CMJ: Comment: Forum will make or break MacLaurin blueprint (1 September 1997)

Monday 1 September 1997

Comment: Forum will make or break MacLaurin blueprint

By Christopher Martin-Jenkins

THREE weeks of the first-class season remain and for several county teams, many individual players and all the administrators who meet tomorrow at Lord`s, they will be critical. Three of the four county titles are still to be won; there are only eight days for players hoping to go on tour to catch the eyes of the selectors; and the First Class Forum has the power to make or break the blueprint for the game`s future in England and Wales, starting with a special meeting tomorrow.

If the events of this season, on and off the field, have proved anything it is the interdependence of first-class cricket and all the levels below it. Tomorrow`s special meeting of the FCF at Lord`s will confine discussions to county cricket, but whether or not the 18 counties and MCC achieve a consensus on their approach to the England and Wales Cricket Board`s blueprint will have a direct effect on the coaching and development of the young players who hope to become tomorrow`s professionals.

It went virtually unreported last week that those whose job (as opposed to hobby) it is to bring on the next generation received a little matter of -L2.5 million from the Cricket Foundation. The snag is that this handsome-sounding sum had to be distributed more or less fairly to the 38 counties, with additional grants to Durham University, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Wight and Kwik Cricket; plus extra provision for the Board`s own national development officers and the installation of nonturf pitches.

Awards to individual counties ranged from -L107,535 for Middlesex to -L32,000 for Suffolk. Again, these sound decent sums of money towards the spreading of the gospel, but one county secretary described his own allocation to me this weekend as "no more than a drop in the ocean". The money in each county will be spent in four main areas: salaries for development officers, match expenses for junior county teams, coaching in schools, and courses for groundsmen, umpires, scorers and administrators.

All this is, in any case, merely a recirculation of the money which comes into the game at the top level, the majority from television. The amount which the first-class counties agree to hold back from the annual distribution to themselves - at present some 10 per cent of the game`s overall surplus - goes to the Foundation, whose 14 trustees, under the chairmanship of Ossie Wheatley, then feed it to the 38 counties, depending on the development plans produced by each one.

Wheatley says that there has been a "huge increase" in a wide variety of development plans since the central adminis- tration at last grasped the nettles entwined in the grass roots and got a properly coordinated plan under way last year. But he also warns that the money available is insufficient - no county got as much as they asked for - and that it is wholly de- pendent on television income.

Lord MacLaurin, chairman of the ECB, makes the same point as he prepares to attend tomorrow`s FCF meeting under the chairmanship of David Morgan, of Glamorgan.

MORGAN was the architect of the new administrative constitution of English and Welsh cricket which gave the counties the power to veto their own cricket programme. His is an awesome responsibility because very few counties seem to think that Raising The Standard has come up with the right answers. Even below first-class level, the second XI`s advisory com- mittee last week expressed grave reservations about the plan to fuse the second XI championship into a 38-strong County Board competition playing two-day, single-innings games. They have requested four days each for the 12 second XI championship matches to be played next year.

Lord MacLaurin continues to maintain that "no change is no option". Contrary to certain so-called revelations ear- lier this season that he would resign if the blueprint was not accepted lock, stock and barrel, however, he is adamant that Raising The Standard was always intended to be a "discussion document". The discussions start in earnest tomorrow, prior to the official vote on Sept 15.

Whatever structure is finally agreed for first-class cricket simply has to be attractive to television, though the ECB`s financial secretary, Cliff Barker, admits it is the package of Tests and one-day internationals which really gets the pulses of the BBC and BSkyB racing. Televised county cricket is icing on the cake. This is the most important balance of all for the Board to strike: between exposure of the game to the widest possible audience - which, of course, spells BBC - and the greatest possible income for the game`s development and viability - which these days spells Sky.

Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/)