League News
For the last few years I have been keeping, updating and publishing team numbers in each of the local leagues and the 2023 season version is shown below. This covers the situation in 22 leagues in the Huddersfield area and the latest figures show a continuing slow down in the decline in team numbers. In fact we have 12 of the 22 leagues showing an increase or no change in team numbers for the 2023 season. That is a big swing in trends from pre-pandemic days.
The impact of the Covid pandemic cannot be under-estimated with the 2020 season completely wiped out although many league has published their fixtures by then and we have included those team numbers where known. The aftermath of the pandemic undoubtedly impacted on the 2021 season with only the Huddersfield Winter League being able to post an increase in team numbers with 20 of the other 21 leagues all showing a drop in numbers with only the Junior League retaining the same number.
The recovery started in 2022 but that was influenced by comparison against the 2021 Covid affected totals so is an unreliable guide. However the 2023 figures show definite year-on-year improvements with 7 leagues reporting increased numbers of teams for the new season and 5 more showing an unchanged total. One league still to publish their fixtures on Bowlsnet is the Works League and that is expected in the next week so we will publish the full figures again then.
Hidden from the chart below are details of four local leagues that seem to have disappeared from the bowling leagues altogether and we will have more on that to report tomorrow along with some comparisons of the latest figures compared with pre-Covid days.
The colour coding gives you a quick reference to the fortunes of each league and the key is at the foot of the chart. All the figures have been derived from the Bowlsnet records of each of these leagues. The right hand column shows the percentage increase/decrease in numbers for each league over the last 12 months.
Whilst I agree the number of teams is moving in the right direction in some Leagues compared to recent years I note that there are still 9 Leagues with fewer numbers of teams and only 6 with more teams with 5 having the same number. So there’s some way to go before we can say Bowling is fully back.
As a measure of popularity , I prefer to look at pre Covid numbers in 2019 compared to 2023. This clearly shows that we haven’t got back to pre Covid numbers. There are 15 Leagues where the number of teams are less and only 3 Leagues where the numbers are higher with 2 the same. I don’t ever see the total…