Yorkshire county cricket saga rumbles on

 Posted by Tony Hutton

One of the many casualties of the ongoing saga concerning Yorkshire county cricket club has been the lack of anyone with the necessary know how to plan the cricket at lower levels, which includes the Second eleven and the Academy side. The Yorkshire website has always been rather slow to keep members informed, so in a way nothing changes with the lack of Second eleven and Academy fixtures on the website. Obviously this is no doubt regarded as somewhat trivial, given the host of problems the new management team face.

Headingley in 1930.

Fortunately the excellent Cricket Archive site recently published the full list of county second eleven fixtures, which shows that Yorkshire have eight four day championship fixtures, four at home and four away but of course no venues for the home matches yet appear. Not surprising when the man who arranged all this, Ian Dews, was one of the many victims of Lord Patel's purge. In addition the Seconds' T20 fixtures are somewhat confusing, in that some involve two games in one day and others only one.

However, no doubt all will be revealed in due course, shortly before the season actually gets underway. Many members will no doubt be equally confused by the bulky literature received by post or by e-mail which tries to cover all the many concerns involving the much postponed Emergency General Meeting.

Without wishing to get too involved in all the legal arguments, it does appear to me that the members are being blackmailed into voting not only for the vastly changed board, but to absolve the new management from any blame for the illegal actions they took rather too hastily at the very beginning. Failure to vote in favour of all this risks losing the Test match status and probably the very existence of the club, due to the intransigent attitude of the ECB and the misguided Parliamentary Committee.

No doubt the majority of members will vote in favour of everything to enable the club to continue, but they may not realise exactly what these votes mean. What does leave a nasty taste is the way in which former officers and members of the club have been treated by what was supposed to be a new inclusive attitude. Far from it, I would say, when anyone with contrary views are insulted by being called 'old guard' or 'obstructive' just for airing completely reasonable opinions. Few signs of inclusivity there.

Obviously there was need for a change of attitude, but so far many of the changes appear more divisive than ever. A little more sense of reconciliation might have gone a long way to improve the situation. However, cricket lovers will soldier on, come what may, and look forward to days in the sun, even if it does mean for some of us long journeys to Durham, where we know we can enjoy our cricket.