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RE: Michael Taylor's latest article.

The article on the Strange Death of NCU cricket appears to have provoked a genuine debate on the position and future of NCU cricket and as the Director of Domestic Cricket for the NCU I am delighted. Over the last number of years we have been trying to find innovative and constructive ways to halt the decline in particularly male adult participation this is an ongoing and developing process and the contribution of cricket players, officials and lovers of the game is refreshing.

As readers will be aware the NCU has put great time and effort into road shows to keep clubs informed and to take their views, to develop this into policy and to bring this policies forward into proposals at the AGM.
As a result the leagues have been restructured; starting times partially addressed; length of matches changed in accordance with the wishes of the clubs etc.

In the debate that is currently ongoing I would also ask for consideration of the 'regionalisation' of the lower tier of the junior leagues. Earlier this year the NCU set out a document suggesting that the bottom 4 leagues be regionalised - the idea to reduce time spent traveling in order to preserve the time spent playing and keep players available. Club responses were limited and a small majority against. This flew in the face of on the ground evidence of the fixtures meetings when team captains were almost universally in favour and the players (often from clubs that officially were not in favour) asking why regionalisation has not gone ahead.

Having praised the effect of Michael's article, I do have a significant number of difficulties with same - from the cherry picking of the statistics to make a point, to the failure to take into account any contra-indicative data which might undermine the point being made. But most of all the use of the privileged position of a feature writer for CE to take a cheap shot at local officials as "bullsh*t" pedlars makes for a good headline or attention grabber. However when attacking an easily identified individual or small group especially from a privileged platform then remember you may be require to back it up. So:-
1. Who are these "bullsh*t" peddling local officials?
2. What is it they said ?
3. In what way was it "bullsh*t?

I certainly have not been saying everything in the garden is rosey, and we do not give up many hours every month on a completely free basis because cricket is fine and flourishing. We do it, in the main, to keep the game which we love going and hopefully improving against the background of countless and growing pressures some of which Michael has identified.

Statistics are always open to interpretation - I see we have had a 2% increase in adult teams in the league in the last 2 years and down less than 1% over the last 13! Does this include the midweek league which had grown?

On the amount of cricket the numerous new cup competitions have not been included. T20s; Ulster Trophies; Second tier All Ireland; Women's Premier League and cups; inter pros.

On numbers the growth of women's cricket has been ignored or forgotten about. My wife assures me that they are people and often adults too. She is a doctor and very bright so I take her word for it.

In summary, we have to move with the times to survive. Nobody in the NCU as far as I am concerned is peddling "bullsh*t" in this regard. We welcome debate, ideas and fresh thinking. The old idea of gin swilling Blazers living in the past is an outdated concept used by individuals and journalists living in the past. The NCU may make mistakes or the wrong call on any given issue but we are not complacent.

Michael your articles are a breath of fresh air - Times not Sun. With a sense of humour which ranges from subtle to sledge hammer when required. I genuinely look forward to reading them for their both entertaining and thought provoking content. Keep them coming.

Jordan Wilson . Proper " attitude" .

I read all this stuff and try and think " why is Muckamore different? " . It's NOT. We field 5 teams ( and can do so on the same day if needed) , we field three Midweek teams on a Wednesday night and we get 50 odd at practice and we have a lot of the guys playing also involved in coaching underage teams .
Michael's article makes depressing reading. So why are Muckamore totally " bucking the trend ".
Simple - because we decided to get off our backside and make cricket for the masses. A team pulled out of the midweek league. Andy Clement rang Charlie Henderson , Charlie made a few phone calls having said " Yes we will get a third Midweek team together " and within the same day he had a captain and a squad organised .
The one thing Antrim hasn't had for years was schools cricket on a Saturday. We encourage people to take the game up in their thirties , it is part of the DNA handed down by Billy Boyd, Geoff Wallace, John McCormick , Harry McFaadden that you play back down the club . Of the many good things I have seen at Moylena in the past few years one of the most satisfying was this season seeing Simon Thompson a Senior player of many years playing on the back pitch with the thirds. " simply putting back to the club what an earlier generation had done for him".
Players at Muckamore have wives and girlfriends and kids. However they are part of what Neil Gill christened #themuckamorefamily.
If you want cricket to die - talk it down - if you want cricket to grow - open the gates , put the fliers around the town , go ask 50 ex players to come back and if 5 say yes there's quickly another team.
Stop blaming Cricket Ireland , NCU , drinking , other sports etc. Muckamore are good at drinking , we have loads of junior football in Antrim, we have a rugby club, a long established hockey club, a GAA club, three golf courses, marching bands etc . If I listened to the people on here Muckamore should have folded by now.
Cricket isn't dead at Carrick , it's not dead at Armagh , Waringstown to name but a few. Yes you might have to work harder but like anything in life " it's your attitude " that determines most things. Charlie Henderson could have said " sure we already have two midweek teams and left it like that " . His "attutude" said different .
Please don't read this as " Muckamore are wonderful because we are NOT " we just have a good attutude about the future of the game. Aaron's suggestion of starting J4 and below later in the season will kill the game . At clubs like ours schoolboys aren't playing schools cricket and the adults want to get started last week in April otherwise they go to other sports and we lose them. Play more - not less.
PS the Muckamore Casuals are in the semi Final of the Midweek League.

Have the bye-laws on consumpton of booze changed?

When I was running about last orders weren't called to 11pm and many's an alehouse or club that I frequented weren't to punctual about it shouting out loud....boys-a-boys such a 'nanny state' we are becoming !!!!

in regards to Sam...
I'm (Aged 20) currently playing in Junior 1 with CSN. I like the 50 over games. I think it has you prepared for that step up into senior cricket as there is a huge difference in concentration required between 40 overs and 50 overs. Therefore I wouldn't change this at all.
Earlier start times being implemented now is making a difference, getting finished at 7:30 or 8pm was too late but starting now at 11, and being finished for 6 or so, means the younger players have their socialising time too after the game. Surely there can be a way in which this happens throughout the year, and school cricket maybe gets moved to Friday evenings rather than Saturday mornings. Just a thought.

Sam

The same old argument applies to Junior 1 as 6 out of the 8 teams are premier league clubs, so where premier league clubs are thriving this no doubt will have a knock on effect to the 2nd xi teams. Outside of that the junior leagues are by far a worse standard than say 10 or 15 years ago and it is these clubs who are struggling with participation.

didn't mean to start off this debate - as I posted "I'm only saying"!. To change tack a bit I was at Lord's last weekend and was thrilled by the lunch entertainment by the Band of the Royal Marines. I see that CI have arranged the entertainment for the sponsors at the Australia game - fiddler Adam!! Say no more!!

I believe that the restructuring of the junior leagues has put a new breath if life into cricket outside of 1xi.

What about a poll.

Would a representative for each club in junior one indicate on this forum if they would be for or against reducing max duration of league matches to 40 overs ?

To pick up on a couple of points. Like Taito I had school and club cricket practices during the week, u15 club games on a Friday, school on a Saturday morning and club on a Saturday afternoon. I have to say there ARE still guys like this who will play anywhere and have an appetite for cricket and will play school team, club u15s, 2nd XI and midweek all in the same week. We need to encourage them and nurture that.

I think we need to get the clubs and schools together. I fully agree that I developed my love of cricket through my younger years at school and there needs to be a place for school cricket. But taking Clarence's point on compromise do we need to rejig things?

School cricket to continue as is in schools forms 1-4. Keep the McCullough cup format as it is for these years. These players will mostly be players on your clubs 3s/4s (or in junior leagues 4 and below). Start the fixtures for J4 and below later in the year.

School 1st and 2nd XI cricket restricted to the Schools Cups and played during the week. This frees up your better cricketers to play club 1st and 2nd XI cricket meaning you can start the fixtures as currently at end of April/early May and allows these games to start at 11am from the outset of the season.

Excellent articles from Michael Taylor Clarence Hiles and totally agree with Paul Stafford in cric ire forum /Taito and ive played 44 years but if was playing in this present set up with so many double headers 200 overs weekends = either quit game i love or divorce or being gambler = CERT FOR BOTH . The game we all love needs massive revamp as junior convenor for 7 years 90% juniors dont want 100 over cricket (ncu squad players apart )the game must compete with life in general and the present WAG will not put up with men married or single being away for anything from seven to ten hours days playing cricket . Money will eventually ruin the game we love to play umpire support or coach as when the present stalwarts and junior coaches volenteers unpaid club and groundmen that every club has passes then the real trouble and decline will set in lot worse and my friends in england say its same there cricket to long a day for young and old . I FEAR FOR A SPORT I LOVE PS thats without a DRINK

Its interesting that the issue of player decline is finally getting some column inches and provoking some good debate. This has been a problem with the lower clubs for some years and it seems to now be effecting the bigger clubs and I agree with everything that Michael Taylor has said. A few years ago I wrote an article about this for the Larne website (http://www.larnecricketclub.com/index.php/news/282-the-state-of-the-game) and although it is slightly dated the vast majority of it still applies. I would imagine that many clubs are facing very similar issues.

In regards the debate of the decline of participation in NCU cricket I think we all know apart from a handful of clubs which are thriving and having growing numbers, generally the sport is on the decline in the area. I agree with Michael in that i dont believe the younger guys are drinking more than players did in the past but they are more keen to go out in belfast to clubs etc rather than drinking in the cricket club after a game. This influences their decision to play cricket or not for sure as it might infringe on their night out.
When we were young we had after school practise on a monday, junior practise at the club that night, senior practise tuesday and thursday , cricket at school on a wednesday. A club under 15 game on a friday night, school game on a saturday morning and possibly a club game saturday and sunday. We absolutely loved it at the time and lived for cricket. Times have massively changed and its hard to kids even to play one game a week now. In fairness though it is not just a decline in younger players participating, more and more older guys are giving up earlier than before because of family commitments etc.

Its hard to know what can be done to improve this but one thing is for sure it will take a lot of time and effort from probably a small band of volunteers at each club unless the clubs are willing to pay a development officer/coach. In my day schools cricket was where it all started, i was coached by roy briggs and kamal merchant and there was a direct link from the school to the club, therefore feeding the club with a constant stream of players. Although that stream still exists it is more like a trickle. I believe the focus has to go back on the schools from as young an age as possible, with club proffesionals or senior players involved so the young kids get to learn about the club and want to come and play cricket there. More exposure to the game is needed too. Taking primary school kids to ireland or inter pro games on a regular basis may help with this also.
Something needs to change or the gap between the have and the have nots is going to grow even wider and Michael might be quoting an even more drastic decline in numbers in ten years time.

re the strange death of local cricketi have to strongly object to many points in your article cricket in ireland is seen by the masses as an elite sport played by private education /public school /university types and when you say the summer camps are nothing more than creches you are wrong completely it is basically a numbers game and inviting youngsters to play cricket at summer camps is great initiative and not a thing to belittle we dont all go to ballymena academy which is the only recruiting tool for your club seeing as they have 6 schools teams alone cricket is for everyone that catches the bug bringing the wider public into the domain is key and muckamore cc are doing a splendid job of doing that i am not having a personal dig at michael taylor as we have our own opinions and it will stay that way but there is only a certain amount of players to go round and i think schools cricket is a waste of time the problem lies with pupils being asked to play 2 matches on a saturday so it turns out it is club versus school that is why youngsters lose interest school cricket should be played weekdays secondly all ncu cricket is amateur and social so what does drink have to do do with it being an alternative to the beautiful game i for one dont mind admitting i am a recovering alcoholic and havent had a drink for 5 years i chose playing sport over the demon drink and thirdly sunday cricket is a must in the northern irish climate ps your column is a must read

Clarence,

I still think the point about drinking - or at least about the attendant socializing - is valid. Remember, I was not writing simply about absolute playing numbers but also about the length of cricket being played. Almost every club that I've spoken to this year has bemoaned the fact many players simply will not commit to 50-over cricket because their priorities lie with the evening.

I would also imagine that players now drink much less 'within' clubs than in previous years, thereby diminishing the social aspect of the sport.

Ally,

Suggesting solutions will be the subject of a future column.

The main point, underscoring everything that I wrote, is this: cricket now has ever increasing competition for people's attention and for their time and - generally speaking - there is not a sufficiently strong 'cricketing culture' to allow the sport to win that battle.

Superb article by Michael Taylor, he really hit the nail in the head.

I started playing cricket as 12/13 year old playing 3XI 45 overs and the odd 50 over 2XI game. Looking back I am not quite sure how but in space of 13 years the landscape of junior cricket has dramatically changed.

Anybody who thinks any team in Junior 3 (the league I play in) or below collectively want to play 40 overs is kidding themselves and has their heads in the sand. I work away every week and to be quite honest I want my cricket done by 6pm on a Saturday to see family and friends as do the majority of my team.

Michael's article may be tough reading for many but it is 100% spot on. Younger guys tend to enjoy playing shorter games - why not play to the strengths and encourage 30 / 35 over games. No teas, turnaround in 10 mins. Game starts at 12 July onwards and over by 5 at latest?