A Personal Response to the Tom Wilson Decision
At the Faber Shield Meeting on Friday 27th November 2009, the decision was reached to penalise Fulford A one point after Tom Wilson played for both Fulford teams on the same night on 9th September - detailed in the ruling article here. At that meeting the Faber Shield Committee considered a joint letter from some of the Carlsberg-UK Snooker League players. This letter raised a number of points which I feel are unfair and to which I believe I am entitled a right to answer given that the tone of the letter certainly seems to put the blame for the situation at my feet.
My resignation as Secretary
I think it is important to state at this point that I officially announced my resignation as Secretary of the Faber Shield to the Chairman on Monday 16th November with immediate effect. However, as Colin Robinson acknowledged during the meeting I did continue my duties in regards to collating results up to the date of the meeting as I wished to ensure a clean handover of my responsibilities.
At the point of my resignation I had no knowledge of the joint letter presented to the Faber Shield at the meeting on 27th November 2009. However, if I had still been Secretary at that meeting I would have felt compelled to resign as the undersigned clearly supported a paragraph in the letter which questions my thought process and points the blame for the Fulford A decision at me, rather than that of the Fulford A captain Mike Walsh. As such I would have seen this as effectively a vote of no confidence in myself and resigned immediately as it would have made my positron as Secretary untenable.
For the record, I had already announced my intention to stand down from the role of Secretary at the 2010 AGM due to increased work commitments. My decision to bring forward this decision was as a result of the working relationship between myself and the Chairman (Colin Robinson) becoming too strained. I do not wish to get personal about this decision as I appreciate that Colin has done a lot of good work for the league, as I hope people recognise I have done too. Suffice it to say that I became aware of certain communications by the Chairman that made my role as Secretary untenable. Perhaps if the Chairman had spoken to me directly about the issues that were going on "behind closed doors" this month then my decision may have been different?
The joint letter from 19 players
There are a number of issues raised in the letter that I feel I must respond to - I am not going to seek to defend Fulford's position any further as this was set out in our appeal letter last month but I feel there are inaccuracies in the letter which I am compelled to respond to.
- The letter claims that there was a "win at all costs" motive behind Fulford's decision to play Tom twice in one night.
- I can assure you that this was most certainly not the motive behind the decision. At 4.30pm on the night of the match, Fulford A had only 4 players - there only motive behind the decision was to ensure that Malton A had some opponents to play, particularly given the fact that they had to travel to York for the game. In the end Tim Lister played on one leg after suffering a knee injury the previous day, Tom Wilson was selected and the only other person in the club, Brian Smith (a C team player), was selected.
- The letter makes reference to Tom playing well and playing of a 'good' handicap having so far not lost a game (at the time of writing 11th Nov 09).
- My response to this would have been as of the 9th September 09 when Tom played the matches in question he had only played one prior league match. To say that the Fulford decision was motivated by Tom's results and performances is misleading as he had not played enough games at that point of the season to form such a judgment! Viewing this now I would agree that Tom's abilities have improved and he is playing better than his handicap - however Tom has played in previous seasons and no player is ever penalised for putting practice in and improving. I can think of numerous examples of other people playing much better than their handicap and, quite rightly, not being penalised for showing improvement.
- The letter outlines an example of a decision made by the Faber Shield in the 2008/09 season relating to a Heworth pair being asked to replay a Pairs KO match as they were deemed to have broken a rule that in their opinion was not published. They also state that in their opinion Colin Robinson would be able to provide numerous other examples of such situations where decisions were taken on items not covered by the rules.
- Firstly, it is Fulford's opinion that there is a rule governing player eligibility (see page 6 of the Faber Shield Rules) and that the rule was clarified with the Chairman, Colin Robinson, prior to the decision being taken to play Tom. This is where the Tom Wilson situation differs to the above example. After all, Fulford did seek clarification of the rules from the Chairman prior to the incident. This did not happen in the Pairs case above.
- Secondly, Heworth voted on the above example (the minuted result of the decision to replay the match is 3-1 in favour - Malton did not attend the meeting and hence abstained). Surely they too should not have been allowed to vote on this matter as they were directly involved? In fact I can provide many other such instances of clubs voting on matters involving themselves - a fact to which Colin Robinson agreed to in the meeting last night. Bearing in mind that Fulford accepted the view that they should not vote in the current Tom Wilson situation, I asked for confirmation that clubs would be excluded from voting on all future decisions in which they are involved.
- Finally I can provide counter examples of situations where the Faber Shield has reversed a decision because the Faber Shield Rules were not broken.
A final thought
Ultimately I would like to make the point that rules evolve as and when they are found to have shortcomings. To effectively retrospectively amend a rule is a dangerous precedent. Yes you may think Fulford A were morally wrong, but I can think of many examples of past scenarios that could be viewed as morally wrong. After all is it morally right to not attempt to get out of a snooker, knowing that the miss rule will not be applied? Is it morally right to amend your team selection and drop your two worse players when you discover your opponents only have 5 players? My point is simply this - if decisions are made based on morals then you will have no consistency. Without consistency there is no point in having a set of rules.
Having said all of the above, I now consider this matter closed. As I stated previously, I feel this matter has gone on too long and as such this is why Fulford chose not to debate the matter any further at the Faber Shield Meeting on 27th November 2009. However, I defend my right to respond to the criticisms that were leveled at me in the joint letter from some of the Carlsberg-UK Snooker League players.
My contribution to the League
I have been the Secretary of the Faber Shield for the past 3 seasons and would like to think that I have served you well during this time. In the year prior to becoming Secretary I effectively stood in for the then Secretary, Dave Carlton, during his absence due to illness. In addition I have run the Faber Shield Website - www.fabershield.co.uk - entirely at my own cost for the past 10 years. It is my hope that this sad situation does not detract from your view of the contribution I have made to the Faber Shield and its' competitions over the past decade.
It is my intention to make myself available to assist the new Secretary in the role. I do hope that someone is prepared to step in to the role at it is surely not ideal, or practical, for Colin Robinson to perform the duties of Chairman, Treasurer and Secretary of the Faber Shield! It is also my intention that this website, www.fabershield.co.uk, will continue should the majority of players wish it to do so. Provided there is still a demand for the site by the players, I shall continue to update so long as I also have the support and assistance of the Faber Shield Committee in providing the required information.
