On a number of occasions over the past few seasons I have blogged about the loss of clubs from the Wetherby League to the point where the league's very future has been called into doubt. The league has confronted this situation by polling all clubs with the choice of remaining as the Wetherby League or merging with the behemoth that is the York and District Senior League. The result of the vote, to which three clubs did not respond, was 59% in favour of the league continuing. The clubs also voted on the structure for next season and by a majority of 5% voted to reduce the number of clubs in Division 1 to ten. 13% voted for an option that would have seen the number of teams reduced to eight. Secretary Barry Oliver stresses that the decision to reduce to ten is a trial and will be reviewed for 2019.
Will this stop the exodus of clubs? Possibly not for if we turn to the Nidderdale League website there is a lengthy article under the heading 'Plan for Change' which refers to the 'potential implosion of the Wetherby League' and the reduction in divisions to three. Anticipating that the merger with the York league might have gone ahead three Wetherby clubs within the Nidderdale catchment area had sounded out the possibility of joining the Nidderdale rather than the York.
Much of 'Plan for Change' addresses the problem only too familiar to pcws, the plague of concessions, especially in the lower divisions of leagues. There is an excellent paragraph which sets out how the changes in both men and women's lifestyles, have impacted on league cricket. I recommend it to all our readers. The stats for conceded matches are truly awful, 72 in total, more than one fifth of which were by one team, Helperby III. 25% of the 'lost games' were when the cricket and football seasons overlapped and the worst day when in 11 matches no coin was tossed was when York Races, the Headingley test and the Leeds Festival coincided. Wetherby gave up 17 matches that day.
To his credit the Nidderdale secretary is not content to ring his hands and in his article puts forward several suggestions to try and reduce this problem. These include reducing the number of overs, reducing the number of matches in the lower divisions and speeding up over rates. For the full article search Theakston Nidderdale League, click on news, then a plan for change, scroll down to TNL Review plan for change discussion document, for those of you watching in black and white it's in green ink. Clubs were invited to attend a discussion meeting on this matter last week. No report on that yet.
Finally the website reports that the company that gave birth to crichq, a system the league has used for a number of seasons, has gone into administration and the league is trialling ecb's play cricket as an alternative. Whilst I feel sorry for anybody whose jobs are threatened by this news I will not be sorry to see the back of crichq, a website I have grumbled about on the blog on numerous occasions.
No play today. Hinderwell CC 26/08/17
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