It’s that time again. Time to review the state of the Northern League; the wargames competition scene in the North of England. I'm sad to say that this year I did not participate in any of the rounds. Perhaps next year. Who knows?
Compared to 2018, the key features are the continued growth of Art de la Guerre (ADLG) and the complete absence of Field of Glory (FOG). Most importantly the average number of players has risen for the second year in succession and is now at its highest since 2015.
For those of you who'd like even more data there's always the national picture provided by Tim Porter.
- In its third year ADLG was, once again, well supported with a total of 29 different teams taking part (up from 22 in 2018).
- On average each ADLG team played in 3 rounds (3.24 to be exact; up slightly from 2.95 in 2018).
- ADLG is now a well established singles competition, but not exclusively so, with an average team size of 1.07.
- DBMM retained its loyal following and as always contributed a lot to the health of the League.
- On average each DBMM team played in 4 rounds (3.83 to be exact, up from 3.70 in 2018).
- For the first time in seven years the average size of a DBMM teams fell significantly from 1.60 to 1.33. It will be interesting to see if this is just a blip.
- It's quite clear that the Northern League is now predominately a singles competition unlike the early days when the doubles format was introduced to allow as many people as possible to play.
Data Set
For those that wish to study the numbers here they are:
Average Players / Round |
||||||
| Year | DBM | DBMM | FOG AM | FOG R | ADLG | Totals |
| 2006 | 58.0 | 58.0 | ||||
| 2007 | 38.0 | 38.0 | ||||
| 2008 | 18.0 | 7.2 | 16.6 | 41.8 | ||
| 2009 | 7.0 | 11.8 | 26.6 | 45.4 | ||
| 2010 | 8.8 | 33.0 | 41.8 | |||
| 2011 | 11.0 | 34.8 | 45.8 | |||
| 2012 | 11.6 | 27.4 | 5.8 | 44.8 | ||
| 2013 | 12.4 | 19.0 | 10.0 | 41.4 | ||
| 2014 | 12.8 | 14.4 | 9.6 | 36.8 | ||
| 2015 | 13.4 | 7.4 | 8.8 | 29.6 | ||
| 2016 | 11.0 | 4.8 | 9.6 | 25.4 | ||
| 2017 | 11.8 | 12.6 | 24.4 | |||
| 2018 | 13.2 | 3.2 | 14.4 | 30.8 | ||
| 2019 | 13.2 | 18.8 | 32.0 | |||
2 comments :
"It's quite clear that the Northern League is now predominately a singles competition unlike the early days when the doubles format was introduced to allow as many people as possible to play."
The League started as Doubles way back in the 1990's
We are almost at our limit now so to grow we would have to have ADLG as doubles and enforce it more in DBMM.
At our height we had 32 (64 Players) playing DBM 16 tables was the maximum possible 13 tables is near nowadays.
Geoff Pearson
Good points Geoff. I forgot that the size of the venues would restrict future growth unless the trend towards singles was reversed.
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