also a pre season for lower grade newcastle clubs, so the 2 will run together on that day.

Teams invitted initially are the 6 Newcastle HCPHL clubs, the 2 Central Coast HCPHL clubs, the 3 Taree MNCPHL clubs and a guest club from sydney.

Lets see how nominations go over the enxt week, hopefully it will be well supported. Seevral clubs ahve already committed so thats a good sign.