...given the cricket culture and geographical isolation of this passionate cricket area. With no disrespect to some wonderful cricket bastions like the Nedd, Drummond and Ballyspallen, it must seem like another world trying to link their ambitions with the lofty wishes of Cricket Ireland and the elusive concept of elite club cricket where the best play the best. Every club has a vote in the North-West and with nineteen clubs the 50/50 vote reflects some insular thinking and perhaps an attitude of protecting their own territory. It was certainly not a simple cricket decision, because the North-West Senior 1 league last year was an eight-team tournament within a ten-team structure as the bottom two clubs Eglinton and St. Johnston could only muster three wins between them. Seven teams were competitive, and for much of the season Coleraine was never out of the relegation zone.
The NCU Premier league wasn’t much different with bottom club Lurgan failing to win one league game and Downpatrick returned to Division 1 with only five wins. It was just as marginalized at the top where North Down, Waringstown and Lisburn fought a tight battle for the title, but the other clubs played for bragging rights in numerous meaningless fixtures. Thanks goodness for cup cricket where there is much more excitement and a winner-take-all prize in knockout competition.
There are many people in both the North-West and the NCU who feel neither union has eight premier league teams let alone ten. If this is the case then the move towards eight teams in the top sections is a “no-brainer”, although there is plenty of merit in looking at the other leagues in a different way. You can’t please everyone, and as soon as you start to talking about the top section, there comes a wave of criticism from dissidents down the leagues, but let’s get real, there is a huge gap between the ambitions, the facilities and the cultures of clubs at the top and the bottom of each union, and the structure should be moulded to suit different objectives. It would be naïve to expect one format to meet all objectives, but with a little tweaking we could get closer.
Looking at the final 2010 North-West league tables there was a strong cricket argument to revert to a Senior League 1 of eight teams and a Senior League 2 of the remaining eleven teams because promoted clubs like Bond’s Glen and Ardmore will inevitably be the chopping blocks for the big guns in 2011. The same may be said for Muckamore and Bangor in the 2011 NCU Premier League where two leagues within a league has been the culture for a number of years. The numbers are similar in all the NCU “senior” leagues, and although some people cry for more cricket, many of the matches are meaningless middle-order cricket exchanges without a serious competitive element. And therein lies the real value of an eight-team format, as every match counts, and chopping blocks or “relegation insurance” will be reduced. That said, it might not suit all the leagues.
Some website critics have claimed this format is for the benefit of the big clubs, but this is a flawed argument given that within an eight-team format the top teams are now more vulnerable on the simple basis of numbers. Perish the thought, but the smaller structure will threaten North Down and Waringstown just as much as their peers, but the two clubs still had the vision and the confidence to look at the bigger picture.
The dynamic is that nothing is set in stone, and while we may all have our own opinions, decisions have to be made and new systems implemented when a 60% majority wins the debate. The North-West Cricket Union has made its decision and will live with it, but the NCU is bigger with four senior leagues and perhaps some more fine-tuning might be required to meet the objectives of all the clubs. There’s no point in having a format that is based on a 60/40 majority when a little more tweaking could produce a much more decisive majority and more clubs buy into a better format.
Now is the time to start the talking again and see if we can better what has been agreed, and maybe all clubs in both unions need to look at their own structure and make hard cricket decisions rather than fool themselves that they have ten performing premier clubs when the results show otherwise.
Clarence Hiles
Editor
