The new-look 2016 Great Britain Fastpitch League (GBFL), featuring separate women’s and men’s leagues instead of the previous jumble of women’s, men’s and mixed teams playing each other, got off to a great start with an exciting day’s play on Saturday 30 April at Farnham Park.
This year’s GBFL has been organised less around established teams and more around players, with the aim of creating new teams that can be competitive with each other.
So the 2016 GBFL Men’s League consists of five teams – Green, Black, Red, Blue and a team called Filinvest International, consisting mainly of players from a Filipino community based in Yorkshire. The other four teams are made up of players – including members of the GB Men and GB Under-19 Men pools -- who have signed up to the London Meteors Fastpitch Club and been drafted into teams designed to be as even as possible.
Meanwhile the Women’s League consists of two established fastpitch club teams, the London Angels and Heyford Diamonds, and two other teams – the Sox and Lions – made up of all other players who registered for the league, including players currently in the GB Women, Under-19 and Under-16 pools.
Chilly start
It was a cold but sunny morning as the players arrived at Farnham Park and began to look for their teams, meet their teammates, greet their coaches and pull on their team shirts. A league that had existed so far largely on paper, emails and spreadsheets was quickly becoming a reality on the ground.
For the coaches of the drafted teams, who knew some of the players assigned to them but had never met others or seen them play, it was a case of making quick guesses about line-ups and positions and then giving everyone playing time in Game 1 so they could assess what they had.
And what they had varied hugely in age, softball experience, fastpitch experience and talent, ranging from a few 50-somethings to the exciting sight of a battery of 14-year-olds, Kristen Kohler and Caitlin Frank, just up from last year’s GB Under-13 Team, pitching and catching respectively for the Sox. And they weren’t the only recent U-13 players involved on the day.
It was also great to see GB Under-19 Women’s Team player Sian Wigington out on the field, less than 24 hours after stepping off a plane from Australia, and having a fine day at bat and in the field.
Another heart-warming sight was seeing Areej Elmaazi, who has become an established GB Slowpitch Team player but had never tried fastpitch before this year, belting a grandslam home run in a last inning rally to bring her Sox team back from a 7-3 deficit against the Heyford Diamonds to a 7-7 tie – though the Diamonds went on to win the game 8-7.
Parity
That game was typical of the Women’s League round-robin played on the day, with three of the six games decided by a single run and another by only two runs.
Results in the Men’s League were more varied, with a few blow-out wins, but also some close games, the pick of which was a 2-0 win by Meteors Green over Meteors Red thanks to the pitching of the veteran New Zealander John Brown.
Leaders after Day 1 of what will be a competition played over four Saturdays and finishing on 4 June were Meteors Blue in the Men’s League, with three wins and no losses, and the London Angels in the Women’s League, also unbeaten on 3-0.
But with all teams happy to welcome new players and with a certain amount of roster turnover inevitable from one GBFL Saturday to the next, the strength of teams, and therefore results, could change.
Any new players who want to join either the Men’s or Women’s League for the rest of the GBFL season should contact League Organiser Lee Grafton on: lee@circle-associates.co.uk.
GB experience
For the past two or three years, the GB Under-19 Women’s and Men’s Teams, and the GB Under-16 Girls, had played as teams in the GBFL to get competition experience ahead of European or World tournaments. Because the GB players are now spread among different teams, the GBFL no longer provides that opportunity.
This year, however, the GB Under-19 Men do not have an official competition, and the female GB players can look forward to playing together in a GB Select Team that will take part in international women’s fastpitch tournaments that will take place at Farnham Park on the weekends of 25-26 June and 2-3 July. Teams will be coming to those tournaments from the USA, Germany, Denmark, France and possibly Ireland and Indonesia to offer a competitive challenge ahead of the Women’s World Championships and the European Junior Championships.
Success
At the end of a long, tiring but exciting day, it was generally reckoned that the new formula for GBFL had been a success.
Lee Grafton said, “It wasn’t entirely certain that we had a league until around 11.00 pm the night before, but I loved it! It was great to see three diamonds occupied with games, all the teams wearing team shirts, and a lot of new players and close games.”
Softball Academy and High Performance Academy Head Coach Robbie Robison said, “I’ve been arguing for the past couple of years that the way forward for fastpitch in this country was men playing men and women playing women, and it’s great that we’ve finally been able to get there.”
The GBFL will play again on 7 May, 21 May and 4 June, with an Open Day for new players planned over the weekend of 23-24 July.
Results
Women’s League
Angels 7, Sox 6
Diamonds 6, Lions 5
Angels 8, Lions 6
Diamonds 8, Sox 7
Lions 11, Sox 3
Angels 10, Diamonds 1
Men’s League
Green 13, Black 7
Blue 6, Red 0
Green 2, Red 0
Blue 11, Filinvest 0
Black 19, Filinvest 0
Blue 9, Green 3
Black 7, Red 4
Green 11, Filinvest 4
Standings after Day 1
Women’s League
Angels (3-0)
Diamonds (2-1)
Lions (1-2)
Sox (0-3)
Men’s League
Blue (3-0)
Green (3-1)
Black (2-1)
Red (0-3)
Filinvest Int’l (0-3)
Photos by Jan Grafton