At its last Executive meeting on 11 March, the BSF finalised details for National Softball League play in 2021.
The two factors affecting the ability to play a full “normal” NSL season this year are the pandemic and a limited number of pitches that will be available at Farnham Park this summer because of Council renovations at the ground. Accordingly, the NSL season has been announced as follows:
- The 12 teams in NSL2 will play league games at the Diamond Series events on 5-6 June and 17-18 July at Farnham Park. Over the course of these two weekends, each team will play all other teams once, but in longer games of 90 minutes’ duration.
- The 12 teams in NSL1 will play league games at the Windsor Tournament on 10-11 July and at a standalone NSL event on 14-15 August, both at Farnham Park. Over the course of these two weekends, each team will play all other teams once, but in longer games of 90 minutes’ duration.
- BSF National Championships for both NSL1 and NSL2 will be played on the weekend of 4-5 September at Farnham Park. Each Championship will be contested by the eight teams that have qualified through league play.
The BSF has decided that there will be no promotion and relegation between NSL1 and NSL2 this year because of the shortened season. Because there are no plans for NSL3 Nationals this year, there will of course be no promotion and relegation between NSL2 and NSL3.
Promotion and relegation will resume in 2022, with two-up and two-down between both NSL1 and NSL2 and between NSL2 and NSL3.
Other possibilities
Since these arrangements were announced in the website report from the BSF’s 11 March meeting, some members have raised questions about the plans. The questions mainly fall into two areas:
1. Why can’t there still be promotion and relegation between NSL1 and NSL2, because otherwise NSL2 teams won’t have much to play for this year?
The BSF has decided that it would be wrong to have promotion and relegation this year because:
- It will be unfair to promote or relegate teams based on a season where just 50% of the normal number of games are played.
- In addition, many teams will struggle to get their full complement of players this year, which may put some teams at a disadvantage.
- From a safety point of view, the BSF does not want to create a situation where the desire to achieve promotion or avoid relegation leads teams to put pressure on members to play who otherwise might be wary of doing so because of the pandemic.
Most NSL players have had over a year without any competitive softball, and the BSF feels that the opportunity to get back on the field in 2021 and play meaningful games, with Nationals places at stake, should be enough in what will still be an uncertain season. Hopefully, normality will resume in 2022.
2. Why can’t other dates and venues be found so that a full NSL season can be played?
Although the government’s Roadmap out of lockdown will in theory allow outdoor softball tournaments to be played from as early as the end of March, there is still considerable uncertainty about how such events can be staged, given that restrictions around hotels, hospitality, camping etc will remain in place for longer, through at least 17 May and to some extent through 21 June.
For this reason, the BSF regards early-season dates as problematic, which is why the Diamond/NSL event scheduled for 15-16 May has been cancelled, and why all but one of the scheduled NSL dates falls after 21 June, when in theory all Covid restrictions will be lifted. We feel that there could be reluctance on the part of many players to come back to softball early in the season, with less reluctance when we get to June and July and the UK’s excellent vaccination rollout has covered the majority of the population.
So while there might be early-season dates available for more NSL play, we are reluctant to use them and feel that attempting to do so will create even more uncertainty.
Later in the season, from mid-June onwards, there are simply no weekends available where adding NSL play would not clash with other important slowpitch tournaments, many of which are regionally based and relied on by local leagues to generate funds. The BSF is reluctant to compromise any of these tournaments.
Summary
In making plans for NSL play in 2021 at a time when there is still considerable uncertainty about the course of the pandemic, the BSF has tried to make decisions that balance different considerations and provide as much certainty as possible that some kind of league schedule can be played, followed by National Championships.
In addition to the decisions made at its meeting on 11 March, the BSF Executive met again on 24 March to review its decisions in light of questions raised.
The adage that you can never please everyone of course comes into play, but we have tried to do the best we can in a difficult situation. Let’s just hope that we don’t get a widespread new Covid variant over the next few months that puts us all back into lockdown!
The BSF Executive
March 2021