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County cricket members have been short changed for many seasons without their voices being heard.
Ian from LAG, Lancashire Action Group recently spoke to Prost International. I started by asking Ian how LAG came about.
“This came about getting on for almost eight years ago where Lancashire had lost around nine and a half to ten thousand members over the last twenty odd years, which is an incredible amount. A lot of members were very upset when the ground was redeveloped by the club in 2011 and when it reopened a lot of the members facilities had disappeared, so the action group was formed mainly on my side for the facilities. We went around the ground with two or three other hardy souls and got over 400 signatures and we got a lot of publicity and the club did back down on some of the things that we requested. The club were even breaking disability laws at the time . They demolished the museum, demolished the library and banned all members from their own pavilion balcony. There was a lot of unrest at the ground and that’s when we started.”
“We then started a fanzine four years ago which was the only fanzine in county cricket at the time, which is still going strong.”
Ian is adamite that cricket members should be heard after all they all are part of the county.
“It’s not like football where the fans can’t stop the owners doing what they want to do, whereas fifteen of the eighteen counties are member owned. You have a vote, if you want to vote out your committee you can do. You need a hundred people for a special general meeting. You do have a voice and the apathy amongst members is there. What we don’t want is this Strauss report where this is strong rumours that the county championship matches will be reduced again. It was reduced from 16 a few years ago to 14 and it’s rumoured to be going down to 12 or 10 games and a lot of members will leave as it is not worth while being a member of your club if you have only got five home matches within a five and a half month season when the majority of games are either in April or September/October.”
The LAG is going from strength to strength with Ian getting other counties interested in how members voices should be heard.
“We have got over 400 members signatures in a week who oppose the reduction in championship matches. I am now speaking to a number of counties to get them involved. We are speaking to all the counties as it’s an issue that effects all the counties and unfortunately the way it is going the membership from all the counties is getting eroded as they won’t except what’s happening. You have got to stand up now wherever you are a member of a county or just a spectator”.
For a long time the county championship is a competition that never gets praised, despite a large following from cricket lovers.
“Every year the county championship seems to get knocked, when we have lost the Ashes it’s county crickets fault. I didn’t see many people saying it’s county cricket’s fault when we won test matches at home. County cricket does get support, we were at Southport last week and there was big crowds, we do get support.”
“It’s time to stand up. The ECB have promised to listen to members voices, but it never seems to happen.”
“It is incredibly important now that people don’t become keyboard warriors and get out and do something.”
Full interview with Ian, available here
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