Forum

Roger
Your posting will make scary reading to cricket lovers.Three of the top clubs over the past 60 or so years namely Instonians,Lisburn and Downpatrick all fielding one team less in 2009,and another three in Portadown,Donaghadee and Cooke Collegians down to two Saturday teams.Clubs in that position can't really avoid much more erosion in playing members.Templepatrick dropping a team is equally worrying.They are recognized for having a large turnout at youth practices and probably have more NCU qualified coaches than any other NCU club.
Can someone at Waringstown tell us how they are bucking the trend?
Roger you have been a stalwart of Junior cricket administration for many years and have access to the statistics that show the decline in the number of Saturday teams and also the number of games completed.Having this highlighted might just let us see how much danger our sport is in.A table for each of the last 15 years might show us a worrying trend.
Any sport or business that has a steady fall off in participants or customers needs to address that decline or eventually go out of business.
Why when it is accepted that over the last ten years the number of youngsters being "coached " at clubs has dramatically increased are we not seeing more of these people wanting to play Saturday cricket when they turn into adults? Our product offering MUST be wrong.
I know from being involved at Muckamore with the 3rds and 4ths for the past six or seven years that the late starts and not getting home to eight o'clock is definitely a factor.
Whatever the reasons this trend has got to be addressed.I have said before that this is in my opinion as critical as sorting out the Premier League.If the trend is that we lose a net five teams was to continue for the next five years we will be in a scenario where clubs will go out of business.This is going to have far reaching effects as sponsors and government agencies won't want to be associated with a dying sport.
The work of the cricket development officers at youth level can't really be called in to question so we need to find out what stops the numbers carrying on to play adult cricket.The best people for a business ever to ask what they want is it's customers.We should be listening to the actual players at all levels.How about issuing a survey direct to every registered player in the NCU.
It's all ok having the Ireland teams winning at all levels but if the grassroots and games foundations aren't right this will come crashing in round us.I think a "STOP CRICKET DYING " poster campaign should be distributed to every club,sporting body,school,workplace.Let's make the product what people want and see if we can reverse the trend of falling numbers playing on a Saturday.Maybe on reflection that should be a positive message "MAKE FRIENDS FOR LIFE " "CRICKET IS FUN ".

Andy, I was having another look back, and numbers of teams would appear to have peaked around the mid-eighties. By the early 80's as you quite rightly say, Div 4 had been formed and by 1986 numbers were as follows: Div 1 42 teams, Div 2 39, Div 3 (4 Sections) 33, Div 4 (3 Sections) 24, TOTAL 138 teams. Numbers continued at around these levels until the late 90's but since then there has been a steady decline, mainly I suspect for the reasons you mentioned in your last submission! There is however a lot more youth cricket being played now than there was in those days, the problem appears to be keeping these kids playing into their adulthood.

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Andy, I had a look at the records for 1976, and there were certainly more clubs playing in those days, but not that many more teams, as most of the smaller clubs only fielded two teams. The figures are:
Div 1 1976 47, 2008 37, Div 2 1976 43,
2008 33, Div 3 1976 32, 2008 46, TOTAL 1976 122, 2008 116. It is interesting to remember some of the teams that have diappeared since those days such as: Lambeg, ICI, YMCA, Crossgar, Greenisland, Ewarts, IEL, and POSC. Anyone remember playing for or against any of these teams? I'm afraid I have to admit to playing against them all!

hold on Ronnie! what's all this talk about "in those days there wasn't so much to do". I'm not talking about the dim and distant past but I'm talking about times when, and Hiler referred to them in an earlier feature, when there was socialising after the games. The organising of things such as weddings was for the winter or during the week - never on Saturdays. We had less of these "modern" women and certainly less "modern" men. Saturday was sacroscant - we played cricket on Saturdays - there was none of this nonsense about taking wives shopping - women knew where they stood when they began relationships with cricketers - they didn't see them until late on Saturday (or possibly later) and that was it. It was the scheme of things and everyone understood the scheme!!
P.S. - Jean doesn't know about this site so I can post this without fear of retribution from her - but I'd be surprised if there aren't some guys who will agree with me!!

Thanks for that Roger - you certainly brought back a few memories. It would be interesting to go back to the records of the days to which Roger refers and see how many teams were in existence - I recall that the NCU ran to 4 Divisions in those days.

On the subject of fewer people playing, we have just been collating the NCU competition entries for 2009 and have lost no fewer than seven teams from the 3rd Division from last season. Cooke Collegians III, Donaghadee III, Downpatrick IV, Instonians V, Lisburn IV, Portadown III, and Templepatrick IV have all gone. Two summers' bad weather have not helped the situation, and we can just hope for a better summer in 2009 or more people will be giving up the game. On a more optimistic note, we do have two new entries to Division 3 with the return after a number of years of CIYMS IV, and entering for the first time are Waringstown V.

....and it was careless of me not to mantion the General Secretary in those days, Major Gordon Ormsby.

Cricketing Rules

I think the main reason why cricket is becoming more complicated in terms of the rule book is because people's perception of cricket is changing. Years ago cricket was much more popular with many more matches being played as Andy said in his last post but the truth is there wasn't as much to do years ago. In todays society everything seems to be about entertainment, having fun and socialising in a different capacity. People have a wider range of options when it comes to sports. After all millions of pounds is being spent on advertising / influening young people to watch football and other sports and the truth is these kinds of sports have more financial muscle than cricket which means they can afford to grasp the attentions of the much younger audience. So why did we introduce 20 overs matches next year in section 1? I think people in clubs are starting to get sick of long days away playing cricket when they could be doing much more exciting things with their time. I don't think the union should be blamed for these rules as it is about the people who play the game and it is these people who determine the rules. Peoples social and behavioural trends have changed and in fact it could be argued that these rules have been introduced to save the game rather than deter it as most people have said. This is why Sir Alan Stanford has revitalised cricket in the west indies and why the 20 / 20 game has flourished. It is entertainment and people want to be entertained. The people that criticise stanford and co for the introduction of this type of cricket are people that do not take into account how people / need has changed.

I've tried to be as objective as I can regarding this and just for the record I'd rather play the 50 over game!

Andy, you're giving my age away! I was just looking, I was elected on to the Divisional Committee in 1975 (I was very young!)and have been there ever since, and you joined the following year. In that year Tom Greenwood was Chairman and Dixon Rose vice Chairman. Apart from the stalwarts you mentioned some of the others were Jack Newell, George Orr, Hubert Cranston, Frank Thompson, Billy Boyd (Muckamore), Maurice Moore, Harold McKinley, John McMillan, Ian Taylor, and Tony Cole.

re Clarence's feature about the way it used to be and I'm surprised to see that he remembers cricket at Banbridge!! But seriously, and as I've posted before, when did it start to get so complicated? I recall being on a committee in the late 70's, early 80s with the likes of Bob Law, Jim Barry, the recently departed Jim McMorran, Alastair Kyle from D'dee, Tom Greenwood, Jim Boyce and others whose names have slipped my memory but I'm sure Roger Bell will recall them as he was around at that time. And that was a time when considerably more club matches were being played. Now that I'm in my dotage I have the odd senior moment and wonder what the reactions of Greenwood and the late Dr. Billy Ritchie (in one of his "in vino veritas" moments!) would be to the modern appeals. To qoute a certain waiter on an alledged occasion " where did it all go wrong?"

I think, and I mean I think:
Normal starting times, DL and reductions are all the same as before.
Yes, in other words, the first attempt at replaying a PREMIER league match in glorious July sunshine, will start at 12 noon and will be all done and dusted by 2.15pm. What a joke, I hope Inst and the rest are proud of themselves for voting this in, in fact why don’t we just scrap the league and play friendlies!!!
At least the tea ladies will be happy, nothing required for this farce!

Rodney

The confusion surrounds rearrangements and start times. Match 2 is now a 20 over match, correct? So if for example you have to play a 20 over rearrangement in August can you start at 2pm? Does Duckworth Lewis apply? Can the match be reduced to a 10 over fixture if rain intervenes? Without looking it up do you know the answer?
I don't. It shouldn't be this difficult.

Re Clarence and Paul

I'm not sure scrapping the rule book will make much difference. If we start from scratch then there will always be opposition and things will change which means adding to the rules again and eventually we could be at a stage where we're at now. It is an iterative process and one that will adapt to the change in times / cricket / era. I think the current rules are their for a reason but I agree that over time rules have been included that shouldn't be there any longer. I get back to the same point, people talk on the forum about changing this and that rule but when it comes to the AGM noone proposes it. Perfect example is the Sunday cricket topic. How many hours were put into that on the forum and it wasnt even proposed at the AGM to modify / remove the rules surroudning it.

Clarence

Re: Your article on the rules.

Starting again with the rule book is something we totally agree on! Things are too complicated. I have an old NCU book from 20 years ago and the additions to the rules is frightening.

There is a Competitions Directorate in place and they should look to overhaul and simplify the rules to put before the AGM in 2009.