Minor Counties Championship 1907

5 committee meeting on 2 November, was admitted to the competition on the following day whilst it was reported on 19 December that Worcestershire, despite owing in excess of £3,000, had decided to enter a 2nd XI, “in the hope of discovering more talent”. It was also stated that the honorary secretary, Mr Foley, had undertaken to pay the expenses of the team.] Carmarthenshire It was reported that Carmarthenshire, who had previously communicated both a desire to participate in the 1907 Championship and a willingness to contribute to the guarantee fund, had failed to respond to numerous recent letters. In view of this it was decided to “eliminate” them, at least as far as the organisation of the current season. Additions & Corrections To The Special Meeting Of April 1906; The New Championship Scheme – following instructions, the committee had revised some clauses that had been passed at the April meeting and these were put forward by Harry Mallett, being passed after a prolonged discussion lead to some modifications. Mallett pointed out that no legislation had been made for the drawing of the semi-finals and that it had been decided to grant the participating counties considerable leeway in arranging the fixtures. A M Miller (Wiltshire) disagreed, insisting that the draw should be made at once and asking what would happen if bad weather were to severely disrupt the semi-finals. Eventually, W C Hancock (Staffordshire) carried the day with his proposal that, for the 1907 season, the winners of the North group would play the team heading the East whilst the victors of the Midlands group would oppose those of the West. It was also agreed that the semi-finals should be of three days (rather than the two as agreed in April) and that play should continue into the third day even if a result on the first innings had been achieved over the first two days. Changing The Points System – Harry Mallett stated that it had been hoped that, with groups of equal size, there would be no need to resort to the complication of calculating percentages when deciding final positions in the group tables. Alas, this was not possible and percentages would be used again in the 1907 season, although Mallett noted pointedly that he thought that there had been only one match in each of the previous two years in which it had not proven possible to obtain a result on the first innings. It was decided to alter the number of points awarded for each match: five points would now be given for an outright win and three for a win on first innings, instead of the three and two points respectively that were available in the 1906 season. This was described as “being in the nature of a compromise”. A suggestion that the draw for the semi-finals should be made at the Annual General Meeting rather than at an Emergency Committee Meeting (as specified in Clause 6 of the April Meeting) was lost, whilst Clause 7, stating that the expenses and the profits of each semi-final should be shared equally by the two counties, was carried unanimously. Finally, it was decreed that, for the season of 1907, the semi-finals should be completed by August 28 and the final by September 7. Rules Of The Minor Counties' Competition – The revised rules will thus read as follows:- 1. A county desirous of entering the competition for the first time shall give notice to the hon. secretaries before the end of the previous August. 2. The counties shall be grouped into four or more divisions, according to their geographical positions. 3. Every county shall play out and home two-day matches with every other county in its division. 4. The counties which shall have obtained in their respective divisions the greatest proportionate number of points shall play semi-final three-day matches; provided that if two or more counties at the top of any one division have obtained the same proportion of points,