The upcoming
season will be NSSCL’s fourth as an ‘open league’ for player payments, the
fourth since the league’s management gave up the ghost / bravely faced up to
the way the wind was blowing / abrogated its duties (delete as you see fit). I
felt – and indeed wrote
– at the time that the move might slowly corrode clubs’ identities by provoking
increased player traffic (perhaps for the simple status of being paid) and
diverting hard-earned revenues away from facilities, equipment and the basic
administrative costs of running a club. Time will tell how it all pans out – I
only played one year under the system – but in particular I felt that it could have
a negative, destabilising effect on young cricketers, whose egos would no doubt
be regularly massaged by rival captains seeking to strengthen yet unable to
afford the going rate for proven players.
Of course,
it was already becoming harder and harder to recruit top overseas talent: the
encroachment of international cricket schedules on the English summer, then the
T20 boom, meant that players from certain countries were less and less
available, while fears surrounding international terrorism led to more
stringent border controls and thus made visas harder to come by. So, clubs were
already looking for local talent where once they’d shopped abroad.
On the face
of it, this was a shame, since pitting your wits against international players is
without question one of the treasures of club cricket. Then again,
Moddershall’s ‘glory years’ – starting with three championships in four seasons
– were ignited by a man who lived but three or four miles away, just about
close enough to steer a van full of pottery clanking and clinking and chinking
down Stallington Lane after a night of post-victory lubrication. That team –
which did a lot of drinking together – featured such exceptional (cricketing) talents
as Jon Addison, Iain Carr, Andy Hawkins and John Myatt, as well as several
others more than capable of making the decisive contribution to the game. However,
the wave of success finally crashed against the rocks in 2009, since which time
it’s fair to say the club’s on-field stock has fallen a little with the 1st XI
suffering one relegation and two near-misses without the playing strength of
yore. The on-field struggles were mirrored beyond the boundary, where an air of
neglect or shabbiness hung over the old pavilion.
Nevertheless,
as one era was breathing its last, the resolve, the will and the energies of folk
at Moddershall who wished to revive the ailing patient and rebuild (literally) the
club was already kicking in – new plans, new duties, new facilities, new
fittings, new blood, new hope. People such as Jim Elton, Andy Housley, Andy
Hawkins, Tricia Williams, Paul Bagnall and many others – people who, if sliced
in half (heaven forbid!), would have CARPE DIEM running through them like
sticks of Blackpool rock – have undertaken the many tasks, large and small, that
slowly but surely shall see Barnfields – beautiful, glorious Barnfields – again
become a stronghold of local cricket.
At the
heart of that revival will be the plentiful young talent emerging through the
club’s academy. Although my circumstances have taken me elsewhere, it was
immensely heart-warming to drop in to Little Stoke en route from London
to Nottingham last September to see Moddershall Under-17s
pick up the final part of a treble in a season in which they swept all before
them. A truly special achievement and, as a stick of Modd rock myself, one that
I hope augurs well. All of which brings me back to where I started…
Had a team
such as last year’s U17s emerged twenty years ago it would be almost guaranteed
that they would stick together. And, provided they continued to improve as
players, provided they became streetwise as competitors, it would be almost
certain that they would go on to success together as seniors. No longer.
 |
| Modd U17s: treble winners |
As I say, the
cash inducements of an open league bring destabilising effects – on young
minds, on clubs’ planning. Bathing in sweet nothings all winter, it is easy to
see how some youngsters might get an inflated sense of their ability (as
opposed to potential), with themselves likely the biggest loser in it all. This
is a simplification, of course: it isn’t always
about status; in cash-strapped times, it may genuinely be about hard economic
realities. Still, it’s easy to see how a club’s carefully cultivated fruits might
be cherry-picked by a couple of Charles Darwins and an Adam Smith, after which
there’s a revolving door, a dust cloud, and another
search for players. In effect, the situation would be a mini-replica of player
power in football.
However,
there may be a lesson for Moddershall’s immediate future in the previous ‘golden
era’. The nucleus of that team stuck together for twelve, fifteen years. We
were mates – mates who squabbled and bickered at times, true, but mates.
Without cricket, some of us may have had little in common, little to bind us,
yet we looked forward to each other’s company, to practice nights as much as
matches, to playing and, hopefully, celebrating together (the drinks then were not
isotonic, nor even gin and tonic, but good old Jim’s Carling, otherwise known
as “a pint of gloat”). It all mattered deeply to us and as a consequence
victory was so much the richer. And at the heart of all that, I think, there
was a subtle distinction in attitude: wanting to play a game of cricket on a
Saturday, versus wanting to play cricket for
Moddershall on a Saturday. (As I see the tots learning the joys and
mysteries of cricket in their subsidised club kit, I feel happy that there are yet
more sticks of rock being made.)
But that
was then. To this emerging generation – cricketers who’ve already had some noteworthy
successes in senior cricket (and whose relative failures are all assets in the
bank) – I have a simple message: the
grass is not always greener. In fact, it is unlikely that the grass, in a
cricketing sense, will ever be as green as on that hilltop looking out over Shropshire , a view without equal in the whole of Staffordshire
cricket.
From what
I’ve seen and heard, this U17s group has the raw ability to build a great new
era at Moddershall, a dynasty; they have the potential to propel the club on the same
journey we made in the mid-nineties: from the lower reaches of the second tier
to the top of the local pyramid. It’s an opportunity that doesn’t come along
all that often (for some, never): the chance to savour victory with people
you’ve struggled alongside not just for twenty-two matches, but for ten years.
These will be some of the sweetest moments of your lives. Rolling from team to
team for a couple of grubby banknotes and some well-practised flattery will be empty
by comparison.
As the club
dusts itself down, as new energy and new air breeze through old bricks and
mortar, I’m reminded that everything has to adapt and change. That is life;
that is nature. Moddershall CC is no different, a lesson that has been learned
the hard way. Yet the principles of what makes team sport so rewarding – the
camaraderie, the fighting for a common cause, mucking in – will endure, eternal
as the Wrekin.
I hope very
much that this generation can bring some magic back to this magical corner of
the world and eventually become a legendary team. Irrespective of results,
though, cricket – for all abilities – will continue at Barnfields. Or should. Recent
history underlines that a club is only ever as strong as its members’ devoted efforts
– a truth that’s physically embodied every time you see Jim get up to fetch you
a strawberry whip or Tricia come bundling through the clubhouse clutching her
papers – and a healthy club will only increase the chances of success on the
pitch.
So, to finish
by butchering a famous quote of JFK’s: ask
not what your club can do for you, but what you can do for your club. With
such an attitude, the greatest beneficiary will be your own cricket.
This was my first column for 'Barnfields Buzz', the Moddershall CC monthly newsletter. I had a
fair bit to say this time but will try to keep it snappy hereafter. And for the
pedants: yes, one of those three championships was Section B.
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