Wakefield Thornes
ideas for moving the club forward. It had
been the sports club of nearby Patons and
Baldwins Mill but since the company’s
demise in the 1980’s the facilities had
become ‘careworn’.
I’ve worked in sport and recreation
all my life – facility management, sports
development and for the last twenty plus
years as a partner in a sports consultancy.
So for me it represented something of a
challenge to help the club improve both
its facilities and via its junior section give
it the ability to thrive and prosper.
As I became less involved in coaching
and more involved in the administration
and management of the club, we’ve
worked steadily to improve the clubs
facilities. We constructed a new pavilion
in 2010, had a very ‘lumpy’ outfield
relaid in 2013 and had a tired square
relaid in 2017. With the help of grants
we’ve spent £300,000 on the ground in
the last ten years.
To me it was obvious even in the
noughties that cricket was facing a
very, very challenging future. It had
disappeared from terrestrial tv and
therefore the consciousness of many
young people. The increased demands
placed on administrators and volunteers
– Clubmark, CRB/DBS, junior coaches,
Health and Safety, electronic scoring
– have all created the need for more
personnel at a time when less and less
people have the ability or inclination
to meet the increasing demands of the
sport.
It was a case of adapt or die. In the
tight urban fabric of West Yorkshire
it seemed to me that what was once
a strength of cricket was becoming a
weakness. Clubs who thrived – virtually
on every street corner – were now
competing for a reduced number of
players and administrators, reduced
levels of spending, and limited grant
aid. Yet at the same time they all had
committed stalwarts – often from
families associated with the club for
many years – who didn’t want their
club to be the next one to go the wall as
Slazengers had done.
So that was the challenge!
The most rewarding part of my role?
Well there are two. The first is that when
we won the initial title in Abu Dhabi
seven of the thirteen players we took
for the week had been junior players at
the club and had come through the Ron
Hudson led coaching ‘school’. And that
didn’t include England Under 19 and
Yorkshire seamer Josh Shaw.
Secondly, despite all the changes we
still have the same secretary and same
treasurer and as we did sixteen years
ago. David Brooke and Kate Greening
had put in many years before that to
ensure the survival of the club so it’s
pleasing they’ve enjoyed the good times
too.
The atmosphere at the club is
buoyant. Whilst we’ve lost a couple of
players from last season we’ve some
high class replacements. Richard Foster
rejoins from Hanging Heaton, Yorkshire
Academy/2nd teamer Matty Taylor
will be available on a regular basis and
we’re shortly expecting the arrival of
Indian slow left armer Satyajeet Bachhav
who was the leading wicket taker in the
Indian domestic T20
Youth development is absolutely
vital to the club. It’s what the club is
built on. It was the plan in 2003 and
it’s still the plan. Unless you have a
very rich benefactor you can’t succeed
without it. Perhaps unusually for clubs
in this area we run a third team on a
Saturday - for which we’re always trying
to find a ground! We use the third team
as a means of ensuring a transition from
junior cricket to competitive senior
league cricket. It’s worked well – even
the players such as Josh Shaw and Jared
Warner did a stint in the third team.
Like every cricket club I’d have
thought our biggest challenge is
retaining interest in the game amongst
young people. Life has not been easy
over the last ten years. The ECB’s current
initiatives such as All Stars and ‘The
Hundred’ have their work cut out to
address at least fifteen years of decline.
Other well-intentioned initiatives such
as ‘Chance To Shine’ to my mind have
given children the chance to play cricket
in school, but the numbers transitioning
to club cricket long term have been
negligible. On top of which, since charges
to schools were introduced, the numbers
of schools doing Chance To Shine have
dropped off dramatically anyway. In fact
seven years ago we had eleven schools
doing C2S in our catchment area. Last
year we didn’t have one!
I was in Australia last winter and
went to several Big Bash matches. As
long as British summers can replicate
the balmy evenings of Adelaide and
Melbourne, and as long as games attract
the ‘family’ audience that a different
sporting culture in Australia do, rather
than becoming three-hour beer ‘fests’, I
reckon we’ll be ok. I hope so as there are
a lot of eggs in that particular basket!
Article provided by Chris Frogett
www.sportyorkshire.net
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