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More media county grumbles
Michael Vaughan’s recent comments on the state of the County game have stirred up the debate about domestic cricket. David Lloyd has jumped on the bandwagon on his blog for Sky Sports, having long been in favour of reducing the number of first class counties.
This is all very well, but cricket’s media personalities and former players have been calling for such changes for time immemorial. English cricket doesn’t give a damn. As Vaughan himself says:
The county chairmen are the most powerful people in the game and until that changes they are always going to look after their own interests, so I think that there are always going to be 18 counties.
If people want this to change badly enough, and it is so obviously in the interest of the greater good of English cricket, why is there no organised movement to force it through? We don’t hear much about any serious lobbying happening, there are no organised petitions that I am aware of. The PCA make noises every now and again, but English cricket is no more likely to listen to them.
So, in the spirit of setting the ball rolling, here are some potential protests I will be suggesting:
- Bob Willis chained to the Grace Gates before the next Lord’s Test match. Those gates have to be opened no matter what, so watch those stewards tear him limb from limb.
- The England team’s bats to be switched for those miniature ones they sell in the county gift shops. Each one to be inscribed “with love from Giles Clarke”.
- Media to begin using alternate nicknames for each county. Lancashire Laxatives anyone?
- On the media’s scorecards, four players from every county to be listed as “Johnny Makeweight”. Or, better still, Johan Makeweight. These names to be additionally used in some commentary.
- An official protest march to visit each county ground in turn. The official slogan to be “What do we want? Gradual Change. When do we want it? In due course”.
Further suggestions welcome.
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Comments (3)
Comment by JimboKDY
3rd November 2009, 1:52 pm
“why is there no organised movement to force it through?”
Because, unfortunately, people like me, you, cricket journos and ex players keep saying this on blogs and in the press and not doing anything about it.
The ECB and the counties absolutely rely on us all having a limited attention span i.e. we get animated about the first class shambles for a bit, then get bored and distracted, and then go back to buying £80 tickets for the Eleventh ODI v Bangladesh.
But that’s the way we are! There’s only two ways anything will actually happen, and they’re both financial:
1. Sky will turn off the TV money (realising that they’re haemorrhaging audience for p@sspoor county slogs and an incomprehensible England programme), or the Board will get forced to move to free-to-air. Either would instantly slash the £40m subsidy paid to the counties and close at least 7 of them, even after the ECB has taken the ‘responsible’ action of cutting all grassroots funding first to try and save the FCF chairmen.
2. The Government/Commons will finally hold a proper investigation into the game’s finances, with its state funding subsidies up for review. If so, they’ll work out that this isn’t a grassroots-first class-elite national sport, but just a slightly tawdry cartel. Taking the Government cash away, and referring the financial structure to the OFT, would also kneecap the Board.
I’d rather neither of these things happen, but they’re the only way change a’gonna come.
Comment by JF
4th November 2009, 2:36 pm
A fine selection of protests and excellent blog I’ve stumbled across. Do take a look at my Somerset CCC one on wordpress.
Reduce the number of counties? Good luck with that, will never happen (hopefully)…I fit it baffling that there is a belief that less counties will automatically mean better England players and like it or not, each of those counties (including Somerset I indignantly add!) has their own identity and history not to be easily erased.
Comment by GoodCricketWicket
4th November 2009, 5:01 pm
JF – For the record, I agree that less counties does not guarantee extra quality. If there were lots of quality that wasn’t progressing, perhaps, but in my opinion there just aren’t enough good players coming through – to solve that we need to be looking seriously at youth and schools cricket.
Jimbo – that was kind of my point: everyone talks about the need for change, but it never goes beyond words. However, this is not something that bloggers can do effectively – as far as the ECB are concerned we fall somewhere below the great unwashed.