The Teams Competing on the Club’s Grounds

essex_ccc_vs_gloucestershire_ccc_2008One aspect that needs to be defined before going even deeper into details about the People’s Countryside Football Club is the fact that it is the host to a number of teams beside its own team and each year there is a local competition that takes place and gathers only the teams that are registered in the club.

In total, there are 23 teams that are registered in the club and compete against each other in the local tournament. Although it was specified that the main event is held only once a year, the teams face each other almost every month in the lower stages of the tournament. It is only the finals and semi-finals that are held in one week each year.

The teams who are part of the football club have decided willingly to join the team and are under no special circumstances or rules whatsoever. There is a single contractual statement which refers to the fact that during the tournament, the teams are not allowed to use reserves or import other players than the ones that are part of the initial team structure. Leaving this aside, there really aren’t any other specifications that the teams must adhere to and the tournament is undergoing based on a classical Swiss-draw chart.

The idea of allowing multiple teams to register in the club and compete into a local, owner-based tournament came to the founders of the club rather late in the club’s history and the local media and press defines this decision as one of the single most important regrets that the owners of the club have, meaning that they wished they did so sooner!

The popularity of the People’s Countryside Football Club has risen significantly since the inception of the “multi-team” concept, as the owners prefer to eloquently name the team’s tournament. If they knew about the benefits of bringing a number of teams to their club earlier in its history, the owners would have brought up their idea much earlier in their career. Nonetheless, since the introduction of the “multi-team” competition almost over four years ago, the club has enjoyed increasing popularity and a high rise in the level of the fans and those who are taking more and more interest in the People’s Countryside Football Club.