…and everyone had to apply every season to the committee to retain their status. Each club had one representative and the elected president of the union chaired each meeting. There was a secretary and a treasurer, but neither had a vote. The junior committee was similarly composed, but they had two representatives on the senior committee. Clubs that aspired to be senior clubs had to satisfy the senior committee that they had both the playing strength and the resources to warrant senior status. Sometimes an ambitious junior club was allowed to play in the senior cup if they had done well the previous season in friendly matches against the senior clubs. But it usually took the junior club a long time to attain senior status. They had to earn that status.
The bulk of the union’s affairs were administered through these two committees who met four times a year, and also held their annual general meetings in January. The senior committee also appointed a small emergency committee of three from their midst to deal with the day-to-day matters that evolved, and they did it very effectively. A small selection committee taken from the senior committee also picked representative teams, and their picks were never questioned.
The league fixtures were agreed by the secretaries of the clubs at a pre-season meeting and the dates for the cup rounds were given early to allow clubs plenty of time to ensure there were no fixture clashes. Senior league matches were four hours duration, and cup matches timeless. Clubs like Armagh, Banbridge, Waringstown, Holywood and North Down had to carefully arrange the starting times to coincide with train arrivals, or the matches could not take place. But there was always a willingness to accommodate the other side, and if time permitted a team was usually offered a second innings.
Disputes did occasionally take place, but they were heard by the senior committee judging their peers and their decisions were final. There were no appeals. More often than not, matches were ordered to be replayed, as it was felt that all cricket matters should be decided on the pitch. Sometimes clubs disagreed with the union’s pragmatism, and in these circumstances they took the honourable option and withdrew from the competition.
These were the early years of the NCU and it explains why both Armagh and North Down withdrew from the senior cup finals in 1890 and 1901 respectively, because they had fetes taking place at their clubs on the prescribed date for the final. It also explains why some clubs didn’t enter either the senior cup or senior league in the 1890s, as fixtures against ‘foreign’ clubs were sometimes regarded as more important. But the system worked, albeit with a much smaller club base.
Just recently a former senior captain told me the union should let the captains meet and decide how they wanted to play their cricket that season, and their decisions should be binding. Once the terms of play were agreed, the administrators could deal with the details, but at the end of the day, how the game was played would be determined by playing cricketers. At first I thought this was madness, but after mulling it over in my head for a few days I felt maybe it wasn’t such an outrageous idea. After all, haven’t our rules got too complicated over the years, admittedly sometimes for genuine reasons, but nevertheless far too complicated.
We have plenty of think-tanks in the union but I doubt if anyone has seriously considered throwing the rulebook in the bin and starting all over again with a blank page. It sounds ridiculous but it could eliminate a lot of our problems.
If someone in power (no pun intended) would take it on, I have only one suggestion. Any team that enters an NCU competition is bound by the rules that are agreed by the clubs, and they have no right to take any subsequent legal action against the union. They have certainly the right of Appeal, but the union’s decision should always be final.
Sometimes we need to step back to step forward.
Clarence Hiles
Editor
