REPORT OF THE HONORARY SECRETARY OF THE LEINSTER CRICKET UNION FOR 2012
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. It is my pleasure to report to you on the activities of the Union during the past year..
Obituaries
Sadly this report always has to contain a section on people in cricket who passed away during the previous year. It is always sad when we lose people from the small community of the cricket world. This year unfortunately was no exception. Shortly after the AGM last year Arthur Dunne (Merrion), Peter Cooke (Knockharley) and David Harper (Balbriggan) passed away. In January Richard Beamish (YMCA) passed away. Recently we had the untimely death of Graham Pasley (Phoenix). Graham was a member of both the executive and development committees of the Union and always acted for the good of cricket. The following day it was unfortunately David Murtagh from The Hills who passed away. Only three days later the cricket community lost Trevor West. Trevor played for both Munster and Phoenix but he will be remembered more for his tireless contribution to Trinity cricket and the Universities as a whole on the island. I would also like to extend the sympathy of the Union to all the families and club colleagues of all these and any others who passed away during the year. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anamnacha dílis.
Competitions 2012
The 2012 season will be remembered for being one of the wettest in recent years with little or no really sunny days.
A copy of the report of the OCC has been circulated prior to the meeting. Under the chairmanship of Paul Reynolds the committee worked very hard to ensure as many matches as possible were played.
Unfortunately the RSA senior cup final fell a partial victim to the weather and had to be carried over into a second day. The match was held in YMCA for the first time in 122 years and congratulations are due to YMCA for their excellent hosting of the final. The match resulted in a victory for Clontarf over Pembroke.
The Alan Murray 20/20 competition was kindly sponsored by NEARfm again in 2012. On the day of the finals, staged in Phoenix on the 5th of August, only the two semi-finals were completed when Rush defeated Terenure and YMCA defeated Clontarf. The final being held on the 26th August saw YMCA defeat Rush for their first senior win for 10 years.
The clubs once again had the fixtures for Division 1 and 2 made centrally. This will continue to happen for 2013. A draft set of fixtures have already been made and are to be published as soon as the dates for all the cup competitions are known and also the International fixtures.
The Irish men’s team played in the T20 World Cup finals in Sri Lanka in September. They were in a group with Australia and the West Indies and while performing well unfortunately didn’t make it through to the super eights. In the final West Indies defeated Australia showing what a difficult group Ireland had been in. The Irish women’s team again won their division of the County Championship in England and were promoted to Division three for 2013. The under 19’s played in their World Cup in Brisbane in July/august and finished a creditable 12th place out of 16 teams.
While all results are on the web site I feel it is necessary to record them here for those, and there are some, who do not as yet use the web site. Division 1 was won by Leinster. Clontarf and Terenure were demoted to Division 2 and the winners of Division 2, Pembroke together with the runners up Phoenix made a quick return to Division 1 for the 2013 season. Old Belvedere and Cork County have been demoted to Division 3 for 2013 and I would particularly like to congratulate Balbriggan on winning Division 3 and gaining promotion to Division 2 for 2013 they will be joined by the runners up in Division 3 Merrion 2. It is noted that of the 14 leagues 8 were won by a clubs’ first team. All league winners were:
Division 1 Leinster
Division 2 Pembroke
Division 3 Balbriggan
Division 4 Laois
Division 5 Dundrum
Division 6 YMCA 3
Division 7 Leinster 4
Division 8 Clontarf 4
Division 9 Dundalk
Division 10 Leinster 6
Division 11 Knockharley 2
Division 12 Greystones
Division 13 Ring Commons
Division 14 Dundrum 3
On an individual basis the Marchant Cup was won by Bill Coghlan (Clontarf). The bowling award, the O’Grady Cup, was won by Mohammad Tariq (Railway Union)). John Anderson (Merrion) won the Samuels Cup as the best all rounder. The Hopkins Cup for Wicket Keeping was won by Lee Cole (YMCA). The Solomons Cup for most catches was shared between Kenny Carroll and Pat Collins both from (Railway Union). Hugh McDonnell (Leinster) won the Young Player of the Year award. The John Dawson award for fair play went to Naseer Shoukat (The Hills). The Hall of Fame award went to Michael Halliday (Phoenix).
This year the web site continued to make a remarkable contribution to the running of the game. A great deal of thanks must again go to Paul Reynolds, chair of the Open Competitions Committee, who moderated the web site. This enabled the OCC to monitor starring lists closely and also have league tables up to date on a regular basis. It also unfortunately led to an increase in appeals against decisions of the OCC to penalise clubs to the executive. In most cases the appeals were overturned as the penalties were correctly imposed in line with the regulations. It has been decided that when the rules are revised in February to have a new decisions appeals committee. On behalf of the union I would also like to thank Gerry Byrne who yet again delivered the individual results every Monday so that all teams and individuals in the top four divisions knew where they stood.
Meetings:
The Executive Committee met frequently during the year. The attendance by delegates was very good. In addition, the system of sub-committees was again used to the full advantage. Under the new rules the committee members represented cricket and delegates to any of the committees were not there to represent their individual clubs. This was welcomed and worked well again. This year the committee dealt with, as mentioned above, a large number of appeals. It is hoped that next year the clubs will be more vigilant and read all regulations carefully and not get penalised.
This year the Disciplinary Committee, dealt with many more cases than in any previous year, 23 in total. There were no cases appealed to the new Appeals Committee. This year I am happy to report that more clubs took internal action prior to the disciplinary hearing and the committee commends the clubs for this. Clubs are again asked to be stricter in relation to discipline. The committee dealt with many level 1 offences without the need for a formal meeting when the player agreed the accuracy of the report. In these cases the committee issued a reprimand.
The Open Competitions Committee met on a regular basis. Their main area of business, as has been noted in their report circulated previous to the meeting, was the regulation of the playing of cricket for all divisions. The fixtures next year for divisions 1 and 2 will once again be made centrally as noted earlier. Any clubs considering entering additional teams to league or cup competitions or withdrawing teams are asked to do so without delay as draft fixtures have been made and also cup draws will be made in the near future.
The Finance Committee met regularly under the Chairmanship of Pat Banahan. The fees situation was reviewed again this year and a new fee charging structure was adopted. This entailed including the umpires fees with the affiliation fees. At the end of the year an adjustment was made and clubs were re-imbursed where relevant or charged extra if this was the outcome. As for the past number of years the only fund raising activity was a small raffle at the annual awards dinner. The committee are to be thanked for all their hard work in trying to raise sponsorship. They were very pleased to announce that they did attract a new sponsor in RSA. This sponsorship is directed at all Leinster cricket at all levels. We were very pleased that Lewis Hohn Williams continued their sponsorship and also to thank Fergus Carroll in the name of NEARfm who continued to sponsor the Alan Murray 20/20 competition.
During the year the committee finalised the insurances of the union under the direction of Donal O’Sullivan. Donal did many months of hard work on all aspects of the insurance and deserves thanks for everyone in the union.
Most clubs paid their fees promptly and they are to be thanked for that. Unfortunately every year there are still a small number of clubs who have to be chased constantly. This year, probably as a sign of the economic times, there was an increasing number of such clubs. The union likes clubs to contact them if they are in trouble and they can come to an agreement about payment. What is very frustrating is where a club is constantly contacted but never replies. If all clubs behaved like this it would not be possible to run the Union. It is thanks to the Hon. Treasurer Gerry Fennell that the finances of the Union are in a healthy state. He, together with the finance committee, draw up a budget which was strictly adhered to.
In addition to those sponsors named above I would like to thank all those who sponsor cricket at junior, women’s, youths and schools levels. The companies and individuals who place advertisements on the web site are also to be thanked. All are encouraged to support our sponsors whenever possible. If anyone knows of anyone interested in sponsoring any cricket competitions ask them to contact the Hon. Treasurer.
The term of office for the finance committee is two years and they are due for re-election this year. I thank the outgoing committee for all their hard work over the last two years.
The Development Committee under the chairmanship of Henry Tighe met on a regular basis. The new web site in the second year won an award for “Web site of the year”. The main business of the development committee over the past year was devising a club accreditation document. This is nearing completion and on completion will be circulated to the clubs for feedback. The aim of the document is to help clubs to improve their facilities. Not all clubs will be expected to have all facilities available but all clubs should aspire to have the best they can and the union will help them in any way it can. The union also issued one loan under their new scheme of interest free loans for capital projects.
Brian O’Rourke continued as the Union’s development officer throughout the past year. In the fourteen years since Brian took up his position the improvement in underage teams can be seen. Brian has prepared a report and this has been circulated to all clubs. Brian is also to be congratulated on his upcoming marriage. Again this year the Union contributed many players to International teams at all underage levels. The success of the underage teams in European and World competitions, in the case of the under 19’s, is due in no small way to the Leinster players on the various sides who have been developed by Brian. The finance committee successfully negotiated continued funding with Fingal County Council for Reinhardt Strydom as development officer in the Fingal area at grass roots level to assist Brian. Also during the year we lost Andy Leonard as development officer for South Dublin County Council to Cricket Ireland. We wish him well in his new role. He was replaced by Kenny Carroll and Kenny is doing very good work in the area. Subsequently, through the government JobBridge scheme, Amy Kenealy was employed by Dublin County Council. This was also negotiated by Brian on behalf of the Union along with the President Eddie Lewis. Amy is expected to continue with South Dublin County Council with a special role in the development of girls, women’s and disability cricket. This position will also be supported by the Lord’s Taverners. If any of you are not a member of the Lord’s Taverners I ask you to join. The donation is only €60 a year and they run many enjoyable events throughout the year the highlight of which is their Christmas lunch. Brian is also in negotiation with other county councils for support for further development officers in their areas. Brian once again should be commended for his hard work.
Through all the development officers’ hard work there are three more new clubs entering league competitions for the first time in 2013 and an additional five teams from existing clubs. This is a very welcome initiative as most of the new clubs are in areas where cricket was not played before. The new clubs are Longford, Lucan and Slieve Bloom. The clubs with extra teams are Adamstown thirds, Castleknock, formerly Clonee, seconds, Greystones seconds and thirds and Swords seconds.
The Umpires and Scorers Association was as usual very busy with training courses during the winter. Through their Appointments Secretary Peter Thew, the umpires once again provided excellent coverage for all matches in divisions 1 and 2 and many more in lower divisions and also in cup competitions. Their report was also circulated prior to the meeting. The coverage given by the umpires is appreciated by all players. Unfortunately there are still too few people willing to give their services to the Association. Only if umpires ranks are swelled, can coverage of all matches be continued and extended. Enjoyment of the game could be even greater if there were enough people willing to give of their time even to cover one or two matches in a season. Again I appeal to clubs to listen to this message and to try to encourage members to give of their time for even one or two matches during the season.
A report from the following branches or committees Open Competitions, Umpires and Scorers, Grounds, Schools and Youths, Coaches, Women’s, Brian O’Rourke on Development and Branches/Committees were circulated separately and therefore have not been referred to in detail in this report.
The annual Leinster Cricket Union awards dinner took place in Old Belvedere Rugby Club in October. The night, as in previous years, was very enjoyable. It was a very successful social occasion and all award winners were presented with their trophies both league and individual. Thanks are expressed to Brian Merry for organising the venue and to Michael Sharp for acting as MC for the distribution of all the trophies. This year the union had all trophies supplied by MMI. The trophies were collected centrally and not all trophies were delivered. This was the first year to use MMI and the trophies were cleaned and polished and delivered to Old Belvedere for the dinner. It is expected that next year as clubs get used to the system all trophies will be delivered in good time.
This year I am pleased to report that we will have elections for four committees the Executive, Disciplinary, Grounds and Development. All committee members are elected to serve on a committee with a particular reference to some area of cricket administration. They are not there to represent their clubs and indeed if an issue arises which concerns their own club they should not take part in the discussion in fairness to those clubs not represented on the committee. This is not always easy for some people but must happen in the interest of transparency. Please note that when you are voting in a few minutes you have to vote for up to the number of vacancies on each committee. For example if there are five positions and six candidates you can vote for one, two, three, four or five people.
I would like to thank the PRO Fergus Carroll, who conducted the RSA senior cup draw and the Alan Murray NEARfm 20/20 divisions live on NEARfm. In addition I would like to thank the Hon. Secretaries of all the clubs, all members of all sub-committees, the Open Competitions Committee, Women’s, Youth and Schools Branches, Umpires and Scorers, Grounds, Finance and Development for their hard work and co-operation throughout the year.
Finally I would like to thank everyone else who has supported me in my role of Hon. Secretary. In particular I would like to thank my fellow officers Eddie, Henry, and Gerry. Eddie finishes his term as president this year and I wish him well and am pleased to report that he will remain active in the union. I would like to welcome the incoming President, Henry Tighe, Henry has been an officer for the past year as President elect and chaired the Development Committee in that role. I’m sure he will bring his own stamp to the Presidency and if re-elected later on tonight, I look forward to working with him. I would like to thank Eddie and Ursula for hosting many meetings. I would also like to thank Michael for his support and for putting up with other sub-committee meetings in the “Sharp Conference Centre” in Dornden Park throughout the year. The members of all the sub-committees worked tirelessly and deserve all your thanks, there are too many of them to mention them all individually. I would also like to take this opportunity to personally thank the sponsors who helped me organise their respective competitions.
As always I must thank Stella Downes and the Clontarf Club for always being willing to make the facilities here in Castle Avenue available for general meetings. In addition this year we held the disciplinary meetings once again in Pembroke and I would like to thank Philip Byrne and Pembroke for allowing us use the pavilion in Sydney Parade. In addition I would also like to thank all the other people in all cricket clubs who offered advice when it was necessary and especially to those who responded promptly to all e-mail queries. I must stress however that there are still a small number of clubs whose Hon. Secretaries never respond and this results in having to make several extra contacts which obviously takes time. I appeal to all Hon. Secretaries to respond promptly to all emails when a response is required.
If I have forgotten to thank anyone I apologise. May I thank you all for your attention and wish you, your families, clubs and all the new committees success in 2013. I wish you all a very Happy Christmas, a prosperous New Year, good weather over the next couple of months and of course for the season ahead and all the best on and off the field for the next twelve months.