INTERCLUB

The interclub competition is run by the Manawatu Badminton Association and is a competition where, as the name suggests, players representing the various clubs in the Manawatu region compete against each other.

Singles, doubles and mixed doubles play is catered for and players of all skill levels are able to participate.

For those players who want to try a little bit of competitive badminton, interclub is ideal. It is a lot of fun and gives you a chance to meet players from other clubs around the area. The interclub season usually runs from the middle of May through to the middle of September and is played on Thursday nights at Arena Manawatu (Map).

Note that you must be a paid member of the club to play in the competition. If you don't want to play every week, or you have joined the club too late in the season, reserve players are always wanted! For more information about interclub don't hesitate to talk to a committee member.

2008 Season

The Association has now decided on a format for interclub this season; the competition will follow a "boxed" format for singles, doubles and mixed. The intended start date is the 8th of May which is looming very near! If you want to play interclub you must register with the club and get your interclub form in right now. The membership and interclub forms are available for download and can be dropped in at club night or posted.

The way that a boxed competition works is that three people (or doubles pairings) play on each court on a given night. Each person plays the other two people in a round robin manner with the winner of the box moving up to the next box the following week and the loser moving down a box.

In this way the competition automatically sorts players into boxes that match their skill level and as a player improves during the season they will be able to move up through the boxes to accomodate this improvement. There is also no use for separate mens and womens competitions because the women will naturally end up in boxes with men of similar ability to them. This gender-mixing results in more potential games for all concerned.

Players will no longer be playing as part of a four person team but will still be representing the club and there will be a points system put in place that will ensure that the 'interclub' aspect of the competition is retained. Players are now welcome to arrange their own doubles and mixed partners but the club will still help people find partners where they don't have anybody in particular they wish to play with.

PLEASE NOTE: Because there are three people/pairs in each box the Association is restricting people to entering a maximum of two of singles, doubles and mixed. If you just want to enter one that is fine but entering all three is discourages as this would mean playing six games per night including two singles games. If there are players who still wish to play three they will be accommodated (numbers permitting) but there may be an extra cost involved.

The reason for such a drastic change is due mainly to a lack of female players and people preferring not to play singles. The lack of female players resulting in many men not finding places in interclub teams, now those same men might just miss out on mixed doubles rather than interclub altogether. The singles problem meant that the C grade was set up in such a way that a players opponent could decide not to play singles and then that player would miss out on their singles game. Also in the higher grades players who didn't want to play singles but were given no option were forced to default games. Now those same players just won't enter singles.