“Winning is a habit. Unfortunately so is losing.”
Vince Lombardi Jr.
Muppets!
Some may remember my story from over two years ago – Bradford Council And The Muppets – concerning the appalling decision to flatten
the old Hutton Middle School in favour of new shoeboxes and that by a developer with little experience of housebuilding.
Building has started and I recently received this from Andy Chilton who led the fight to offer an alternative to the crap they will throw up now at the whim of the senile old fools on the Bradford Council planning committee.
“I see the cornflake boxes construction has begun – Hutton Hall is the name of the new development. Breaks my heart to see what they have done to this plot – it was a key feature in the village. Gone forever.
John Hutton (Chair of the school for 25 years and who donated the land – and whose house i gladly inhabit and protect in its listed form(!!!) – would turn in his grave.
No excuse at all – housing crisis would have been satisfied by the alternative scheme that was put forward by my architect friend. Shame on Bradford Council for selling its communities short for the sake of a few quid to lose its heritage – our heritage. Morons.”
Only last week the lame brains ratified a hopeless plan to build over 42,000 new homes in the district by 2030 – see here.
It will never happen because it never has before at this rate. As I have written before, developers will cherry-pick this with the helpless halfwits at their fingertips until they have built what they wanted. Then they will rename us Leeds.
The Time Of Their Lives
As the junior cricket season comes to an abrupt end, the club said a sad farewell to several youngsters who have been with us for years. Why you may ask when the game is crying out for participants?
The brutal truth is that these youngsters are not yet ready for senior cricket and under 15 is now the end of the line. Of course this is idiocy in the extreme.
We have a minority sport with falling numbers and yet we cannot retain youngsters with a passion for the game. None of these kids are future England players yet that does not matter.
They could be future club stalwarts, a regular 20 game a season pick and who knows how they may develop in later years? So why does this happen?
Back in 2002 none of the kids above were likely future world-beaters but they persevered and, I believe, 3 out of the 4 still play. Since then though the landscape has changed markedly but administrators have been utterly inept at recognising this.
Firstly, leagues have the strategic thinking capacity of a Dodo Bird. Their inability to realise kids need more time to develop in this age of inactivity should force them to revise the current age group bandings from 11/13/15 to 12/14/16. They refuse to do this on grounds of preserving their “elite” frameworks.
Secondly, we need alliances between leagues and clubs to feed kids up and down between the appropriate standards. Again, leagues seem unable to talk to each other and direction from the regional and national governing bodies is woefully absent.
So we spend years encouraging a love for the game and nurturing skills and then, at the age of 15, we say goodbye to all bar those we can safely introduce to the senior game.
And, of course, the format of the senior game remains in the dark ages. Despite numerous player surveys – why canvas those that still enjoy your product – we continue to lose players unable or unwilling to commit a whole day anymore.
It is a failure of generations and of the traditions of the sport in times moving far too quickly for stunted thinking.
Tuna Man Gets A Job
We had an impromptu braii last Saturday aided by a speculative purchase of some trendy gin which was consumed with alacrity largely by Molly, She Who Must Be Obeyed (especially when full of gin) and Jones the Mower.
Marsy had conned young Jess into a night at the club on the speculative promise of fine dining and cheap gin. She glanced at the Morrison’s value burgers plus the young “chef” pressed into duty and smiled at her choice of future home many miles away from this lot.
Our “real” chef, Fingers Pratt, was strangely absent; either that or still maintaining a safe distance from our “real” tea ladies, several of whom have yet to reconcile his comments suggesting our Saturday afternoon feasts are inadequate.
Molly had dressed for the occasion and it was a sight to see, the big man nursing a goldfish bowl of gin and tonic.
Tuna Man seemed very happy stuck at the grill with Non Playing Stiffs’ Captain King directing operations from seat number eight in the clubhouse.
Young Darwin was employed as chief runner as Captain King regaled us with tales of yesteryear. Who needs cocaine?
One Hundred Years Ago
There are a few issues with the link here. Hoping for a solution shortly.
Footnote
This is an email sent to the Bradford Junior League by our U15 coach this week and goes a long way to explaining why we struggle to retain kids in the game of cricket.
On Sunday I had the pleasure of taking my group of U15’s to face the Aire Valley All-stars (our somewhat sarcastic name for Keighley CC – Ed).
I was concerned that only having 10 men ourselves, the already daunting proposition of the Champions elect would be just that little more difficult.
Upon taking the field to bowl first, I humbly apologised to their Umpire that we only had 10 men. I was shocked to hear that they had only managed to ship in 8 Kolpak players (one less than the reverse fixture earlier on in the summer).
The 8 All-stars promptly went on to score 50 more runs that was probably required to make a competitive game. For the second half I passed on Umpiring duties to Mr Basil King.
I had only manged two sips of tea (bacon butties not available) before the 8 men of Keighley were out in the middle ready for the second half. After 4/5 overs at the fall of a wicket Mr King was made aware that one of the 8 had to leave for another game, thus leaving the All Stars with 7.
Mr King consulted with Steve and myself as to how many players a team needed to constitute a game. After a few minutes dialogue between Mr King and their Umpire in the middle, the game continued under a farcical situation of 5 fielders, one bowler, one keeper and one very keen Keighley umpire.
Even with the 7 men the bowling was simply too strong and the match resulted in a very comfortable win for the home team. To add insult to injury, Keighley CC did not provide a scorer, let alone a competent scorer. It was tasked upon our scorer to score and work the scoreboard.
I apologise for the sarcastic manner of this email. I blame it on too many years of being cheated by the likes of Keighley and others. I’m just happy that as of next year there will be different faces at Keighley, if they can manage to field a team.
Ah the Spirit of Cricket!
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