In 1989, the recent post-split turf-playing Reds Cricket Club found itself less
than happy with itself and its competition. Alec Kahn, assuming the guise of
a Pentagon risk analyst, jotted down a few thoughts in a position paper prophetically
entitled `The Club's Future'.
The club's future
Our club has ended the season in a reasonable sate, both financially and in
playing numbers. But we should not allow the currently rosy picture to blind
us to the problems that we faced for the first two-thirds of the season, because
we have no long-term solution for them and they are bound to haunt us again.
The MCA is a competition that is visibly in decline. Its only saving graces are its playing fields (which are beautiful but bloody expensive) and the fact that it offers us turf cricket at a standard low enough to not humiliate us. But since we joined it 4 years ago, it has declined from 5 grades to 2, and Swan, Southern Teachers, Rangers, Stock Exchange and Gunbower are clearly struggling to stay alive.The competition is down to 3 umpires, of whom 2 are unfit for A grade. It is now rare for games to start on time, or with two full sides, and most teams are weaker and have no area from which to draw new blood. We have been unable to profit from this decline, because we've declined even more, through aging, retirements and player unavailability. For the first half of last season, our A grade side regularly played with 10 players and only four, or at most five, recognised batsmen; two years ago that never happened. Both sides now struggle to make over 90 against any halfway competent bowling.
Since we will keep aging and get more demands from work/families/etc, our longterm future seems one of continuing gradual decline unless we can (a) recruit or (b) amalgamate with/cannibalize/dissolve into another club.
Of course, continuing decline and eventual death of the club, say in 5-10 years, is not the end of the world. We're not out to build a lasting monument, after all, just have fun. The trouble is, the fun is dampened when you have to spend that time, like much of the previous 5 years, getting walloped each week. So we need to look at the alternatives.
Recruitment, or where have all the young lefties gone?Recruitment till now has been largely in our own image. Since the left, academia and our friends are not getting any younger, this is unlikely to change.And we don't have the time or the 13-year-old children to commit to forming a junior side. Advertising for players was a miserable failure when we tried it last year. So I don't see recruitment (ie of individuals) as something that will reverse our prospects. It will just continue, as at present, to slow our decline somewhat.
Eat or be eaten
So if we want to be competitive over our remaining cricketing life, we need
to look in the medium term (say 2-3 years) at joining forces with someone else
-- either, in order of preference, by absorbing a club in decay, amalgamating,
or ourselves being absorbed.
In my opinion, we should give ourselves two years to lift our stocks by the first of these ie absorbing a club in decay.The most obvious candidate is of course Gunbower (their president, Mick McNamara, thinks they will fold over winter). They've got some good cricketers, they're nice blokes, and we share a similar history. However, they may well stagger on, and they've been preparing for their demise by training with Youlden-Parkville, so we may have missed our chance.
Failing the absorption option, we will have to start looking at amalgamation. However, amalgamation is a tricky business, and right now I don't see any bright prospects. My guess is that if we haven't swallowed some club or amalgamated in 3-4 years, those left of us will be forced to start looking, like Gunbower has, for someone to dissolve into. (For social and geographic reasons, I suspect that we too would choose Youlden-Parkville.)
Using what we've got
In the meantime, we need to make the best use of what we've got. To that end,
I'm proposing that we try to get a coach for next season. It's something we've
never done before, and I think there's enough lacking in both our techniques
and our mental attitude to make it well worth trying. More on this below.
What of the decline of the Mercantile competition itself? Since it's virtually impossible to get into any other comp without a ground, and turf grounds are scarce as hen's teeth, my guess is that we're stuck there until it collapses. (Unless we amalgamate with/dissolve into an outside club, of course, or go back to matting, which is unthinkable.) By staying in the MCA, we at least ensure that we will inherit a good ground if it does fall apart in 4-5 years, though knowing our luck we'll end up with No.3.
One side or two?
The other, perennial question is whether to field one side or two. While we
ended the season with enough players, we faced a constant struggle for most
of the year to field two full sides. Those of us who have to do the constant
chasing of players quite reasonably ask, why bother?
My guess is that we will again find ourselves with about 40 'interested' people, but only 1820 available for any given round early next year. So we need to look hard at the pros and cons of fielding I or 2 sides:
Two sides -The Pros:
The Cons:
One side:The Pros
The Cons:
Obviously, the two side option is preferable. But I think we're getting very close to the stage where the people who do all the organising of the club are getting the shits with the perpetual mass unavailabilities, and it then comes down to a question of whether you have the irregulars demoralise the regulars, or just draw a line and say goodbye to the former. Gunbower's experience this year was that club morale rose dramatically by cutting back to one side of genuinely keen people, even if it shortened the club's life expectancy.