Summer Sports - Cricket
As Yorkshire, and indeed the rest of the UK, continues to be plagued by downpours and deluge, snow and ice, Steve Carroll and Alex Finnis from the The York Press, a leading regional newspaper, investigated how the wretched summer of 2012 affected the area’s cricket clubs, with the general concensus of opinion being ...
t has been labelled the worst summer for a century - and cricket clubs in York and North and East Yorkshire are hoping it will be another one hundred years before they see another one like it.
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The wettest April since records began, and rain which fell relentlessly in the months that followed, didn’t just see matches abandoned across the Hunters York & District Senior League and HPH York Vale League. It hit clubs hardest in the pocket. With more than a third of York & District games lost, and around 120 Vale League matches cancelled or abandoned, stalwart clubs have, together, lost tens of thousands of pounds in bar takings, match fees and fund-raising.
The weather has affected every aspect of club life, with some teams also claiming the many weeks between fixtures has cost them players - with adults and juniors getting involved in new activities during the enforced break and not returning.
Chiefs in both the Senior and Vale Leagues fear that, should the heavens
We can’t
open in a similar vein next season, some clubs could face closure. That is the reality facing Stillingfleet, founder members of the Vale League, whose miserable year left them with a shortfall of about £1,000 and has seen members asked to consider the possibility of folding. Vale League bosses have sent out a survey to clubs asking them about their plans for the future, whilst, in the Senior League, the rain saw the biggest loss of games since records began, with secretary Albert Pattison saying it has had a huge effect on junior cricket. “At the sixteenth week of the season, we had lost 44% of our games. I would guess we lost, in total, about 36% of the matches. I think the previous worst was 27%.” “Up to twelve weeks, we had almost two hundred and fifty uncompleted matches, and the first five weeks were all badly affected. There was only five weeks where every game was played, so there was a considerable loss.”
“It caused mayhem with cup matches and we had an awful lot of bowl-outs in the League Cup. It’s had a big effect on
take another summer like last year!
juniors. Most of the games were rained off week after week. They tend to bring more people to the club, you get parents and grandparents coming down (to watch). That’s another disastrous effect financially.”
“It has discouraged kids, who then go off and find something else to do. Clubs rely on juniors. They fill in the gaps when adults are on holidays, but the youngsters hardly played at all.” Martin Jarred, York Vale League media
officer, added: “We lost in the region of 120 fixtures, and that’s more than anyone can remember. It is inevitable that it will have an effect on all clubs. Players tend to pay money to play and, obviously, they are not playing.” “We decided to carry out a survey of clubs. We were mindful of the fact that some were struggling a bit. We sent a questionnaire asking them about their plans for the future.” “We started the season with a record number of clubs and a record number of divisions - six for the first time,” he bemoaned.
Nearly every club contacted by The
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2013 PC 75
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