2026/27 Proposals
After reviewing the proposals put forward by teams for the new season, the committee has decided to put forward five proposals for teams to vote on. Please submit your votes via email to grimsby.pool@gmail.com no later than midnight on the 20th September.
1. Players in the Wednesday Premier Division can currently play a maximum of four frames each. It has been proposed that players cannot play four frames in a row. Only teams competing in this season's Wednesday Premier Division can vote on this proposal - The Badgers, Cromwell Cavaliers, Grimmo's Pandas, Lounge Aces, Market Tavern, Rack & White Army, Rack 'Em Tighter, Racks.
2. In accordance with Blackball Rules, there are six ways a player may lose a lag:
Your ball crosses into your opponent's half of the table
Your ball fails to contact the top cushion
Your ball drops into a pocket
Your ball leaves the table
Your ball touches a side cushion
Your ball comes to rest on the playing surface within the area of the pocket past the nose of the baulk cushion
It has been proposed that if a player fails to strike their ball before their opponent's ball hits the top cushion then this should also be a loss of lag. Under current Blackball Rules this would normally be a re-lag.
3. All matches are currently composed of singles. It has been proposed that an element of scotch doubles be reintroduced into matches.
4. The only balls currently allowed to be used in matches are a plain set of red and yellow balls with a plain black ball and cue ball, or Pro Cups. It has been proposed that Ultimate Pool Pro balls should also be allowed. You can see what these balls look like here - https://ultimatepoolshop.com/collections/pool-balls
5. If a team withdraws from the League, the current rule states that all of their results up to that point are declared null and void and the relevant division updated accordingly. It used to be that if the team had completed all of their matches from the first half of the season then those results would stand and only the results from the second half of the season would be declared null and void. Teams voted to change this as they believed it was unfair to allow the results from the first half of the season to stand as half of the teams in that division would have received a home table advantage for those results. It has been proposed that we return to that original rule and that results from the first half of the season are allowed to stand if a team withdraws.
The committee rejected the followings proposals:
1. If you lose the lag and your opponent break dishes then you lose the frame. It was proposed that if this happens then you get the opportunity to break dish back and, if you do so, both players would then play a third frame decider to determine which team gets the point. This was rejected for being unworkable within the existing match formats and unnecessarily increasing the number of frames in a match. If your opponent break dishes after winning the lag they deserve the point and you should have played a better lag.
2. All draws for the team knockout competitions, including the end of season Champion of Champions knockout competition, are made using the random generator on RackEmApp. It was proposed that for matches in the semi finals of these competitions, the draws are made by the team captains picking names out of a hat on the night. RackEmApp draws all of the rounds randomly and then automatically updates the matches onto the app. To bypass this with a manual method would be a time consuming and unnecessary backwards step. There is no conspiracy theory with the draws. If you get to the semi finals of one of these competitions and get drawn against one of the better teams, that's because there are only four teams left in the draw at that point and you've got a one in three chance of drawing one of them. We are happy to screen record all draws to show that they are random.
3. The current rule for postponed matches is that all matches postponed in the first half of the season must be played before the second half of the season begins and all matches postponed in the second half of the season must be played before the final designated league match of the season for the division in which the match was postponed. It was proposed that all postponed matches must be played within 21 days of the original fixture. This was rejected for being a backwards step. The rule used to be that teams had to play postponed matches within 21 days, but this was changed as teams struggled to find alternative nights on which to play matches within that time frame. The current system in place was fully enforced last season and no matches were played outside of the designated time frames. If the number of postponed matches becomes too excessive, we will look at the possibility of limiting the number of times a team can postpone a match over the course of a season.