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Craig,
There's your answer to the influx of young cricket players all around the broader Lurgan area !
Read Neil Hunter's last post,the way I see it and as I've said on here before; a few years ago Neil and the guys at Lurgan C.C. were very pro-active,took 'the bull by the horns' went out to ALL the local schools and brought the game of cricket literally into the classrooms!
They then built on this through their own excellent youth system, the Lurgan Tigers and have went from strength to strength.
Consequently as a result of their own success, clubs like ours (Victoria),and other local ones are also benefiting from some off the 'overflow' as a it were !
So 'hats off' to men like Neil Hunter,another N.C.U. and clubman who 'rolls the sleeves up' and gets the job done and doesn't sit about scratching his head wondering what's gone wrong with local cricket!!! Great stuff Neil !
Keith,super to hear 'the Cloney' going well,might be able to sort a few friendly's out with yourselves;we're having similier 'problems' and isn't it fantastic! Be in touch mate.
Have a great story about a friendly T/20 game we played last-nite against a well known football team,but it will keep for later, I said enough for now!
RE - YDO's
Guys
For your info, at Lurgan, we have a full time YDO (Johnny Gillespie) and we also employ our cricket professional, Niranjan Godbole.
From early April they are visiting over 16 schools on a weekly basis. Once schools finish for summer, we have arranged a summer coaching scheme from July to mid August. This runs from Monday to Thursday,10am to noon each day,for kids from over 6 years old to 17 year olds
Along with Niranjan, we are finding our YDO's employment an excellent way to engage youngsters. We benefit from both of them in the summer and in the winter Johhny is doing a great job with rugby. He also he has a big input with regard to grants that are available.
We are doing a massive amount of fund raising to ensure his employment and we are seeing huge development with both sports in all schools in the local area.
It maybe easier that we have two sports that can be taken care of but all I can say, from our perspective is that Lurgan as a club is benefiting greatly.
If you cant afford a YDO, but could possibly share the cost with other clubs,you should investigate this.
Look for help with funding via councils or other sporting bodies.
We feel that our investment in a YDO,
will,in the long term benifit us as a club and although we will not see instance success, we will reap the benefits on a long term basis.
In terms of NCU clubs who have got the cheque book out, I would advise that rather than pay local players (who
are only interested in one thing and I can assure you it is not your club) INVEST your money in a YDO and then you will reap the benefits as a club.
Re: Robin Haire and Uprichard Park
Robin - have to agree with your comments re: Uprichard Park. I was there last Sat and saw a fantastic game of cricket played on a good surface. Luckily, it was nice weather (Uprichard, like many other of our local grounds on a poor day can be a very bad place to be if you are a cricket lover). The man you need to thank is one of the really good guys on the local scene - not playing any more but still prepared to put the work in like your own Mr Moreland. I refer of course to Mr Cunningham, and what a splendid job he has done.
Maxi
Thanks for the kind words, and agreeing with me (dont normally happen now lol), but two out of the three wides I would have given, but in a different way, & you were lucky that i was at the wrong end at that time (otherwise i would have given you a C&B lol). I can understand where you are comming from with the realisation that you are getting too old to bowl fast any more (note my bowling), but I still feel I am the only peron in international cricket to have perfected the 2 bounce LBW or clean bowled.
Keep the green clean, cause i refuse to retire before the Duck.
Roger..
Im sure I wil get a yarn with you shortly on the matter.
Awards for All have funded post via Lottery monies which could infact fund 75% costs.
I think a tiered approach to club contributions or indeed the CDO working for clubs who contribute a flat fee would be the way forward!
Active Communities SHOULD in the meantime encourage grassroots development.
many congrats to the groundsman at bangor c.c. played a midweek match on tuesday on a super track and outfield,best i have seen uprichard park ever,well done again.
I know that Dundrum CC would struggle to finance this Roger. I cannot see this CDO coming all the way down to Dundrum either! As far as teams/players are concerned, it's an ongoing issue to get players, we in Dundrum are quite lucky at the moment. I think clubs should be an integral part of the community, engaging in helping locals. In Dundrum we used to get involved in raising money for a Senior Citizens Christmas Dinner for instance. Good luck to all tomorrow. I'm going to hit some fours/fores today at our Golf Classic!
realistically I cant see too many clubs wanting to pay for an officer that wont leave the greater belfast area or the Prem league clubs
Would all NCU clubs be willing to pay, say £300-400 pa to subsidise a CDO? I would like to hear in particular from smaller clubs in Sections 2 and 3.
With the majority of NCU clubs appearing to be finding it inceasingly difficult to field adult teams at 3rd/4th XI level in particular, this is seen as one of our priorities at the present time. If we have the support of clubs we could make it a reality fairly quickly.
Ryan, we at the NCU totally agree with you, and are currently looking at the possibility of employing a club development officer, but finance is the main problem at the present time. When you say match funding would be available, what exactly do you mean by this? If you wish to ring me to discuss, please feel free to do so.
Do you think there would be enough clubs willing to pay to help subsidise this post?
Can some one explain what is going on in the with the like of victoria/donaghcloney/waringstown having a increase of members for the last couple of years and there is a decrease in the rest of the ncu
Yes Davey could have been the 1 in particular but nothing more said about it its happened before and im sure will happen again, but as you say yea was a good game thats the closest youve ran us in the 4 years ive played against yourselves and totally agree your young guys are looking really good that young fella marshall bowled rightly the first night and batted sensibly enough just one shot too many. as for stevie theres no sign of him retiring if you had to listen to him the 4 or 5 nites im down at our place hes a different injury for each night haha but loves his cricket and will play for a few years yet id say, as should you, you play the game in the way it should be played and the young players need to learn from player like you and not the umpire mentioned above!!!
Craig
Below is a list of some of the things the NCU do for younger players:
The NCU organises league, cup and plate competitions at U11, league and cup competitions at U13 and U15, the Colts Cup at U17.
We have representative sides at all these levels.
We have around twenty schools competitions.
We organise the Belfast team for the Lord's Taverners Cities Tournament.
We help fund the excellent coaching for young cricketers organised by Cricket Ireland.
Young cricketers participate at all levels in our senior competitions.
Is there anything else you think we have missed out?
Maxi
I think when you said that our "Umpires" riled you, it could have been narrowed down to "an umpire of ours" riled you (but he is known to do that from time to time), and i am wondering why i am to be congratulated, and can only surmise that it was my tactic of lending my Jumper to your 12th man lol
At the end of the day it was a decent game of cricket with the better team winning (when is Stevie going to stop getting me out?), and some of our young lads have shown again that they are improving either with the at or ball, I just hope that some day soon they improve with both on the same day, then i can retire to the safety of the pavillion :-)
All the best for the rest of the season
After selecting 2 senior teams for Donacloney this week we were left with 20 unselected players.It's a long time since we have been in such a position! The obvious solution is to to field a 3rdXI next season but in the mean time we are looking for midweek friendlies .If any club can help us out please get in contact.
