You are absolutely spot on Blackhawk. I think that Women's Cricket and Girls Cricket has to be the way forward. It's almost impossible to get Council funding unless their are juniors and/or girls/women involved at the club. However, we have found this to be somewhat of a lose/lose situation. We can't attract women to the club as we have no facilities for them. We have a very small toilet and no changeroom or showering facilities at the club. We can't get funding from the Council as we have no Women's/Girl's Teams at the club. We can't get women/girls to the club as we don't have the facilities......and so the issue tumbles around with no resolution.
I genuinely think that the way forward is to amalgamate sporting clubs. This has already happened in a number of areas. This involves creating a new identity, for example, the Greensborough Sporting Club. This would be an amalgamation of the footy club, cricket club and netball club. Then as a Sporting Club, you apply for your funding to cover all areas including women and children. I believe that Heidelberg have already taken steps along this path and I heard that Riverside have been attempting something similar (although I haven't had that confirmed).
This will pose issues as some people involved in the individual clubs will not want to lose their identity or give their power away to a larger group. But is it not better to survive and thrive as part of something bigger than it is to shrivel and die with your own identity?
It's a very interesting concept and It's the best idea that I have seen so far. However, one thing is certain, if we don't change and adapt, we will perish. For those that don't believe that cricket is in trouble, you really need to look outside of your club and see what is happening right across the country. The Junior numbers put forward for this coming season are a huge red flag. When you have 5 Barclay Shield sides that can't offer at least one side in each junior grading, then there is trouble ahead.
Juniors are dwindling across the competition. If I look at the last 10 years at Greensborough, we have gone from regularly having 7 junior sides every season. Down to 5 sides, then down to 3 sides and last year we couldn't put a single junior side on the park. After extensive off-season work, promotion and recruitment, we may be lucky to get 2 sides on the park this year. This is despite a very strong Milo Cricket program with 40-50 registrations and a successful T20 Blast program.
Granted that some of those issues were internal and we took our eye off the ball somewhat. But every club is guilty of that from time to time. But to go from 7 sides, which is essentially 80 kids, down to single figures, is alarming. If this was just isolated to the GCC then I wouldn't be so concerned. But after seeing the Junior nominations last week, this is a serious situation that is effecting everyone.
We need to take our club caps off and stop beating our chests and start looking at the sport and how we can restructure to remain competitive and successful. I would love to hear any ideas about how this can be achieved. We approached the DVCA this year about coloured shirts with names and numbers on them for all Junior Cricketers. I thought that the popularity of T20 Cricket and the T20 Blast may excite kids to want to play. If they can wear similar outfits to their heroes, then that may improve junior engagement. Is it time to look at T20 cricket for all Juniors up to U16's? Scrap the one day and two day games and make all cricket T20. We can then progress to one day and two day cricket from U16's onwards.
Any other ideas?