Experiences of a New Recruit
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After his first season as a senior league umpire, Jonathan Corcoran of Knaresborough CC has kindly reviewed his time out on the wicket.
As a player myself for over 35 years, I played in matches ranging in standard from local league and village cricket to Bradford League, Airedale and Wharfedale League, plus a number of representative matches for Yorkshire under 16s and 19s, as well as Yorkshire Seconds back in the good old days of the late eighties. Despite having been the Chairman of the Harrogate and District cricket development group, a coach, an ECB coach tutor and a massive cricket fan, I was pretty apprehensive at the start of my first season as an umpire. I was having thoughts such as: Will I be good enough? Can I do it? How will players I have played against react to me? I guess those are similar thoughts a lot of umpires have when starting their umpiring career.
I wondered if I would be able to umpire a league match the same way I had always asked umpires to umpire in matches I had played; strongly and fairly. Being a club captain for two of my clubs for 14 of my playing years, I had certainly had my share of dealings with umpires, and, to be honest, I had always formed pretty quick opinions of the good and the bad ones, quite often unfairly and wrongly!
With this in my mind, and after being given a great game to start with, Harden firsts versus Guiseley firsts in the Airedale and Wharfedale‘ B’ Division, I went into the season with a fair amount of confidence. The players would know me, or most of them, as I had only recently played against them having, ahem, retired the year before( again). So, knowing the teams, the clubs and the venue, knowing the rules
( pretty important for an umpire, and again to be fair I did sit on the League’ s Rules Committee) and having all my equipment and clothing ready, the season started. In all honesty, in the first match we had some minor controversy. It started at the toss when the rolling rule before the match started was challenged. As a junior umpire I let the more experienced umpire make a final decision and, subsequently, was wrong. I knew the local league rule. I had asked for the pitch to be rolled loads of times when I had lost the toss and been inserted on a green seamer! Great start. Things, I have to say, went better during the game, save for one Caught Behind, with the‘ keeper stood up. I gave it and by the reaction of the batter it was clearly not out. The fielding side seemed fine with the decision as I guess they would be, although later in the bar the‘ keeper must have let it slip it may not have hit the bat! Upon hearing this, my immediate reaction was,‘ Oops, did I get it wrong?’ I thought I got it right, but it taught me that you can only make decisions on what you see, and in this case hear, and also that you have to make a decision.
So, the season rumbled on. I was given the opportunity to stand on my own in a lower standard match, and I have to state that you don’ t get a minute’ s rest. Interestingly, I was marked as an eight out of 10( lowest mark of the season) for positioning in this match and I was standing at both ends!
One game ended in a bit of a farce. With rain around and unequal overs when the match was concluded by rain, one team thought they had won as the team batting second had batted more overs than the other but hadn’ t reached the target score. Some deliberations took place and I was sure the rules felt wrong. In this case I was absolutely delighted to see the reactions of both clubs and their captains as they agreed to let me run it past the League management. It was duly declared an abandoned game and the rules were altered to ensure that all clubs knew of the anomaly. So, within six weeks of my first match, experiences were starting to gather.
I was lucky enough to be given a complete range of matches to umpire throughout the season: first and second teams,‘ A’,‘ B’ and‘ C’ Divisions, on my own in some and also with some outstanding colleagues. All had time for a chat. Most were pretty quick with the one liners and could keep a team in check by rapport – absolutely essential in my opinion – but most of all I don’ t remember there being any instance of umpires’ revenge, nor a bad word said by any of my colleagues in anyway whatsoever. I was given five first-team matches in Division‘ A’, which was fantastic. I have always enjoyed playing to the highest standard I could, so why not with umpiring? It does challenge you. I had a call to make on an obstruction( square leg had no view of it so I was on my own). The match was first versus second in the league at the time and it was the opening batsman for the side batting second who went on to make 110 not out of a team total of 132-0 to win the game by 10 wickets. It is not a normal occurrence that you see every week, so it does take you by surprise. In fairness to the fielding team, they were great. I marched to square leg after gesturing that I would take a minute to review what had happened. My colleague then announced to me,‘ You’ re on your own here. I couldn’ t see!’ It is at times like this that I believe having played the game for so long, and being passionate about it, that you can clearly get a feeling if there is foul play afoot. In this case it was not out and whilst the
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