Veterans League
The Veterans League Management Committee are forcing through a new rule which I believe is seriously flawed and will create the beginning of the decline of the League. They don't appear to have anyone who can explain this new rule to me, which doesn't surprise me one jot! The implications of this new rule has not been thoroughly considered by the Management Committee which Is sleepwalking to a disaster. This ill-thought-through disaster will hasten the decline of the League which currently needs all the help and leadership that can be mustered.
First of all, thank you to the club representatives who forwarded me copies of the HDVBA paperwork including the wording supporting the new rule proposal. I have read this carefully and have serious concerns about the new rule proposals to replace the Starred Bowler rule.
This tells me that the Management Committee has scrapped the Starred Bowlers ruling which was introduced many years ago to protect lower league and 6-man team bowlers and has been the focus of annual tinkering to meet the changing needs of clubs. The Starred Bowlers rule was responsible for the banning of 5 bowlers per team from Section 1 and 2 clubs in appearing for lower league teams. The new rule bans an absolute minimum of 10 bowlers per Section 1 & 2 team from playing for any other team in the Veterans League.
This will mean that whereas previously 140 named bowlers (5 from each of the 28 Section 1 and 2 teams) could only bowl for one team in the 10-Man and 6-Man Leagues there are now at least 280 unnamed bowlers banned from playing. That number will increase further as the season progresses. The League exists to provide competitive bowling for the Over-60 male bowlers in Huddersfield. They are now failing to stick to that remit by banning a growing number of bowlers from playing in our league. These bowlers will then go elsewhere for a game and take their teams with them no doubt. I've never known an organisation work so hard to stop people doing what they are supposed to be there for.
This will send shudders through the clubs that have been struggling to field full teams for a number of years among a backdrop of declining numbers as our sport faces its biggest challenges to date. At a time when the true impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our sport is unknown the League shoots itself in the foot by introducing a draconian measure which will set it back many years. I believe that this Management Committee is introducing a rule which will start the decline of the Veterans League.
This new rule is seriously flawed! This is not just an emotional outburst to capture the headlines this a statement based on facts and experience. Let me explain how this new rule will undermine all the efforts of Veterans League clubs to field full teams in the coming season.
First of all - What is the rule change?
All mention of Starred Bowlers have been deleted from the rule book and replaced with a new Match Play Rule 1c) which simply says:
1c} No Division 1 or Division 2 player can play in a club's lower 10-man or 6-man teams if he has played over 50% of the total number of league matches in the current season. This applies to league and knock-out competition matches. Any infringement will result in that player losing 21-0.
I think the ruling is unclear and open to two different interpretations.
Does the ban come into effect when -
a) a player reaches 13 first-team appearances (50% of a 26 match season) or
b) if they have played 50% of the matches played at any one time?
I've wrote to the League asking which is their interpretation. Their response was 'No comment'.
Maybe a club representative would like to ask the same question of the League about when 'does the ban come into effect' and the two option answers. I would insist on a response in writing as that interpretation may change over time once the practicalities of enforcing such an ambiguous rule is challenged. Maybe I am doing the League an injustice. Maybe they don't know the answer! Well someone needs to because this will become law for the 2021 season as the Management Committee takes a sleepwalk into another disaster. Whichever way it means it to be interpreted, is flawed.
Let's first look at the impact of interpretation a)
a) a player reaches 13 first-team appearances (50% of a 26 match season)
All your bowlers can play in any league or team KO competition until the beginning of July. Where is the protection previously offered to 6-man team regular bowlers by the Starred Bowlers ruling? There is none, it is open house and teams can play all their 10-man League stars every Monday for 13 weeks.
In the last season played (2019) the 6-Man League had also played two rounds of the Julie Fuller Trophy by the end of June and were down to the last eight. So teams could have played their best bowlers to get them to this advanced stage of the competition and then they would all be banned from playing in that competition any further. Where do you think they are going to get bowlers from to complete their KO season?
Worse than that the rules also ban any bowler from playing in the Julie Fuller Trophy KO competition unless they have played at least two league games before the opening round (20 May) of the competition. When are these bowlers going to play their qualifying matches if their places have been taken by the all-stars?
Similarly, a 6-man team could have been seriously strengthened for the first 13 weeks of the season and be riding high at the top of their Section using bowlers who would not have been allowed to take the place of regular 6-Man League bowlers in previous years which was why Starred Bowlers was introduced in the first place. Where are they going to find replacement bowlers half-way through the season when the 13 match rule comes into play?
Then if you use interpretation b)
b) if they have played 50% of the matches played at any one time
This means that any bowler who has bowled 50% of the 'A' team matches played at any time during the season they cannot bowl for their lower league teams.
Let me give you the example of Lockwood Con who have teams in Sections 'A' and 'B' of the 10-Man League. Under the defunct Starred Bowler ruling they had 10 bowlers (5 from each team) banned from playing in their 6-Man League team. Under the new ruling, they will have a minimum of 20 bowlers banned from playing for their 6-man team all season. Can any team survive the doubling in number of ineligible bowlers from within their club?
Another example: Bob only plays for his club's 6-man team in the Veterans League but is on holiday for two weeks in mid-April of the new season The captain wants to replace Bob with a Section 2 10-man team player for those two weeks. However by mid-April they have already played two 10-Man League matches so all 10 of those 'A' team players are ineligible to play for the 6-man team. Previously he would have had at least 5 bowlers to choose from to cover that holiday gap.
At the Veterans League 2020 AGM in Meltham last February a club asked for a relaxation of the Starred Bowler rule to aid bowler availability as they felt that the current rule was no longer fit for purpose. The League promised to undertake a review of the Starred Bowler rules and come back to clubs with a new proposal for the 2021 season.
That review was undertaken by the League's Rules Sub-Committee in June and was comprised of the President, General Secretary, League Secretary, Competition Secretary and one Committee member. They agreed to some changes which they felt would address the clubs concerns expressed at Meltham. The full Management Committee did not support the changes when presented to them in September. The new ruling is the work of the full Management Committee.
This new rule stops more than double the number of bowlers playing in our leagues than was the case under the Starred Bowler ruling whilst offering less protection of playing time for the genuine lower league bowlers. So instead of offering a solution of a more relaxed rule as requested they have opted for a stronger version instead.
What is the purpose of this new rule? What is it trying to achieve? For the first half of the season it offers no protection for genuine lower league bowlers but then it suddenly offers no flexibility for player coverage for team captains. This is a disaster in the making!
They couldn't have picked a worse time to introduce such severe rulings with the impact of COVID-19 still to be played out. The number of bowlers that traditionally drop out of the League each year will have continued and there are two-years of those numbers to factor in. Add those that will have concerns about the safety aspect of competition bowling and decline to bowl just yet. Add to that the lack of new bowlers you would normally expect to recruit each year with no bowling for 18 months by the time the new season starts. Now is definitely not the time to speculate with the future of teams and the League in this ill-thought-through measure.
I call on the Management Committee to review the impact of this new rule and then withdraw it from the AGM agenda. It will seriously damage the future of the League. That impact will not be realised until mid-way through the season but is obvious to any impartial thinking individual that it will result in chaos, confusion and team shortages at that time. The time to act is now not half-way through the season when the battle has already been lost.
The means for clubs to oppose this proposed rule change has been manipulated by the Management Committee with their decision that any vote not cast by any club would count in favour of the rule change. It can only be stopped by 17 clubs returning their voting slip indicating that they are against the rule change. That would mean that even with 31 unreturned votes counting 'in favour' of the change they would fail to reach the two-thirds majority they require to engineer the change. Unless 17 clubs vote against the change this unexplained rule will be forced on them.
I speak as a former League Secretay and current Section 2 team captain and the future of the Veterans League under this ruling frightens me on both fronts. Maybe a club representative could ask the League for an explanation of the new rule and let me know what the response is.