Having flooded and choked the corporate and manufacturing world, the on-going flow of graduates had to target other areas of employment. The EEC, the Civil Service, Education, The Health Service, all became flooded with these self-righteous, and totally convincing highly educated pen pushers (keyboard tappers!)! New Systems of Work followed. How could Teachers possibly teach if they didn’t have a written and documented “Lesson Plan” for every lesson? A Syllabus and an ability to teach were no longer enough! How can you sell Bananas throughout the EEC if you did not have an agreed definition of a “Standard Banana”? How can you know if your Accident and Emergency Departments at Hospitals are efficient and effective if you do not have Targets to demonstrate performance against? These MBA apostles made the old “Time and Motion” man of the 1960’s look like stone-age man!
Targets for everything, Processes for everything, Qualifications for everything (however trivial or unnecessary). If people object that the cost of this new administration is crippling their business, or diverting their focus from their core reason d’etre, then scare them to death with the prospective effects of “Non Compliance”. Let’s introduce Fines for non-compliance; lets introduce salary increases being dependent on performance in League Tables. Dog eat dog! Can we all really be “Top”? We must achieve table/target topping at any price – even if the targets are wrongly set or divisive in relation to the greater good.
So how much does all of this cost us?
Does the cost add to or detract from the cost effectiveness of industry?
Does the cost mean we have more or less money for front line Education?
Does the cost mean we have more or less money for the Health Service?
Does the cost mean we have more or less money for front line Policing?
Does all this benefit us in competing in global markets?
So for those of us at Reed Cricket Club who play our Cricket at a middle ranking Club standard – What has all this to do with the end of Recreational Cricket as you know it?
Unfortunately, in recent years the MBA type bureaucrats have now made it beyond the mainstream industries and employment areas into the recreational sport areas.
Money scheduled and designated for “Grass Roots” Sport is increasingly directed into centralised Administration. These administrators and systems people set up systems and “Standards” to be complied with that are alleged to “improve the game” but in reality merely eat up all the available “grass roots funding/ budget”.
The ruling Sporting Bodies administrators will now invite Club Officers to attend a (chargeable) course on: “How to encourage and find Volunteers”! – What is the point! Without necessary formal Coaching Qualifications (which takes ones time – and have to be paid for!), and time consuming and funding eating proof that you are (as yet!) not a convicted child molester, you are unlikely to be welcomed or accommodated into any active Cricket Club role apart from painting a Sight Screen.
1). Have any of you with perhaps 20+ years of Cricket Playing experience (but no formal Coaching Qualification) tried to offer your services to a Cricket Club (even your own Club) to teach or train young persons how to play and enjoy Cricket?
2). Have any of you with perhaps 20+ years of Cricket Playing experience (but no formal Umpiring Qualification) tried to offer your services to a Cricket Club (even your own Club) to Umpire League Matches.
3). In the next 2 years will any of you with perhaps 20+ years of Cricket Playing experience (but no formal “Scoring” Qualification) try to offer your services to a Cricket Club (even your own Club) to act as Scorer in a League Cricket match?
The “Smart Money” at Paddy Power is on TEA LADIES being next in line for required qualifications! CRB checks too in case they tempt young adults with their “fancies”!
Of course you may be too embarrassed or disinclined to remain connected with your Club anyway if it does not have “Clubmark”, or is not a “Focus Club”.
In Cricket the pressure to comply with “ECB/County Guidelines” is barely subtle. “Non Compliance” with ECB Youth Coaching Recommendations and Directives (all expensive to achieve) is reinforced with the threat that your Clubs teams will not be admitted to take part in County Leagues. It is heavily “implied” that not holding a “Clubmark” Accreditation will debar your Club from being able to receive any ECB/County Cricket Board/Sport England grant funding.
As a consequence of ECB initiated “guidelines” we at Reed Cricket Club we are now having to pay/compensate Qualified Coaches to undertake coaching of youngsters both at winter nets and summer outside training sessions – An overall cost well into 3 figures annually. HMRC/GCHQ website spies please note!!
This is just one example of the significant new costs being forced onto Clubs at a time of recession. We wont even go too closely into the costs of the wide-ranging courses covering Welfare Officers, required ratios of Qualified First Aiders, Registration Fees etc etc…
Clubs costs are inevitably rising fast – at a time when the recession is biting. People are concerned about rising Annual Subscriptions and Match Fees and availability of persons for playing matches twice a weekend. However much they love the game, playing numbers dwindle as a result.
It’s a slippery slope! – and it’s tilting ever more steeply downwards!
Is the end of our world nigh? Who would bet against it?
(This Weekly column is written by John Heslam Club Chairman of Reed Cricket Club. The views expressed in the article are his own and do not necessarily comprise those of the Clubs General Committee)
