what is 'league' level? vs county level? is league pre county?

R

ralphz

Regular Member
I understand that county level is where counties compete.. so I suppose the top players in a particular county are picked to play for that county, against top players from another county?

I have heard that below county level is league level.

But I am confused about what league level means.. Or if it's even a level..

Like, are leagues regional?

Or are they club based?

Or both club based and regional?

Are the winners of league badminton the ones that go on to county level?

If a club speaks about joining their league, is that for games against only clubs within the county?

Or is that for across counties?

And presumably county level players are going to dominate league tournaments if county level ones apply.

And players that play at international level are going to dominate national level tournaments and county level tournaments.

So i'm confused..

can anybody help explain these things?

Thanks
 
Leagues and counties have divisions where they overlap. Leagues also have county leagues and district leagues which overlap again district leagues being in general less competitive at the lower level. Players can cross over between the different leagues.

Inter county leagues are a higher level and this is where you get county players. County players can also drop down and play in any of the lower level leagues if they so wish.
 
Helps to consider that level is not the same as league. Level of play is how strong the player/team is, and league/tournament is a format of competition.

I'm sure you know what a tournament is. A league is a series of matches between teams (can be whatever number/mix of players and any match format they wish).

Tournaments are the most well known type of competition and exists at all levels:
  • International e.g. Olympics, BWF Tour
  • National e.g. BadmintonEngland Senior circuit
  • County e.g. inter-county cup
  • Regional/District e.g. Manchester League restricted Tournament
  • Club/Social level e.g. club restricted tournament
The lower level tournaments often have a restriction, for example, a Manchester League tournament requires you to have played in a Manchester League fixture (match) in that season.

Leagues also exist at every level:
  • International e.g. Purple Badminton League
  • National e.g. (English) National Badminton League, inter-county leagues
  • Regional/District e.g. Manchester League
  • Club/social (much less common) e.g. ladder systems
Normally, a league system will include a tournament every year, as people enjoy tournaments. Leagues also have various 'divisions' in which the level of play within a league is divided up - if a team gets stronger, then they will be promoted to a higher division.

Naturally, levels within tournament systems overlap (e.g. even the Top 16 play in BWF300s every now and then), and they will too in league systems.

Specifically for national (inter-county) level, there is a overlap with regional/district as well as international level.
 
DarkHiatus said:
Helps to consider that level is not the same as league. Level of play is how strong the player/team is, and league/tournament is a format of competition.

I'm sure you know what a tournament is. A league is a series of matches between teams (can be whatever number/mix of players and any match format they wish).

Tournaments are the most well known type of competition and exists at all levels:
  • International e.g. Olympics, BWF Tour
  • National e.g. BadmintonEngland Senior circuit
  • County e.g. inter-county cup
  • Regional/District e.g. Manchester League restricted Tournament
  • Club/Social level e.g. club restricted tournament
The lower level tournaments often have a restriction, for example, a Manchester League tournament requires you to have played in a Manchester League fixture (match) in that season.

Leagues also exist at every level:
  • International e.g. Purple Badminton League
  • National e.g. (English) National Badminton League, inter-county leagues
  • Regional/District e.g. Manchester League
  • Club/social (much less common) e.g. ladder systems
Normally, a league system will include a tournament every year, as people enjoy tournaments. Leagues also have various 'divisions' in which the level of play within a league is divided up - if a team gets stronger, then they will be promoted to a higher division.

Naturally, levels within tournament systems overlap (e.g. even the Top 16 play in BWF300s every now and then), and they will too in league systems.

Specifically for national (inter-county) level, there is a overlap with regional/district as well as international level.
Click to expand...

Thanks, that's really informative.

So it sounds like league is a subset of tournament. A league being a tournament involving teams.(a team being a group affiliated with a club with a home venue )

I looked up "National Badminton League" and I see the wikipedia page, that clarifies things, so you have teams each team affiliated with a university(a university's badminton club), and each team with a home venue where that club normally plays out of.. So that makes sense..

And so if a club talks about a league then it's between clubs and each club is a team. and people represent their club. I have represented a club in a league before.. and the league was regional.. now I can make more sense of the term 'league'!

One of the clubs I play at that may be a strange exception to this in their use of the term 'league'. They have what they call a "league evening" that I have played in sometimes .. It's doubles. People are paired up once for the evening, and they track who wins. It would be a tournament but I wonder if it is technically a league? (Since the closest one gets to a 'team' would be an individual pairing, but even then each individual is from that same club / same home venue, so doesn't sound like a league to me). When you say "team", Do you mean a team would consist of more than just a doubles pairing? If so then I guess one wouldn't consider the above to be a league and it's a misnomer in that instance?

Another thing that puzzles me, is , is there some inconsistency among the terms international, national, county, regional/district, club

International is pretty clear, involves different countries.

National is pretty clear, it involves one country.

County seems an odd one out, as it means Inter-county.

Regional follows the same pattern as international and national, so means within the region.

Club - i'm not sure which pattern that follows. Does that mean one club vs another club, or does it mean within a club?
 
Interclub leagues and intraclub league to be pedantic. Nobody bothers to use these terms as it’s generally known and if someone doesn’t know, they just have someone else in the club explain it.
 
ralphz said:
Thanks, that's really informative.

So it sounds like league is a subset of tournament. A league being a tournament involving teams.(a team being a group affiliated with a club with a home venue )

I looked up "National Badminton League" and I see the wikipedia page, that clarifies things, so you have teams each team affiliated with a university(a university's badminton club), and each team with a home venue where that club normally plays out of.. So that makes sense..

And so if a club talks about a league then it's between clubs and each club is a team. and people represent their club. I have represented a club in a league before.. and the league was regional.. now I can make more sense of the term 'league'!

One of the clubs I play at that may be a strange exception to this in their use of the term 'league'. They have what they call a "league evening" that I have played in sometimes .. It's doubles. People are paired up once for the evening, and they track who wins. It would be a tournament but I wonder if it is technically a league? (Since the closest one gets to a 'team' would be an individual pairing, but even then each individual is from that same club / same home venue, so doesn't sound like a league to me). When you say "team", Do you mean a team would consist of more than just a doubles pairing? If so then I guess one wouldn't consider the above to be a league and it's a misnomer in that instance?

Another thing that puzzles me, is , is there some inconsistency among the terms international, national, county, regional/district, club

International is pretty clear, involves different countries.

National is pretty clear, it involves one country.

County seems an odd one out, as it means Inter-county.

Regional follows the same pattern as international and national, so means within the region.

Club - i'm not sure which pattern that follows. Does that mean one club vs another club, or does it mean within a club?
Click to expand...

The key feature of a league is the sustained tracking of matches of an entity against another entity over an extended period of time (known as a season). It's a separate form of competition to tournament. At the higher levels of tournament play, the idea of being 'knocked out' of the competition is key. In a league, you will never be 'knocked out' - you will continue to play for points such that you preserve your overall ranking at the end of the year to hopefully be promoted to the higher division, or avoid being relegated (demoted) to a lower division.

In league play, whether that entity is a single player, a doubles pair, or a team of 6 that they can play a mixture of games with for each meeting (known as a fixture or match), doesn't actually matter - it's up to the league rules to decide. Normally it is a team because 1) it gives a team feel which is fun, especially when at club level 2) it allows much easier time finding replacements 3) in other sports (most notably football), it's the most common form of competition and 4) it gives a good balance in having enough people to make it worth the time and effort. It also echoes the team captain, club manager ideas that people seem to enjoy in bigger team sports like football/rugby/baseball/basketball. People get extremely excited when their football club wins a major league e.g. champions League.

Badminton is a little weird in that leagues are really not that common at pro level. Even PBL is a 2 week competition that is almost a tournament because it stretches the definition of a 'season' being an extended period of time. They do have the idea of accumulating points in a series of fixtures however, which does make it a league - you can't be knocked out. Sudirman/Thomas/Uber cup get close in terms of team composition, but again, they're clearly tournaments with knockout stages.

However, at club level, leagues are extremely common. Consistency of nomenclature (inter vs. intra) of international/national/county/club is just one of many examples of where the English language has many of those 'exceptions' because people take shortcuts. Just the fact that County competition refers to inter-county play makes it a subset of national level, but people can't be bothered saying inter-county all the time. People will refer to the Inter-County Championships as the 'County Cup' for example. It's that common acknowledgement that if you're in the field of interest, you'll know what it means. But that makes it hard for people on the outside to figure out what in earth is going on!
 
DarkHiatus said:
The key feature of a league is the sustained tracking of matches of an entity against another entity over an extended period of time (known as a season). It's a separate form of competition to tournament. At the higher levels of tournament play, the idea of being 'knocked out' of the competition is key. In a league, you will never be 'knocked out' - you will continue to play for points such that you preserve your overall ranking at the end of the year to hopefully be promoted to the higher division, or avoid being relegated (demoted) to a lower division.

In league play, whether that entity is a single player, a doubles pair, or a team of 6 that they can play a mixture of games with for each meeting (known as a fixture or match), doesn't actually matter - it's up to the league rules to decide. Normally it is a team because 1) it gives a team feel which is fun, especially when at club level 2) it allows much easier time finding replacements 3) in other sports (most notably football), it's the most common form of competition and 4) it gives a good balance in having enough people to make it worth the time and effort. It also echoes the team captain, club manager ideas that people seem to enjoy in bigger team sports like football/rugby/baseball/basketball. People get extremely excited when their football club wins a major league e.g. champions League.

Badminton is a little weird in that leagues are really not that common at pro level. Even PBL is a 2 week competition that is almost a tournament because it stretches the definition of a 'season' being an extended period of time. They do have the idea of accumulating points in a series of fixtures however, which does make it a league - you can't be knocked out. Sudirman/Thomas/Uber cup get close in terms of team composition, but again, they're clearly tournaments with knockout stages.

However, at club level, leagues are extremely common. Consistency of nomenclature (inter vs. intra) of international/national/county/club is just one of many examples of where the English language has many of those 'exceptions' because people take shortcuts. Just the fact that County competition refers to inter-county play makes it a subset of national level, but people can't be bothered saying inter-county all the time. People will refer to the Inter-County Championships as the 'County Cup' for example. It's that common acknowledgement that if you're in the field of interest, you'll know what it means. But that makes it hard for people on the outside to figure out what in earth is going on!
Click to expand...


you say "league is ...a separate form of competition to tournament. "

that sounds like "not a subset"..

but you also said in post #3 "League tournament"

which make league sounds like a subset of tournament..

so which is it?

I can see that a competition with knockouts and a final and done over one day or consecutive days, is a tournament..

And a competition with points accumulated, done over months, is a league.

And a competition that mixes these features e.g. it's done on points and in one day, then it becomes blurred in that it may be called a tournament or it may be called a league. It's a mixture?

So it sounds like a case of 2 overlapping sets.. definitely tournament. definitely league.. and overlap..

And at the higher levels a tournament would always mean 'definitely a tournament' i.e. all the features of a tournament.

And at the higher levels, league may still be blurred. (unless explicitly clear that it's definitely a league)

kTFhKDe.png


So the only clear meaning that either of these words have is the word tournament when used at a high level of play,

I have played at a club that had a competition that was labelled Tournament for Spring.. It has groups and some system(presumably people getting knocked out!), leading to a SF, QF, and Final.

And the club has competitions labelled as league that take place regularly within the club, where all matches that take place, take place in one evening. It is run on points.

So it has a blurry league and blurry tournament.

Though maybe it's not actually blurry..

Maybe a Tournament is fundamentally when you have a competition with QF, SF, Finals.

And a League is fundamentally when it is run on points..And so you have many rows of results that can be sorted..

And maybe the reason why Leagues tend to be longer, / run over a longer period like months, is because more games are played by all participants in a league? But they aren't necessarily so, e.g. one league I played in, was internal to a club and every pair played against every other pair and the whole thing began and finished in an evening.

.So then it is two separate sets. And no blurring at all.
 
ralphz said:
you say "league is ...a separate form of competition to tournament. "

that sounds like "not a subset"..

but you also said in post #3 "League tournament"

which make league sounds like a subset of tournament..

so which is it?

I can see that a competition with knockouts and a final and done over one day or consecutive days, is a tournament..

And a competition with points accumulated, done over months, is a league.

And a competition that mixes these features e.g. it's done on points and in one day, then it becomes blurred in that it may be called a tournament or it may be called a league. It's a mixture?

So it sounds like a case of 2 overlapping sets.. definitely tournament. definitely league.. and overlap..

And at the higher levels a tournament would always mean 'definitely a tournament' i.e. all the features of a tournament.

And at the higher levels, league may still be blurred. (unless explicitly clear that it's definitely a league)

kTFhKDe.png


So the only clear meaning that either of these words have is the word tournament when used at a high level of play,

I have played at a club that had a competition that was labelled Tournament for Spring.. It has groups and some system(presumably people getting knocked out!), leading to a SF, QF, and Final.

And the club has competitions labelled as league that take place regularly within the club, where all matches that take place, take place in one evening. It is run on points.

So it has a blurry league and blurry tournament.

Though maybe it's not actually blurry..

Maybe a Tournament is fundamentally when you have a competition with QF, SF, Finals.

And a League is fundamentally when it is run on points..And so you have many rows of results that can be sorted..

And maybe the reason why Leagues tend to be longer, / run over a longer period like months, is because more games are played by all participants in a league? But they aren't necessarily so, e.g. one league I played in, was internal to a club and every pair played against every other pair and the whole thing began and finished in an evening.

.So then it is two separate sets. And no blurring at all.
Click to expand...
Just play more, get involved in leagues and competitions and you'll get the general idea.

For your last point, you'll have to ask your club why they call a set of matches a league when they played it all in one evening. It's unusual.
 
Last edited:
ralphz said:
you say "league is ...a separate form of competition to tournament. "

that sounds like "not a subset"..

but you also said in post #3 "League tournament"

which make league sounds like a subset of tournament..

so which is it?

I can see that a competition with knockouts and a final and done over one day or consecutive days, is a tournament..

And a competition with points accumulated, done over months, is a league.

And a competition that mixes these features e.g. it's done on points and in one day, then it becomes blurred in that it may be called a tournament or it may be called a league. It's a mixture?

So it sounds like a case of 2 overlapping sets.. definitely tournament. definitely league.. and overlap..

And at the higher levels a tournament would always mean 'definitely a tournament' i.e. all the features of a tournament.

And at the higher levels, league may still be blurred. (unless explicitly clear that it's definitely a league)

kTFhKDe.png


So the only clear meaning that either of these words have is the word tournament when used at a high level of play,

I have played at a club that had a competition that was labelled Tournament for Spring.. It has groups and some system(presumably people getting knocked out!), leading to a SF, QF, and Final.

And the club has competitions labelled as league that take place regularly within the club, where all matches that take place, take place in one evening. It is run on points.

So it has a blurry league and blurry tournament.

Though maybe it's not actually blurry..

Maybe a Tournament is fundamentally when you have a competition with QF, SF, Finals.

And a League is fundamentally when it is run on points..And so you have many rows of results that can be sorted..

And maybe the reason why Leagues tend to be longer, / run over a longer period like months, is because more games are played by all participants in a league? But they aren't necessarily so, e.g. one league I played in, was internal to a club and every pair played against every other pair and the whole thing began and finished in an evening.

.So then it is two separate sets. And no blurring at all.
Click to expand...

I thought you might pick up on the "League Tournament" - this is what I mean about the English language, it can vary in specificity.

In this case, a League Tournament is normally a single day tournament with knockouts etc, with entries restricted to participants who have played in the associated league.

For example, there is a Manchester League that consists of 19 clubs. They are split into 4 divisions with a total of 39 teams (a single club can have multiple teams) and each division features a number of fixtures over the course of a season such that all teams play each other (round robin) within that division. Wins and ties are worth varying amounts of points.

In the Manchester League, they may run a number of single day League Tournaments during the season restricted to any individual/pair who have played in at least 1 fixture in the Manchester League (as part of any of the 39 teams). The tournaments run typically depends on the size of the league - sometimes they have several tournaments, with restrictions on division (so that the division 1 players don't end up winning everything). Sometimes they don't and it's an overall League Tournament, and sometimes they even run a handicapped 'cup' event, where they have a team knockout tournament that takes place over the course of a season!

I would say technically speaking you can run a 'league' in a single day where you score points per win/tie, and the most points wins.

Most people like the idea of a final as you get a good match to watch at the end of the day and it adds a climax, so typically if such an event occurs where they do want to maximise people playing against each other, they do a round robin format* with 2 groups as you describe, and typically the 1st and 2nd placed (by games won normally) in each group go on to play a semifinal, and then a final (and sometimes 3rd/4th playoff).

People find all sorts of ways to compete! It's actually very interesting playing a handicap team tournament format. Handicaps can be applied as a starting score advantage e.g. starting -2/2, and also as a number of points applied at the end of the fixture. I've had a matchup where my team was a division above the opposition, and we were also quite strong overall. The handicap started each match as -10/10, and the opposition got an average of 5 points per game to add at the end of the fixture. So effectively each game started as -10/15. It's incredibly hard to discipline yourself not to lose more than 6 points per game, especially when you need to gain 31 points to close a game out, not 21! We actually lost the matchup, with the final scores only being 15 points apart - quite a feat of forecasting to the handicap organiser over the course of 18 games!

*Round robin means everyone in a group plays each other.
 
DarkHiatus said:
I thought you might pick up on the "League Tournament" - this is what I mean about the English language, it can vary in specificity.

In this case, a League Tournament is normally a single day tournament with knockouts etc, with entries restricted to participants who have played in the associated league.
Click to expand...

Does the result of the league tournament influence the position of a team in the league? (i.e. get them more points). Or is the league tournament a spin off of the league, with no influence on the league?
 
Cheung said:
why they call a set of matches a league when they played it all in one evening
Click to expand...

My discussion with DH in this thread has answered that question.

I addressed this when I wrote as a possible answer to that, and in the post you replied to, "a League is fundamentally when it is run on points..And so you have many rows of results that can be sorted.."

DH confirmed this when he said "I would say technically speaking you can run a 'league' in a single day where you score points per win/tie, and the most points wins."

That makes perfect sense as an answer to that question.
 
ralphz said:
Does the result of the league tournament influence the position of a team in the league? (i.e. get them more points). Or is the league tournament a spin off of the league, with no influence on the league?
Click to expand...

I'm sure there will be exceptions, but I've only ever seen them as a spin-off of the league.

Sometimes they come with their own trophy to the league, though most of the time it's just a tournament for the fun of it. In general, people take the league more seriously, and having the tournament influence the result would probably make people feel the overall result wouldn't be as fair.

Just as a note on the single day League...it is technically possible to describe it as such, but 99% of English users would describe any single day event as a tournament rather than a league. Sort of like 99% of English users will refer to a tomato as a vegetable, even though it is technically speaking a fruit.
 
There are more terms used to describe the nature of a tournament so you have that to look forward to.
e.g. American tournament - with no knock outs, just a sort of round robin format with random partners, all points you earn count to your individual total. Winner is the individual with most points at the end.

Plus the various leagues are generally centred around an area based on population density. Most cities and some larger towns will have a local league. A county could have 2 or more leagues within its boundaries so don’t think of leagues being limited to lines on a map. E.g. South Gloucestershire League is more Bristol than Gloucestershire, Bristol has its own league, as does Gloucester. Some clubs will enter teams in multiple leagues because geography makes it possible to travel the distances easily, some players will play for multiple clubs in different leagues. For a while I played in 5 teams for 3 clubs in 3 leagues in mixed and levels formats.
 
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