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[Mattsky]

If you or anyone you know are looking around for a friendly club to join in Surrey, then the Weybridge Vandals want to hear from you!

Situated on a picturesque island in the River Thames near Walton bridge, we run three Saturday league sides, one Sunday friendly team, and an under 9's side.
We use the excellent indoor winter netting facilities at George Abbott School in Burpham (where Surrey sometimes train) and have midweek ad-hoc net sessions at the club's outside nets during the season.

We're part of a larger sports club, with established rugby teams and a newly-formed women's netball side. (Cricket membership entitles you to play all sports.)
We've two cricket pitches, rugby facilities, a netball court, along with a main clubhouse with a decent bar, tearoom, changing rooms and other facilities, plus a new cricket pavilion.

Let me (Matt) know if you fancy coming down - we really do welcome people of all abilities, so if you're keen and you like the idea of joining a club, you're guaranteed a game.

Please note that we're not in a position to pay or sponsor players, though.

Find out more about us here:

www.pitchero.com/clubs/weybridgevandalscc

[FattusCattus]

Hi Matt, I'm at Chertsey and I think our 4XI play your 3XI this year. Also some of our juniors play rugby at your place.

Nice ground, I like it!

[Mattsky]

Hey Fattus! Nice to hear from a local. Glad you like the ground. Hope you lot have a cracking season. Not too cracking against our Glorious Thirds, mind. 😀

[trypewriter]

Weybridge Vandals - will I have to glue horns to my ayrtek? 

[Warneymonster]

I think our 1's at kempton should play you this season, not a huge fan of some of the rules and points system in the fullers tho. Good luck this year, apart from against us obviously

[Mattsky]

Yeah, we all play the same teams twice, home and away - one a limited 45 overs game, the other a timed game.
Best and worst of both worlds! 

[Mattsky]

Weybridge Vandals - will I have to glue horns to my ayrtek? 

We're a nice bunch really. Apart from the ones with beards. And axes. And a grudge. 

[Warneymonster]

Have you guys seen a drop off in players from last year. We played old Hamptonians in the 2's last week and they had been scrambling to get 2 sides out so far. Had to play with 8.

We have the same amount of players but definitely less depth in quality through the 3's and 4's


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[FattusCattus]

Cranleigh scratched our first 3XI league game last week as they couldn't get a side out. Haven't had that happen in the league before.

[Warneymonster]

unusual for cranleigh, i wasnt exactly shocked by old h's. when we got there they actually only had 4 players and were lucky to win the toss otherwise id have made them field and enforced a forfeit. their skipper said they struggled towards the end of last season as well. we have lost 4 2's players to ripley this year because we had the nerve to ask them for annual subs

[Mattsky]

Membership (or the lack of) is something that most clubs struggle with, I think. A few seasons ago, we fielded four sides. Now we field three, and if our numbers hadn't been bolstered by a very friendly pub side a couple of years ago, we'd have lost our Glorious Thirds too. (Grouse & Label, named after the two guys who run the team - one favours Famous Grouse, the other Johnny Walker Black Label!) Obviously players not returning from university means we can struggle early season too. It doesn't take many folk to be away at once to induce a familiar selection headache.

You can tell a lot about a club by the strength of its Colts section, too. Thanks to Surrey legend George Balchin, we've had great success bringing on the younguns in the past; we don't have as many junior sides as we used to have, but a few guys have stepped up to coach an under 9s side.

Non-paying casual players who take advantage of the situation for as long as they can are probably the bane of many clubs. You know the type - all take and no give. They turn up for nets and for matches 'to help us out' but do bugger all else unless it directly benefits them because a) they're inherently selfish and not at all club-minded and b) they think they're doing the club a favour by making up the numbers - and therefore feel they're somehow entitled not to pay match fees or subs, or put out boundary markers and all the other stuff that somehow magically gets done so they can enjoy themselves and then bugger off home.

Sorry. Rant in A-minor over. 

May the sun shine on your weekend, chaps.

[ProCricketer1982]

Gaining and keeping members seems to be a big struggle for almost every club. However, I do disagree that the strength of a club is shown by their colts section size. Given that most youth stuff is based mainly on 'which clubs have the bigger reputations so mummy and daddy think they must be the best places to send them'. Usually, from what I can see it's actually furthest from the truth as they are less likely to get the training and match time they need to become the best they can AND they end up in clubs that really are so focused on the winning that they forget it's basically just for enjoyment.

Just my opinion from what I can see from clubs in Northants and WEPL anyway.

I'm coming around to an idea that some old guy said the other day... All clubs should be limited to 2 Saturday teams maximum. That way no club can 'horde' players and if they aren't playing regularly then players will leave for other clubs and so keep alive more clubs rather than end up with a few 'super' clubs. The more I think about that the more I like it tbh.

[Mattsky]

I suppose my point with the Colts is that if you don't nurture youth coming through, then you must rely on members' mates and the club's marketing efforts to draw in adult members to replace those who retire or leave.
And they're not exactly knocking down club doors in their droves.

Point taken about 'Superclubs'. Weybridge spring to mind. I'm sure it's all lovely there for many members, but I've heard tales of some being quickly disenchanted with an inherent superclub attitude.
At the end of the day it is about enjoyment, even for the top clubs in the top divisions. If we're not getting paid to play, then what's the point other than enjoyment?
Yet despite the fact that none of us make a living from the game as a professional, there are some people who think they should be - and carry that unattractive attitude of entitlement around with them.
Which doesn't make playing with them particularly enjoyable.

The idea of a maximum of two sides is interesting, but I just don't think you can enforce that kind of arbitrary policy. And I don't believe a cap on player numbers would necessarily guarantee that other nearby clubs would benefit. If a club has the facilities and drive to attract and retain a large amount of members and keep them happy by guaranteeing them a game in any of their five senior or four junior sides, then good luck to them. Top effort. Any disgruntled members are always free to leave - and that's where the smaller clubs might pick them up. But not necessarily so - they may lack the facilities to cater for them. Or their location might not be convenient. Or the prospective new member might not want to play at a club where his or her mates don't play, and so on.

Some clubs prosper because of their reputation, or have a wide catchment area, or are the only club for miles. Others can struggle due to proximity of competing clubs, lack of facilities and a myriad of other reasons. I think club membership tends to find a natural balance without an arbitrary cap on team numbers. And I don't think a few superclubs 'hogging' membership is the real problem. Cricket isn't played in so many schools as it was because they've sold off their pitches for developers' cash. Kids aren't exposed to cricket on terrestrial TV any more - and so can't stumble across it and get 'hooked into' it; their parents have to spend an awful lot of money to want to actively watch it now. And the demands on people's leisure time are a lot more intense than they were 10 or 20 years ago. Cricket has a lot more competition. I think these are the real problems that pretty much every local club needs to deal with.

[uknsaunders]

Good point on the 2 team limit. I like the idea to share the talent pool around. Not only does it make the smaller clubs more competitive but also makes them more financially viable. To some extent it would take the money that floats around higher levels of club cricket, out of the game. The flipside is that many bigger clubs spend alot of money on coaching and facilities to enable 4 teams to operate. They would no doubt see it differently.

I'm not a fan of dedicated 1st/2nd XI comps but I can see a good argument in this case. It does annoy me a little when one club has a 3rd XI playing a 1st or 2nd XI. While that club no doubt works hard to maintain a high standard and those players are still playing a good level, who is to say that there would be less one sided games if the talent was spread between clubs. 

Maybe another way of operating it would be for the higher level competitions to only permit 2 teams per club.The 3rd/4th teams would have to operate in a lower level competition. While that may not seem particularly fair for the bigger teams it would encourage good 3rd/4th XI cricketers to migrate to clubs with 1st and 2nd teams in the higher level competition, while keeping 3rd/4th XI cricket is supposed to be about, development and enjoyment. It would also enable 3rd/4th XI Comps to be regionalised and reduce travelling.