4NCL - The Four Nations League - www.4ncl.co.uk/pre2010

One Hundred Up

As the final weekend of the ninth 4NCL season approaches, so too does a significant landmark in the League’s history. Round 10 on Sunday 5th May will be the one hundredth round since the inaugural gathering at the Barbican on Saturday 2nd October 1993 when 4NCL founder Christopher Dunworth and arbiter Gary Kenworthy waited apprehensively in the hope that the promised teams would turn up. They did, and Invicta Knights, Barbican, Covent Garden, Slough, North West Eagles and Bristol did battle.

Round 1 was very close. Both Covent Garden v Invicta Knights and North West Eagles v Slough ended as 4-4 draws. Then, as now, Bristol had the knack of getting off to a good start and took the lead by beating Barbican 4˝-3˝.

In recent years the pattern has been for the top division to be a twelve team all-play-all, but this has not always been the case. The first season was a double round APA with six teams. The next two seasons saw first 12 and then 14 teams playing APAs. Season four had 18 teams playing a twelve round competition. This brought the total rounds played to 46. Since then the top division has had the settled format of eleven rounds, bringing us to 101 rounds by the season’s end on Monday 6th May.

Not surprisingly a number of players who competed on that first day are at the top of the All Time list of Most Appearances. After one correction to the appearances list published a few months ago, the updated list up to the start of the May weekend shows the following players as the "Top Twenty for 4NCL Appearances".

Appearances	Player
92	Paul Littlewood
91	Simon Ansell
	Gary Quillan
89	Gavin Wall
	Chris Beaumont
87	Richard Webb
86	Murray Chandler
85	Andrew Law
	John Littlewood
84	Chris Duncan
	Andrew Ledger
83	Richard McMichael
82	Jovanka Houska
81	Chris Baker
	David Tebb
	Peter Sowray
	Richard Bates
80	Melanie Buckley
	Richard Haydon
	John Richardson