Alan Jones 1932-2008
Blackpool & District Badminton Association Council Member 1949-2008
Alan Jones joined the Association Council in 1949, the youngest member ever recorded. He very quickly became involved in events, and was responsible for arranging the 1st Gazette Trophy Final at St. Johns Church School in Blackpool, in 1952.
He was one of the people who helped to revive the mixed doubles tournament, held at Albany Road Stadium in 1962, today still being played as the Crusaders Mixed Handicap Tournament, (it attracted 100 couples), and also helped to instigate the Championships, which ran for 30 years, starting in 1968.
The Association celebrated its 21st Birthday in 1968, with a glittering exhibition of badminton with international players taking part, in the Winter Gardens Ballroom, to be repeated in 1972 in the Silver Jubilee Year. Both these prestigious events were in no small part thanks to the tremendous input from Alan.
The Bottrop badminton exchanges from 1974-1991, again were very much due to the personal input from Alan Jones and his strong connections, both with his personal connections in the Blackpool Borough Council, and in Germany, through the Bottrop 1st Sporting Club.
The Blackpool Schools Badminton Association was formed, thanks to an original suggestion from Alan, who at the time was Head of Grange Park Junior School, and this followed on with Lancashire Schools, and English Schools Badminton Associations.
The present very strong junior initiative, which the Association currently enjoys, has its roots in an idea first put forward by Alan, in 1993, to hold "Play Days" at the Blackpool and Fylde College, for junior age groups. Russ Whitaker was one of the "Helpers" in those days, and has proved to be an enthusiastic mainstay of the present organisation.
Alan Jones was Chairman of the Association from 1953-1956, President from 1965-1968, and was made a Life Member in 1997.
Our Association has benefited greatly from his continual commitment, foresight and enthusiasm for the game, and deservedly warrants a place in the history of the Blackpool and District Badminton Association.
Latest News
About of a third of the way through the season now.
1st division is a two (one?) horse race with lids and fleetwood at the top. Fleetwood defeated Lidunians 15-3. It'll take something special for Lidunians to reverse this when they go to Fleetwood later in the season.
BAE A are looking favourites for one of the drop places - but it's anybody's guess who the 2nd team to go down could be.
2nd division appears to be going all Albany A's way - the addition of Caroline Sagar their and some shuffling of personnel has somewhat strengthened their team. 2nd place seems to be between BAE B and Kingfisher C (and potentially neither team could go up due to BAE A coming down, and Kingfisher already having 2 teams in the 1st division). The rest of division 2 are fighting for the remaining places.. BAE C are struggling - but have won a match - unlike their A team counterparts..
3rd divison is all about Mythop A and Stanley A - Stanley A beat Mythop A 10-8 recently so looks like the division title will go to the wire.
Kingfisher D look fairly likely to drop their 5 wins and no points at all - but any of the other 4 teams above them could join them by the end of the season.
4th division is between Poulton A with their influx of players this season, and Mythop - both teams with unbeaten records this season - but poulton look comfortable - having only dropped 12 games over 5 matches. BAE E look likely to drop at the end of the season - but again any of the 3 teams above could join them - it's just too early to tell.
5th division is fairly tight - Kirkham Charter B and Commonwealth D look like the main contenders - commonwealth D have a game in hand on kirkham - but can't go top even if they win 18-0 due to Kirkhams high games tally. Stanley B and Mythop C could capitalise if either of the two make mistakes.. the other 4 teams in the division could all end up in the bottom two at the end if results don't go their way.
6th division is a funny one - with teams playing each other 4 times instead of just two all manner of strange results could ensue - especially with the lower teams occasionally not being able to put sides out. None of the top 3 teams have 100% records, and only Sacred Heart B have failed to win any matches this season.