Despite being provisionally relegated to Section 2 following the London & Southern Counties Area Contest in March, the band made a formal appeal against the provisional 2007 grading tables.

The band are pleased to confirm that the appeal was successful and that we will continue to compete in Section 1 from 2008.

The basis of the band's appeal was essentially two-fold;

We believed that the Rules, despite being consistently applied, affected St Albans City unfairly with respect to bands that do not attend three consecutive Area contests.

We believed we were good enough to continue competing in Section 1 and that a closer look at recent Area results and the Section 1 table going into 2008 (if we were still in it) supported this view.

Perhaps indirectly helping our case (but not part of the formal appeal) were the following;

We played very well at the Area Contest and were very surprised (as were many impartial observers) at coming only 13th out of 16 bands. A recent Brass Band World article put it more strongly - "St Albans 13th place was the kind of result that gets contesting a bad name". We were certainly good enough for a good top-half finish (at the least) and only 11th place would have kept us up without the need for appeal.

We played the Area test piece, again very well, at the Hove Contest (Section 1). Over the two test pieces (there was also an adjudicated march) we were the best band on the day. The band played with confidence and assurance to a good Section 1 standard - something that any objective listener would have appreciated.