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[roco]

sorry about the formatting as in a rush

[Stuey]

Re conceded games - The Essex league brought in a stupid rule a few years back which basically read if any team concedes a game all sides within that club lose 5pts.  This resulted in many teams not entering 3rd or 4th teams into the league so the higher teams were not deducted points, it just reduced the amount of cricket available to members.

[ProCricketer1982]

GCB are congratulating themselves on doing reasonably well compared to other boards.. however they are still losing players and teams left right and centre.

Main things were the day is too long, travel is too much, start time is too late, finish time is to late, standard of umpiring is poor and the 'spirit of cricket' is poor. Oh and there isn't enough cricket on offer in april, sept and oct.

[iand123]

Re conceded games - The Essex league brought in a stupid rule a few years back which basically read if any team concedes a game all sides within that club lose 5pts.  This resulted in many teams not entering 3rd or 4th teams into the league so the higher teams were not deducted points, it just reduced the amount of cricket available to members.

Whilst i can see some (not alot) logic in that it really is a stupid idea in practice. In the Kent leagues you lose 5 points if you concede and get fined if its after midday on a Thursday. There was a rule that if you conceded 3 games in a season then that side would be kicked out of the league for that season. They abandoned that as i know the KRL had a lot of teams dropping out last year and the face a real problem in the lower leagues

[iand123]

So having started this thread a while back i figured i'd update. Came to the conclusion that everything that went on at my previous club left too much a negative feeling that I have decided not to return. Real shame as bar this season just gone ive really enjoyed myself and made some good friends.

Have decided to return to the club i left about 6 years ago where i was a colt. Got a few mates who play there, they have a lot of kids who come so will be easier for the wife to come along with the youngsters and really looking forward to getting back to playing and enjoying cricket again.

[roco]

good stuff and glad to hear your still playing as loads leaving the game at the min

people forget it needs to be enjoyed

im waiting on a club meeting to decide on what im doing as was not great this year as might just go back to playing only rather than all the club stuff as just tired of politics

[Stuey]

Whilst i can see some (not alot) logic in that it really is a stupid idea in practice. In the Kent leagues you lose 5 points if you concede and get fined if its after midday on a Thursday. There was a rule that if you conceded 3 games in a season then that side would be kicked out of the league for that season. They abandoned that as i know the KRL had a lot of teams dropping out last year and the face a real problem in the lower leagues

This probably shows how detached some cricket league committees are from reality, their reasoning that was if the first team are made to lose points for say a non fulfillment of a 4th team fixture, those first team players will take responsibility and not want to lose 5 points and make themselves more available. Now a great idea in theory, however the committee were forgetting that half the first team probably dont give 2 hoots about the teams lower down in the club and the same can be said for players in teams lower down about the first team. And actually in our club its the first team players who are mostly available. All that happens and happened is that instead of clubs unable to fulfil a fixture advising the oppo on say a Monday or Tuesday, so allowing the oppo to arrange another fixture, both clubs would play a game of who cracks first and pull out as late as a Saturday morning! Which completely  put off players in the 3s and 4s from making themselves available all together. After having a few games called off on a Saturday i guess you tend to find other things to do. Its these sort of short sighted decisions that blight cricket leagues up and down the country.

[RichW]

This probably shows how detached some cricket league committees are from reality, their reasoning that was if the first team are made to lose points for say a non fulfillment of a 4th team fixture, those first team players will take responsibility and not want to lose 5 points and make themselves more available. Now a great idea in theory, however the committee were forgetting that half the first team probably dont give 2 hoots about the teams lower down in the club and the same can be said for players in teams lower down about the first team. And actually in our club its the first team players who are mostly available. All that happens and happened is that instead of clubs unable to fulfil a fixture advising the oppo on say a Monday or Tuesday, so allowing the oppo to arrange another fixture, both clubs would play a game of who cracks first and pull out as late as a Saturday morning! Which completely  put off players in the 3s and 4s from making themselves available all together. After having a few games called off on a Saturday i guess you tend to find other things to do. Its these sort of short sighted decisions that blight cricket leagues up and down the country.

Whilst I agree that many league and club committees are detached from what the player base wants the unfortunate fact is that it is really is for us to moan and complain but very very few people are willing to step up and go on these committees to activate the change that is needed. This seems fairly typical of country where most people complain about the government etc but yet less than 50% actually bother to vote.

[Andythomo21]

Very good point Rich.  We have 2 senior teams and about 35 senior players signed on yet it is always the same half a dozen who help with the ground, help with teas, turn up to meetings, provide prizes for fundraisers etc etc.  Many players just want to turn up, play the go home (or to the pub)!  I'm sure we're not the only club like this either?!

[uknsaunders]

I think the ECB must take nearly all the blame for the current situation. When they took the Sky money they knew losing cricket from Free to Air TV would reduce awareness. They gambled that enough initiatives would bring players in. They recruited development officiers and started various colts programmes. However, what they also did was plough a huge amount of money back into the county game to keep failing counties propped up. Haven't seen the latest numbers but I think it was a third to a half of all TV money goes back to the counties. Even with various performance schemes, most counties get a free cheque. They also prioritised top clubs using clubmark as a smokescreen. Tried getting a grant for a village club with 1 team, good luck with that.

In effect what they did was reduce public awareness of cricket and make it harder for the traditional village clubs that fed the bigger teams to survive, not only in terms of players but also financially. They took the casual player who might fancy a game because it was on TV, out of the picture completely. The bigger clubs 3/4th teams now struggle because these occasionals just disappeared. They have knee capped cricket at the grass roots by forming a strategy built around the first class game and big clubs. The consequences will be that cricket participation will keep reducing until most areas will have a handful of major clubs with multiple teams. Village cricket will pretty much die out in 20 years time.

[Seniorplayer]

In the Worcester county league not for filling  a fixture leads to  points being deducted from more than one club team and a fine  of 50.00.
Clubs also wait to see who cracks first with matches cancelled on a  Friday and Saturday morning even though they are aware they have no chance of putting a side out as the club who has not cancelled is awarded full match points.

[tate035]

I have found that there are many with a voice but very few who actually do something about it. All you can do is get all the "doers" to pull together and move your club forward. I personally think that in Lancashire the next 5 years will be amongst the most important years since cricket began. The need to keep kids involved between the ages of 15 and 24 is going to be crucial as to whether most clubs survive /close or merge. Currently there are primary school initiatives in place that hopefully will get kids into cricket at a earlier age but the clubs then need to take over and help develop the child's cricket education. Once they get to state high school football and rugby take over. Both football and rugby seasons now overlap the cricket season making these juniors less available to the clubs. Therefore clubs need to invest time and money into the juniors so that cricket becomes their 1st or 2nd choice and not as is currently happening, cricket is their 3rd choice and as a result the 1st sport they give up once they get to 15/16/17.

[Stuey]

Whilst I agree that many league and club committees are detached from what the player base wants the unfortunate fact is that it is really is for us to moan and complain but very very few people are willing to step up and go on these committees to activate the change that is needed. This seems fairly typical of country where most people complain about the government etc but yet less than 50% actually bother to vote.

I take your point, but I do attend the league meetings as a committee member of my club and from my experience it's generally and old boys club who saddle up to the largest league clubs, rather than represent all league members. If I had more time (like the majority) I would sit on the league committee but working, family life, playing, training, youth coaching, and being a club committee member, takes up all my time. Just because those guys on the league committees have given their time to sit, it doesn't allow them to make short sighted decisions for the benefit of the minority rather than considering the larger picture to benefit cricket.

[uknsaunders]

Having sat on the TVL and Wetherby League committees, I think I can offer some views.

Firstly, finding people to sit on a league committee of any sort is a hard enough job. That's just 12 meetings a year, 2 hours per meeting. Then if you start asking for people to take on tasks (ie. checking match returns or a discaplinary committee) it becomes a needle in a haystack. While most people who do take it on are relatively normal and care about the players/clubs, you can get difficult individuals who have agenda's or non agenda's. You can get lots of bad decisions or none made at all. Stick 6 committee members in a room and 4 of them will have different opinions. Not sure which one is more frustrating to be honest and I could tell you some stories that would make you question why you should play cricket at all.

The other problem, much like the first class game, is if you started again today, you wouldn't have the same structure you have today. Many leagues were setup 20-30 years ago and some rules are so difficult to remove (two thirds majority kills most chances of change) that they will need the league to dissolve first. One classic example is the TVL lower leagues. For approx 10 years (since ironically I raised it) there has been a requirement to reduce overs for what are mainly development leagues. Something only happened when several TVL clubs threatened to break away into a seperate local league.

By all means get involved in committees but bring some mates with you if you want to get things changed.