Intercounty

About the Intercounty Events

The Intercounty season runs from January through to December and is usually played on the second Sunday of every month.

Each County plays all other Counties in their Region twice. Once at home and once away. Each County fields a Men's A, Men's B, Ladies, Senior's, Under 23's and Junior's teams. Men's, Ladies and Senior squad requires a minimum of eleven players for any match. Junior's need nine players and Under 23's have teams of at least five.

The main aim for the counties competing is to win their respective section and become the regional champions. Each County squad that wins a section qualifies for the National Intercounty Championships each year.

Unsurprisingly, the winning team in each section becomes the National County Champions. Most county squads are made up of local league players who are invited to participate in county trials in January of each year. Usually, they will be recommended by their league officials.

Some counties hold open trials where any affiliated league player is entitled to trial, in this case the selectors pick the players they feel will make the grade and then invite these players back to do battle with existing County players to see how they fare, other Counties use a recommendation style approach. i.e. a player's parent league recommends players to the County Association, the County Association then invites the player to trial for them.

From these invitation trials a number of players will picked by the County selectors to join the players the selectors decided to retain from the previous season to make up this season's County squad. The next task for the electors is to place their chosen players in to either the A or B team. There is plenty of room for players to move up to the A or down to the B according to how well they are performing.

The terms up and down are relative since the players involved are pretty much the best players in their respective County. Each county player has their results recorded for every County match they play. The system currently employed is that a player receives three points if they win a frame for their A team. Players receive two points if they win a frame in their B team. Ladies get three points for a frame win in their section.

The points a player gains throughout the season by winning their frames are called ranking points and these ranking points are the means by which all players are separated at any time in the season. When the Intercounty playing season has ended the top eight players in each region gain the right to trial for a place in the England Team for the following season.

Players may see how they are faring nationally by viewing the current National Intercounty Rankings. In any Intercounty match a player can play a maximum of four frames in any section.

For the male section there is an added complication, once selected to play in a A, B or Junior team all their frames for that match must be played in that team.

For example, if a player is selected for the junior team they cannot play in either the A or B team in that match. If a junior player was promoted from the junior section to either the A or B section they would not be allowed to return to the junior section for the remainder of that match. the same rules apply to the A and B sections as well.

Some cross-section plays are allowed. For example, Senior's can also play in Men's or Ladies, and Junior's can also play in Under 23's, and Under 23's can also play in Men's or Ladies. Only the Men's and Ladies are single gender, all other sections can be mixed.

It is mandatory that all County Associations field their strongest possible A side at all times, this is to prevent tactical movement of players doing well in the A down to the B squad near the end of the season to get some easy ranking points If any movement of players is required it must wait until the following match, when all the players become free again.

The Regions

In order to make management of our Pool playing nation easier we have split the country into different geographical areas, called Regions. From 2011, the playing Regions were numbered one through to eight.

It is the Region's job to administer all aspects of EPA Pool within their boundaries and to ensure that the wishes of their members are carried out.

There is a model regional constitution in the EPA Byelaws in which suggests that the Regional committees shall consist of three elected officers, Regional Director, Regional Treasurer and a Regional National Delegate plus delegates sent by the member County associations plus an EPRA delegate selected by the Region's referees.

To find out the exact contents of your Region's constitution, please contact your Regional Director or your county pool association.

Part of the administration duties for the Regions is to organise the Inter League matches within their Region and various individual competitions.

The regional committees send two of their members, one of which is the Regional Director, to national meetings to form, along with the executive officers, the National Committee.

The Counties

The Counties listed here are the member counties that constitute the membership of the English Pool Association.

These Counties are the voting members of our association and it is from these Counties that virtually all the policies adopted by this association stem from.

If your County is not on this list, your county will have no part to play in the future shape of Pool in England. It is the aim of our Association to have every single county represented at our Annual General Meetings.

If you, as a player, find it hard to believe that your County is not a member of the sports governing body we ask you to do all you can to make your County officials aware of your desire to be part of the decision making process, not left out in the cold. We are not a profit making organisation, we are here to run Pool for you.