Those of you who heard me on BBC Radio Derby on Tuesday night will know that I have mised feelings on the season's fixture announcement.
This will be a watershed summer, one which will likely mark the end of cricket as we know it. The millions being poured into a competition that no one, aside from Peter Graves and his ECB cronies, seems to want will consign four-day cricket to the summer's peripheries, fifty-over cricket to an afterthought and our thriving, effervescent T20 to a sideshow.
It is all desperately sad and yet the signs are again there that the game is run by people who care little for those who follow the game, and not an awful lot more for those who play it.
Yes it is nice that we can now plan our trips for the summer and book a day off here and there, but how much nicer if we could watch cricket in the sunshine! The fifty-over competition is FINISHED by May 6, unless we make the knockouts, and seven rounds of the championship are completed before the middle of June.
That's not such a big deal, but a closer look at the fixtures shows that Derbyshire has only FIVE home weekend days of championship cricket all summer and only one of the fifty-over games is scheduled for a weekend day at home.
It is barmy. Almost as if the powers that be are trying their best to marginalise the game as it is and its appeal to the average working man.
Take me. I work three days a week but do the hours of four in compressed shifts. That gives me time to do things that I both want and need to do each Thursday and Friday. I get eighteen days leave a year and at least two weeks of those go on family holidays. So that leaves me eight days on my hobby, and any cricket in the first half of the week sees me needing to allow two days for travel in each direction. If it was at the weekend, it would be a much different matter and a day of leave would let me see a couple of days cricket.
I am somewhat resigned to seeing less of my county in the flesh this summer on that basis. I will make the season opener and brave the arctic wasteland of early April and have the Durham RLODC in late April as a day trip on a Sunday.
After that? It isn't worth my while doing a six hundred mile-plus round trip for a T20, so unless I am down there my viewing will perforce be largely at distance.
Which is all rather a shame. But I am far from alone and I don't think that the ECB have any interest in the supporters and increasing the accessibility to the existing game.
And that, my friends, is worrying.
I will continue to study the fixtures and see where I might be able to get away, but it isn't easy.
The dearth of weekend 4-day cricket is what is making me hesitate over renewing my season ticket for 2019(despite the emails from various club illumini).
ReplyDeleteAs someone who works Mon-Fri usually long unsocial hours, Saturdays and Sundays (and not Friday nights TBH) works best for me.
OK, it's £139 which on its face is great value, but last year I attended (in all formats) 5 days. The chaser-letter I had today tells me it works out at <£4 a day. Great if you live on Nottingham Road and are retired, but.....
By way of balance, it does allow me to get an East Coast IPA or two during the day (wish they could have proper cask ale, properly kept, but as a non-daily-use venue hardly ever likely), but that's not the point.
Bob Willis onced on sky described the only people who watch county cricket as pensioners and morons unfortunately the ECB probably have the same opinion
ReplyDeleteHaving joined the ranks of the retired in the last few years, I now have the time (and the disposable income) to indulge my passion for county cricket. It's undoubtedly true that the majority of those at any county game are pensioners (and a few who, if not morons, would undoubtedly need some sort of social care on non-match days).
ReplyDeleteBut isn't it striking that while perhaps 75% of the average 4 day crowd is retired, they constitute a tiny proportion of the retired population in general. There might be up to 500 retired people going to watch a match at Derby, but an over-60's population of about 50,000 in the city alone.
So there is a huge untapped potential market of people who have the time, and in many cases the income, to get to county cricket, even when it is kept out of reach of people who are at work. Yet how much marketing effort at a national or local level do you see expended on tapping into this market, at a time when the ECB is throwing £40m to attract a young audience that may not exist?
Perhaps it's inevitable that most championship cricket will be played on weekdays (though it's hard to see a reason for it) but it doesn't mean that it has to be played in front of a thin scattering of die-hard elderly supporters if there was more imagination and investment in bringing in some of those who can go.
I have renewed for next season, but seriously doubt that I will for 2020. My favourite games are the 50 over games. For 2020 my understanding is that this competition will have no overseas players & none of the better domestic players. These changes mean I will probably not even bother checking the results. I will be having nothing whatsoever to do with the 100 ball thingy, on the logical argument that cricket does not need a new format.
ReplyDeleteSo when the ECB do their sums of the impact of the new competition put me down as -£159.
Perhaps if they offered a reduced rate for seniors some of the 50,000 might be seduced. We had two wonderful days at Lord's in September £10 half price on day three and free on day four.. I know we pensioners have it all but to most OAPs to be expected to pay full price is a complete turn off. On a different note has anyone been watching Jeevan Mendis in the South African T20 on Freesports at the moment he is leading the MVP table with some very economical bowling performances.
ReplyDeleteNot watched it, Snapper, but I liked Mendis. I couldn't see how he had scored so many tons in his career, but he could hit a ball, was a good fielder and took a lot of wickets at the wrong time of year for a leggie.
ReplyDeleteCould have seen him a decent T20 signing and second half of summer player, for sure!
As for other comments above, composite sides in a new competition will have no more interest for me than for many others. I won't be following it, that's for sure!
I'm in the same position as Notoveryet - this will be my third summer of retirement and I've really enjoyed the two years of my Derbyshire season ticket. However live around 1 1/2 hours from Derby - bit nearer to Chesterfield - but will probably renew. Really feel for those who are working as it was a real struggle to balance holidays and weekends (and the weather) with the fixtures. As for 2020 - will have to deal with that when it comes along.
ReplyDeleteA good point by "notoveryet" about marketing games to the retired population, who may have played or watched cricket in their earlier years and may just need a little "nudge" to return.
ReplyDeleteBut advertising, no matter how good, is nowhere near as effective as a personal invitation.The club is offering incentives for us "regulars" to bring a friend. Have we done so yet?
REV KEITH