The Re-Structuring Of The County Championship - Let's Fix What Isn't Broken

 

Fixing What Isn’t Broken: the ECB takes things out on the County Championship

 

September 10^th 2015

 

There is a persistent myth among fans that nobody watches the County Championship and that nobody is interested in it. This mainly seems to be spread by people who never attend and is rarely contradicted: after all, who is going to contradict such a self-evident fact? The fact that this perception exists that it  does not matter because nobody cares, makes the Championship vulnerable.

Anecdotal evidence though, suggests something different. What few figures are published on attendances suggest that they have been increasing steadily in recent years. County commentaries on the Internet and on Digital Radio were for some years limited to Surrey and Middlesex but, after a period of expanding gradually, were finally extended to all official games played by all First Class counties and, in 2015, even to occasional Minor County matches. Each county has its loyal listeners, many from within the county borders, others, exiles who can finally follow their team; radio stations are reported to be surprised and delighted by the listening figures. When you listen to the different counties you hear that there are listeners all around the world, many not even British, who tweet, e-mail and follow their team with passion. The CricInfo “County Cricket Live” page claims (and they should know) that several hundred fans are logged-in at any one time following text updates and chat when there is a County Championship round in progress.

Why does cricket not sell itself better by actually publishing reliable attendance figures?? Surely the technology exists to count how many people come into the ground? Administrators might just have a surprise from the figures that they obtain!!! [OK, perhaps the ECB prefers people not to know that the Championship is actually quite popular with the fans]

As a resident abroad, my own attendance at county cricket is limited to occasional days at Championship games but, on the occasions that I have attended in the last few years, I have almost always been surprised by the size of the crowd. Even on a cold Sunday in May last year, at lunchtime Lord's disgorged an amazing number of people into the walkways around the ground.

My impression is that the situation that held sway back in the late ‘70s and early '80s, when I attended more regularly, has inverted since. Then, even a mid-week Gillette/Nat West Cup game attracted a sizable crowd, while a visit to Lord's for a CC game (Middlesex v Gloucestershire), revealed an almost empty ground - I could, quite literally, count the spectators on my fingers; now, at least the impression that is given, is that Championship cricket is, at least for some counties, better attended these days than the One-Day Cup (let's face it, even the Final hasn't been a sell-out for years).

When one-day cricket started in the 1960s, it was the saviour of the counties. Grounds that were empty for Championship cricket filled for the Cup matches – to the delight of counties, the coffers swelled as a result. As a kid, my great hero was Mike Proctor and the image of him was roaring in to bowl in Cup games almost from the Jessop Tavern at Bristol, backed by a noisy, baying crowd. Now, games are played in near silence in front of empty stands. A surfeit of games and the number of meaningless games in the Group stages reduces all tension and interest and spectator interest seems minimal. In contrast, Championship crowds are swelling and the better-supported counties boast of having several thousand fans in on some days (5000+ is said to be not unusual for big days and big games), yet official attendances are never published.

Football, even rugby, carefully document how many people come through the turnstiles. Despite figures suggesting the Championship attendances have increased steadily for some years (radio commentary must have a lot to do with that), not only do attendance figures not get published, on the rare occasions when they do for the Championship as a whole, the members who have paid for the cricketing equivalent of a footballing season ticket, are not even counted!!! Can you imagine an official Premier League attendance being given as 1500 because the 20 000 fans who came using their season ticket are not officially present because they did not pay at the gate???  It is bizarre.

Yet another shake-up of County cricket is promised for 2017. I would write “threatened”, but well-placed sources say that it is a done deal. The loser is understood to be the one competition that players, clubs and fans say matters most and actually works fine: the Championship itself.

Speculation has been rife all season. At one point a move to three divisions of seven teams seemed likely. This would have required three extra teams in Division 3 and they were even identified as being likely to be Ireland, Scotland and a combined Devon and Cornwall team. Each team would play the others in its division home and away, for a total of twelve games. Concern centred around the viability of Division 3 cricket – likely to be semi-professional, with the danger that sides stuck in Division 3 for a prolonged period would not survive – and whether or not twelve games would be enough to be a true test of the Champion county of the land. There was also the issue of just how much First Class cricket, if any, would be played during the summer Test series. This summer was bad enough, with a virtual hiatus in the Championship meaning that, potentially, the selectors might have to call up replacements based only on T20 and 50-over form. There was a danger that reducing the number of Championship matches by 25% to fit in more limited overs games would damage the Test side more than help it.

Other formulae were even more alarming. A two-division Championship with fewer matches. Imagine, nine teams and twelve games: you play everyone in your Division once and some sides home and away. The result would be to remove all credibility from the Championship. Imagine two sides in Division 1: one plays Middlesex, Yorkshire and Durham twice, the other Worcestershire, Hampshire and Somerset, all at home; which would be more likely to end up as Champions? Throw in a couple of weeks of rain in early season and the Championship would become a lottery, decided by the fixture computer. John McEnroe summed it up nicely when he screamed at officialdom “you cannot be serious”.

However, the formula that the ECB has apparently come up with is a hybrid. Fourteen games rather than twelve. Two divisions. These two points may be a sop to fans and players to convince them that things could have been far more radical and much worse. Eight teams in Division 1. Ten in Division 2.

You can do the maths yourself. In Division 1 each side will play seven rivals home and away. Integrity is preserved and, as there is usually one side in Division 1 that is so far off the pace that it is embarrassing, all the reform does is remove that whipping boy team. It is unarguable that Division 1 will become even tougher: there will be fewer easy games and every team will either be fighting for prize money or fighting against relegation to the last game. Talent will be concentrated still further and, it was stated that Sophia Gardens will be the only Test ground not to see Division 1 cricket in 2016 (that assumes though that Hampshire are not relegated this year, something that is looking increasingly unlikely as Somerset tighten the noose in their relegation clash).

Division 2 though becomes a nightmare.

The suggestion is that one team will be promoted in 2016 and two relegated. This will not please sides that have ambitions to get out of Division 2 quickly (e.g. this season’s two relegated teams, only one of whom at most can get promoted straight back).

In 2017, Division 2 will be at the tender mercies of that faceless machine. Ten teams. Fourteen games. Sides will play everyone else once and five sides home and away. Imagine your “joy” at discovering, as you could have done this season, that you got Lancashire and Surrey home and away and Leicestershire, Kent and Derbyshire (the bottom three sides) only away. The difference between a benevolent fixture computer and a malevolent one may be as many as fifty points. It also means more strong sides in the division and a greater opportunity for the fixture computer to decide which side(s) will get promoted or, at least, to influence which ones they are rather too much for comfort. Yes, it is only Division 2 but, if it is your side that is stuck there, hoping to scramble its way out, the fact that the Championship itself will stay pure will be cold comfort.

As of today, although Surrey and Lancashire are well clear at the top of Division 2, just 25 points (one more than a maximum points win) separate Northamptonshire in 3^rd and Kent in 8^th. In recent years the trend has been for the Division 2 table to be tight like this behind a single, dominant team, with as many as six sides having a chance of promotion almost to the end; years like 2015 where promotion has been clear since half way are though real exceptions. A stronger Division 2 will make the battle to get out even tougher, which may itself be no bad thing; however, for sides like Kent and Leicestershire who have fallen on hard times and are trying to get back into the top flight, it is seriously bad news, as their task has just got even harder,

When the more ambitious Division 2 counties with aspirations to play in Division 1 realise how much tougher it is going to be to achieve that aim and how hard it will be to stay in the top flight, the turkeys may realise finally that they have voted for Christmas.

A petition is circulating at https://www.change.org/p/england-and-wales-cricket-board-to-maintain-a-16-match-county-championship?recruiter=374854840&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink to maintain a sixteen game Championship. In six days it has garnered almost 1200 signatures. With the word being that the change to the Championship is agreed and will happen, only a massive outpouring of indignation could perhaps stop it, sadly, that is quite clearly not happening, Maybe people do not care enough after all. The one competition that almost everyone agrees works well is going to suffer in an attempt that many fear is futile to fix the two that almost everyone is agreed do not work properly.

However, when the full implications of the change work through, do not be amazed if the same administrators who signed-off on the deal agitate to change things back… or, maybe, to try another formula for radical change.