2013 Final Stage

Discussion about all aspects of the ECF County Championships.
Roger de Coverly
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Re: 2013 Final Stage

Post by Roger de Coverly » Wed Jun 19, 2013 10:42 am

David Gilbert wrote: Indeed, I'm not sure how the County Association could have got hold of the names of the players and referees in order to ban them!
I could imagine that if run in private, a local County Association might just tolerate something unauthorised. If they tried to enforce bans, they might find themselves on the wrong side of the legal action as monopoly powers of a local FA probably lack a legal underpin.

But if a league got to the stage of being reported in the press, names of both players and officials would become apparent and action could be taken.

There was almost a situation like this in the early years of the 4NCL. There had been a falling out between the 4NCL and the BCF such that the BCF was intending to set up its own official league. In the event, it never got beyond being a talking shop, but it did cause some BCF supporting teams to withdraw from that season's 4NCL. The BCF didn't really have the power to sanction or not sanction the 4NCL, less still ban players and arbiters who had taken part. But what if it had those powers? It could then have terminated the unofficial league to promote its own official league.

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John Upham
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Re: 2013 Final Stage

Post by John Upham » Wed Jun 19, 2013 10:44 am

Roger de Coverly wrote: It might be overkill, perhaps there should be a rules sub-committee in parallel to the governance and finance committees charged with scrutinising every word and publishing not only the words but the intent behind them.
I nominate Roger to be that committee: let the scrutinisation commence! All output from that committee => /dev/null
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Brian Valentine
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Re: 2013 Final Stage

Post by Brian Valentine » Wed Jun 19, 2013 10:56 am

I can't comment on football, but since Alex started by comparing with cricket, I thought I could put my penny worth in relating to that sport. There is this precedent at the professional level: http://www.ecb.co.uk/ecb/about-ecb/medi ... older-L-11.

At the recreational level registration is merely to check out overseas players, (ex) professional players and juniors. There is no fee to register and my old club has over 100 registrations for 3 teams. Registration takes place on-line up to 11am match day for 1pm starts. Opposition can check out and report unregistered players within 3 days. I have had the pleasure of umpiring a match with an ex England captain and the chore of reporting that he was not registered.

The penalties are points deductions. In one league its 10 points (30 points for a win) in the other its all points in that match (i.e. the team suffer, but the opposition get no benefit).

I don't doubt that Alex is correct with his examples, but the information above is from the higher levels of recreational cricket.

David Gilbert
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Re: 2013 Final Stage

Post by David Gilbert » Wed Jun 19, 2013 11:03 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:
But if a league got to the stage of being reported in the press, names of both players and officials would become apparent and action could be taken.
Indeed games were reported in the South Eat London Mercury, the South London Press and the Kentish Independent. But naming "John Smith" as the goal scorer and "Bob Jones" as the referee, they would still be pretty much untraceable for any County Association. And it just didn't happen.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: 2013 Final Stage

Post by Roger de Coverly » Wed Jun 19, 2013 11:04 am

Brian Valentine wrote: Opposition can check out and report unregistered players within 3 days.
Other than giving a reason for match results to be challenged, what purpose does pre-registration serve that couldn't be done by recording who took part after the match ?

Brian Valentine
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Re: 2013 Final Stage

Post by Brian Valentine » Wed Jun 19, 2013 11:16 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Brian Valentine wrote: Opposition can check out and report unregistered players within 3 days.
Other than giving a reason for match results to be challenged, what purpose does pre-registration serve that couldn't be done by recording who took part after the match ?
It is one of the laws of cricket that team lists are provided to the umpires before the toss. These are sent to the league secretary after the match for record keeping. Administratively it is simpler to do things once! The leagues have rules about the number of non residents, restrictions on (ex) professionals and there is a strong focus on the safety and development of juniors. Players can only play for one club in a season (ignoring very exceptional circumstances), cannot drop down to lower teams late in the season and there is a need to check on players banned for disciplinary reasons.

PeterFarr
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Re: 2013 Final Stage

Post by PeterFarr » Wed Jun 19, 2013 11:34 am

David Gilbert wrote:
Roger de Coverly wrote:
But if a league got to the stage of being reported in the press, names of both players and officials would become apparent and action could be taken.
Indeed games were reported in the South Eat London Mercury, the South London Press and the Kentish Independent. But naming "John Smith" as the goal scorer and "Bob Jones" as the referee, they would still be pretty much untraceable for any County Association. And it just didn't happen.
This and Brian Valentine's post above perhaps illustrates where the football / cricket analogies begin to break down. The big difference is that the ECF has a central online database which is now checked for each match (subject to whatever bugs etc) at the national stages of the CC. Even for the FA Cup, player registration for non-contract players is through being a member of your club's local league I believe. So I suspect that a mass of technical breaches are never discovered, certainly at the more recreational levels.

I would guess that eligibility queries for much of football and cricket usually happen where a player is unrecognized by the opposition and seems to be suspiciously good. I could be wrong - I'm not an expert on either sport.

Older readers here can join me in getting nostalgic about the Dad's army episode in which Fred Trueman turned out to play cricket for the wardens against the Home Guard.

If the ECF didn't have a central online database, probably nobody at the minor counties QF would have dreamt of saying for example, "that Jonathan Rogers looks like a shady character, lets check up on his membership" Instead there would have been the usual "oh look, its the same Essex team as they've been putting out for the last 150 years, what a shock". (I don't intend any insult to Essex; most of us in the Sussex team date back to Napoleonic times, so we can't throw stones, and that's a different issue about county chess...)

Roger de Coverly
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Re: 2013 Final Stage

Post by Roger de Coverly » Wed Jun 19, 2013 11:37 am

Brian Valentine wrote:There is no fee to register and my old club has over 100 registrations for 3 teams.
Presumably then, there's no requirement on individual players to pay some form of subscription to a national body and be deemed unregistered if their renewal is outstanding?

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: 2013 Final Stage

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Wed Jun 19, 2013 12:18 pm

" Every team knows that if they play an ineligible player by accident (because they forgot to sign some paperwork for example) then they get kicked out of the cup. It's harsh, but it is effective in making sure that most people comply. "

Sean is right of course (except when certain Premiership teams are involved!). But surely the point in this case is that the County Championships appear to be an isolated example where the rule applies. In the great majority of competitions, you can register retrospectively. As I said before, but everyone has ignored, you also have the very unusual situation here that a player can start off eligible and then become ineligible later in the same competition.

I'm all for abiding by rules, but it is not easy to captain a team (especially a county team) and making the job even more difficult for no reason does not seem helpful.

Rules should be enforced. Rules should not be invented for the sole purpose of making life difficult for the participants.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: 2013 Final Stage

Post by Roger de Coverly » Wed Jun 19, 2013 12:33 pm

Kevin Thurlow wrote:"As I said before, but everyone has ignored, you also have the very unusual situation here that a player can start off eligible and then become ineligible later in the same competition.
It's applied to the 4NCL for many years that memberships could expire mid-season. The 4NCL appeared to take the view that enforcing ECF membership midway through the competition wasn't something they would do unless the ECF demanded it of them.

When it first became the case that the ECF demanded that the 4NCL should require membership as a condition of registering players, employees of the ECF would turn up at the first round to collect the money. This did at least have the side effect that renewals would in future years be before the start of the season.

Brian Valentine
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Re: 2013 Final Stage

Post by Brian Valentine » Wed Jun 19, 2013 1:01 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Brian Valentine wrote:There is no fee to register and my old club has over 100 registrations for 3 teams.
Presumably then, there's no requirement on individual players to pay some form of subscription to a national body and be deemed unregistered if their renewal is outstanding?
You presume correctly. Umpires do have to pay to a national body to be appointed to higher standards of cricket :(

Neville Belinfante
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Re: 2013 Final Stage

Post by Neville Belinfante » Thu Jun 20, 2013 6:24 pm

If Middlesex do decide to contest the final, could someone please let their team manager know that I am eligible to play for them. Whether I am available on that day is of course another matter.

A few years ago, Cyril Johnson in his role of ECF Home Director presented a paper to Council called something like "Protocols on eligibility for the County Championships". I have been unable to find it on the ECF website. If anyone still has a copy could they post it here please.

Regards

Neville Belinfante

Alex Holowczak
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Re: 2013 Final Stage

Post by Alex Holowczak » Thu Jun 20, 2013 10:26 pm

Brian Valentine wrote:
Roger de Coverly wrote:
Brian Valentine wrote: Opposition can check out and report unregistered players within 3 days.
Other than giving a reason for match results to be challenged, what purpose does pre-registration serve that couldn't be done by recording who took part after the match ?
It is one of the laws of cricket that team lists are provided to the umpires before the toss. These are sent to the league secretary after the match for record keeping. Administratively it is simpler to do things once! The leagues have rules about the number of non residents, restrictions on (ex) professionals and there is a strong focus on the safety and development of juniors. Players can only play for one club in a season (ignoring very exceptional circumstances), cannot drop down to lower teams late in the season and there is a need to check on players banned for disciplinary reasons.
This is how it works in the Warwickshire League. You get a form with the team lists on one side (including declaring the ages of any under 19s), and then the reverse is filled in by the umpires, and is all about the quality of the pitch, outfield and any disciplinary issues.

On top of that, captains have to text a basic result (e.g. which team won), and then also have to log in to a website to report the full scorecard of the matches. If you fail to do so twice, you get league matchpoints taken off you. See this from Division Five, the bottom regular division, for example: http://warcl.play-cricket.com/scoreboar ... d=11660686

Here's a selection of penalties:
Not attending a league meeting - 5 points deducted
Not supplying match balls - 5 points deducted
Slow over rates - 1 point deducted, then 2 points for a second offence, 4 points for a third offence, 8 for a fourth offence etc.
Not reporting results or sending in match forms within a prescribed time - warning first, then 2 points deducted

So it's quite conceivable that you could lose the league because you left the match balls in a bag at home. Or because you took too long to bowl your overs in the last game of the season. These are all amateurs, and unpaid volunteers...

Alex Holowczak
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Re: 2013 Final Stage

Post by Alex Holowczak » Thu Jun 20, 2013 10:28 pm

Kevin Thurlow wrote:As I said before, but everyone has ignored, you also have the very unusual situation here that a player can start off eligible and then become ineligible later in the same competition.
This won't be a situation going forwards when all of the "old-style" memberships expire, and we're all on the fixed season memberships.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: 2013 Final Stage

Post by Roger de Coverly » Thu Jun 20, 2013 10:39 pm

Alex Holowczak wrote: This won't be a situation going forwards when all of the "old-style" memberships expire, and we're all on the fixed season memberships.
If a league or knock out competition introduces a rule which says that matches will incur penalty points if non-members take part, they will have the identical problem for matches in September and October. If players are renewing through MOs, there won't be any reliable national lists.

The £ 2 per game and membership backdating buys time, but at least according to the original Farthing paper, it was only regarded as a temporary expedient. For any match captain, the simplest system of running a league team is that you pay a fixed entry fee for the team as a whole and after that you can use anyone eligible by your local rules.

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