Romney Marsh & District Pool League is a team league in the pubs and clubs of Romney Marsh, on the Kent coast. It has been on Interleague since 1999, longer than any other league, and its history shows what a league gets from keeping everything in one place.
The league
Teams from venues across the Marsh play home and away through the season, with cup competitions alongside the league. Over 49 seasons, 2,505 players have played 123,179 frames in 7,890 matches, at 55 different venues.
Like most local leagues, it's run by volunteers: a committee and a secretary who fit the league around work and family.
Before: paper, phone calls and one person's week
Interleague started as the website for this league. Before that, results came in on paper scoresheets and phone calls, and tables were worked out by hand. If you wanted to know how your team stood, you waited for the next printed sheet in the pub.
That's still how many leagues run today. It works, but it depends on one person doing the same job every week, and it's hard to hand over.
Now: fixtures, live results and tables in one place
- Fixtures are generated for each new season, with no clashes for teams that share a venue.
- Captains enter their own results, frame by frame as the match is played, so there's nothing to collect or re-type.
- Tables and player stats update as each result is saved, including doubles and dishes.
- Cups run alongside the league, with winners going through to the next round automatically.
- News, documents and venue details live on the league's own website, so players have one place to look.
What 25 years of records gives a league
Because every season is kept, the league's website doubles as its history book. Players can look up their record against anyone, see who's won what, and find their name in the Hall of Fame, a combined table across every season.
That history is a big part of what keeps people playing. It also makes the committee's job easier: settling an argument about a record, working out a long-service award, or checking averages for handicaps takes minutes, not an evening going through old files.
What other leagues can take from it
- Share the work. When captains enter results, the league doesn't depend on one person. See our secretary's season checklist for everything else a season involves.
- Keep your records in one place. A spreadsheet per season gets lost. See spreadsheet or league app?
- Give players somewhere to look. A league website with live scores gives players a reason to check in between match nights.
See it for yourself: every fixture, result and table since 1999 is on the league’s website.