Double Rant! Inter-District matters

League News

With nine teams in the Yorkshire Veterans Inter-District League competition this year it means that one team has a bye each matchday. The opening week of the season (Friday 1 May), it was the Huddersfield team that stood down whilst the other 8 teams started their season. The results from those fixtures are below along with the programme of matches for the next round to be played on Friday 15 May.

The first week of fixtures produced a big defeat for Huddersfield's first opponents Castleford when they went down 20-36 to a Bradford team that finished third from the bottom last year. Those 20-points kept the Castleford team off the foot of the table with Wakefield going down heavily 7-49 to the West Riding team. Leeds beat Halifax 42-14 to go 2nd in the first table of the season. The top two teams clash on Friday.

Time for a DOUBLE RANT!

RANT ONE

This coming Friday the Huddersfield teams meet their Castleford counterparts with the home team playing at Lockwood Con. Goodness knows why they have chosen the Lockwood Con green when it is widely accepted that it is in the worst condition it has been in for many years. This gives a poor impression of bowling in Huddersfield to visiting teams from outside the area as well as making games a bit of a lottery. Why gamble when you have the strongest home team in the League and are playing the weakest away team in the League?

There are a number of factors that have contributed to the condition of the Lockwood Con green including last year's drought conditions, hosepipe ban, an extended period when there was a vacant greenkeeper position within the club and no winter break in use over the last two years. The photo on this website's homepage gives an indication of the condition of the Lockwood Con green at present.

Using the green for Winter League matches has proven to be a double-edged sword. Without a break in use, any remedial action has proved difficult to take hold to make a big difference to the condition of the green. However without the funding that the Winter League matches have generated, there was a real danger that the club would have gone out of business before now (not my words). The club has become very dependent on that income to see them through the Winter months over the past two years.

The Winter League is now actively involved with Lockwood Con in trying to find a solution to this problem and contribute to the remedial action so urgently needed. It is important that a break be introduced this Winter to bring the green back to it's former glory but at the same time not endangering the future viability of the club. We are hopeful of agreeing a way forward but there is some work to do on that before we can look forward in a more positive manner but we are on the case along with the Lockwood Con Club Committee.

RANT TWO

Meanwhile the Veterans League Inter-District season is up and running with a list of the Friday fixtures below. No team news yet but I am not hopeful that the League has learnt anything at all from last season's failure to be involved in the race to be the County Champions. Finishing 4th of 9 teams in the competition is a total failure with the resources available to them and the track record of winning this competition more times than any other District team.

The Huddersfield team has not won this title since 2021. That is four years without winning this competition. That is Huddersfield's longest losing run since the competition started in 1992 and they have won it 16 times over those 33 years. I wouldn't take money on that losing run being extended even further this year unless they see sense in making a fundamental change to team selection.

I have been informed that team selection will continue to work as it has done for the last four years, so no change means no chance. Those four winless years are lost forever and we should look forward to introducing change to win the competition again. Each year we delay that change then we will fall further behind the Leeds team that made the same change three years ago and have won the title twice since.

The reasons for that and the obvious solution is staring the organisers in the face. I don't think they want to win it any more. If this was a horse race there would be a Steward's Enquiry and penalties handed out. I direct you to my post mortem on this website last September, which looks in detail at the problem and blatant answer to the problem.

The match this Friday will provide no answers to the problem as the Huddersfield team play Castleford, who have been the weakest team in the competition for many years and didn't win one match last season finishing bottom of the table. Their home team did actually win 4 of their home matches last year with the biggest of those wins being 21-7 over the Huddersfield team. This is not a criticism of the Huddersfield away team with a number of my clubmates being members as they have been put in a no-win situation. A regulation big opening win for the Huddersfield team will only delay the inevitable following collapse thereafter. Am I the only one that can see this? Now read this Inter-District post mortem again: 'The problem and the solution'.

END OF RANTS