Forum

Michael you must have read my mind or my article or both!
I have to agree with your sentiments as time has moved on and our needs in 2008 are different to what was happening in the 80s and 90s. Also although I stayed clear of the 'hired gun' issue (local and overseas) it is a serious consideration that may also have to be addressed within this debate.

All this talk about bringing back the interpros seems to forget the reasons why they were kicked out. The senior management within the ICU didn't want them, a lot of the players didn't want to play in them, nobody went to watch them, and there was no sponsor. What's so different now?
If we need a stepping stone to international cricket then it has to be a new format with a competitive edge and meaningful cricket. Reading some of the suggestions put forward we may need to pass the hat round to fund it. Without a major sponsor it will be a joke.

Armagh Cricket Club have a new site up and running. It can be found at; www.armaghcricketclub.com
Check it out and tell us what you think of it or have any suggestions to improve it email me or leave a comment in out guestbook.

Thanks

Robin, I'm up for that especially now that "the coach" can keep an eye on the NW talent. Staffy a couple of good seasons and you might even be "player/coach". Clarence what is the best time of year to tour? Who is the visiting test nation in 2010? I'll have to get a few tips from big Roy.

I'm on board Robin. Might even get a match with some of the names mentioned although I'm always a match in the bar!
Let's work on it as I'll do all I can to make it happen from the Barbados end.
Regards,
Clarence

Staffy leave my bowling at the 3 w's out of this!!!
See you soon at beechgrove - think sunday 24th may but may be wrong.

Make mine a double.

What a fantastic idea Robin. You, me and big Ivan propping up a bar putting the world to right. I think there would be more rum and coke drunk than sense talked!

its time for a northern ireland cricket team tour. destination barbados in 2010, with i mccombe and staffy managing and coaching and jc hiles planning. touring party of 15? picked purely on merit over the next 2 summers, what an incentive for our cricketers to know that 2 super seasons with bat or ball could book a place on the plane to barbados to represent your country. i,ll be speaking to a few people early summer about interest and planning.

Super Club?
All of the evidence points the other way. The most successful clubs in NCU and North West cricket history have been cricket only clubs. Waringstown, North Down, Lisburn, Downpatrick, Brigade , Donemana, Strabane, Sion Mills with more occcasional successes for others.

Simon
My vision (fear) of the future (10 years) is that clubs as we know them will disappear. They will be commercial/community/government funded organisations providing sports and social facilities. They will run on a model of grants per youth member/coaching provision plus business sponsorship and individual membership. Already old fashioned fundraising is dying out. Now guys would rather have a tenner or twenty pounds added to the membership than sell raffle tickets. It is getting more and more difficult to get administrators. Rewind thirty years and look at the changes in clubs because that same pace of change will incur in the next ten max.
When I look at a town like Antrim we have a cricket club with a long history but like everyone else struggling to make ends meet, the Rugby club has gone (or maybe has one team from four ten years ago), the Hockey club drifts along with no clubhouse to call their own, Chimney Corner Football Club seem to be always only a week from going out of business and the Gaelic Club limps along.
Now surely sometime/someone will sit down and think why not ONE super sports club in a catchement area of 50/60,000 people. With all the goverment community/health and fitness initatives/lottery funds etc is this not a sensible approach. Now what do we as cricketers want from our club? A good ground, practice and changing facilities and somewhere to enjoy a bit of craic after the game. I could see that being provided by the Super Club. I might then feel more like going there twelve months of the year and either watch or play one of the other sports. Alternatively I think clubs will struggle. Already coaches are able to avail of money from Youth Sport and some companies now have community funds for coaching. I don't think today's youngsters pay a lot of attention to history or tradition.

Ivan,
You appear to have answered your own question here. Your idea that in 10 years we will have clubs with paid groundsmen, managers etc just won't happen. If you do the figures, clubs would need in excess of £40K a year before you even start to think about paying players. Even after the euphoria and success of the Carribean last year, the ICU has found it tough to raise money, so what chance would clubs have?
I would also suggest you look very carefully at Rugby, which has gone down the route of paying players. There isn't a club in the land that is not in financial difficulties because of it. Most have already sold the family silver, and are up to their necks in debt. What have they achieved? Very little. All the guys who arrived at new clubs to great fanfares, have now disappeared along with their swag, and the clubs have nothing to show for it. Promising players that have been nurtured by the clubs have been cherrypicked by Ulster, and been lost to their clubs. There has been no compensation. In other words the clubs have paid for the development of players, and got nothing for it.
Does this scenario sound familiar ?
On a different tack, there is obvious concern that some players don't get the chance to progress upwards as they have not been involved in any Irish squads, and they have no Inter-pro competition to demonstrate their skills. I would suggest that the money that used to be spent on the Inter-pros is now used on the coaching set-up, and that this has proved to be a very successful one. We can't have it both ways, as we don't have the money. As an observation, I would also suggest that players DO get noticed, but that success at club level does not necessarily mean a player can play at a higher level. Higher standards quickly reveal weaknesses in players' techniques which don't manifest themselves at club level. Coaches can see this, which is why some players appear to be omitted from Irish squads. This may not be ideal, but we are not living in an ideal world. I would ask you to name players who have genuinely missed out. In my view there won't be too many candidates.
Ivan, it's great to have ambition, but it has to be realistic. Good luck.

Staffy while I don't disagree with that do you not get a feeling that the Irish team is drifting away from the ordinary club player.If the ICU (Limited) could levy each club (and ultimately club members) say £10, £20, £30 whatever per team place (ie 4 teams = 44 team places) what uproar would there be or would all club committees vote for the good of the national team. I don't think so somehow. We are a minority sport trying to play with the big boys and just can't offer a serious marketing investment for most companies. A lot of the money that is apparently available to NCU players seems to come from secret funds. I can't think of any company actually sponsoring a local player (or overseas for that matter) and getting recognition for it in the past ten years. So Warren Duetrom doesn't have an easy job in raising money for cricket in Ireland. I just wonder what the finances of some of the county sides would look like without the share of the tv money they get each year. What changes for the better do we expect from the new corporate set up of the ICU?.

Wouldn't it be a great start to try and secure some funding for the Ireland International team for starters. The players put in way more committment than ordinary club players and increasingly are required in the off season. We can worry about club players after that.

While it is important to listen to what someone with the standing in the game that Simon has to say things really are moving at pace in all walks of life. In business if you got a new idea up and running it normally took a couple of years for people to realise what was happening and start to compete. Now you are lucky to get two months. As we plan for the future of our game have we stopped to think what the sports/cricket clubs of the future will be like. I personally think that within 10 years they will be run as businesses with paid administrators, groundstaff, coaches etc. I really think in our "time poor society" the days of the volunteer is on the way out. No more willing horses for us to flog. People will just turn up train, play, maybe even socialize (dining etc) and then head home. This "vision of the future" isn't how I personally would like to see it go but the pace of change is upon us. Maybe it's better to change than "be changed".