General Chat 12/13

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1st time forum poster, long time VTCA player/curator.

Three things that become apparent at this time of the year is that

1. Clubs need to find a way to take control of preparing their own wickets. Many clubs in the South are used to preparing their own & I dare say that the majority of those pitches that were ready to be played on Saturday would have been Southern clubs. There is no vested interest from Councils & I can't imagine more than the bare minimum being done on wickets. As a curator myself, the time needed to prepare wickets early in the season is massive & these council workers (or sub contractors) just don't have the time (or enthusiasm).

2. Make it division specific with regards to calling matches off or not. A quick call around to clubs in your division will quickly find out whether you get a ground up for play. If all can get on then play. If all can't get up pitches then don't play. We pay enough money to these councils every year to use them & I'm yet to see a deduction in rent from my council if we don't get on so lets play as many scheduled matches as possible.

3. Start the season at least one week later. Any ground used for footy needs a minimum 6 weeks to get decent grass on the wicket at this time of the year.
 
Good points Danny, except the last.
Give something away- you'll never get it back. We all know week one in October is aspirational with current council input. If you say to council week 1 is not required Football gets another week. So fixture week one with the realistic expectation you won't be playing, you'll be growing grass, rolling the square and watching dogs run all over your efforts.....
 
DH, someone smarter than me will have a record of how many Rnd. 1 games have been played in the last 10 years. As it wouldn't be many I reckon anyone with Turnbull Stakes tickets each year can safely head to the races on the first Sat in October.

Why pay for a week that we never use? Councils all across Melb are always slow off the mark to top soil/scarify wickets so a min 6 weeks is a must. I've already received our council ground hire bill & it is exorbitant to say the least which I guess will be put down to the hike in water prices. Happy to start week 2 which we know is more realistic & head to the track on week 1. Make up the extra week by playing a 2 day GF on Sat/Sun instead of the crazy 4 day Shield match we do at the moment
 
won't argue the track record Danny, or the slug that council's seem happy to justify, it's encroachment into the summer cricket season that's the main concern for mine. I know a neighbouring club regularly refuses to pay the full ground allocations based on our council being unable to organise a chook raffle. Maybe that's the answer? Our thirds and fourths gound which is council allocated has been hijacked by Groundskeeper Willy, employed by the secondary college and seemingly allowed to create merry hell with whoever is trying to use the facility. He took it upon himself to remove the covers stored in the changerooms and sit them on top of the pavilion for 6 months over winter without telling anyone. No wonder our volunteer curator said no this season. There's another $2,500 for a paid curator out of club funds, and I kid you not, the paid bloke is now telling me he can't work with Groundskeeper Willy and prepare a wicket. Council will keep telling us what a great job they do though....
 
Danny Morrison said:
DH, someone smarter than me will have a record of how many Rnd. 1 games have been played in the last 10 years. As it wouldn't be many I reckon anyone with Turnbull Stakes tickets each year can safely head to the races on the first Sat in October.
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Not smarter, but with better access to records. My club's 1st XI (various South Divisions over that period) has played just once in the last ten years on the first Saturday of October. October 7 2006, as late as possible to have the first Saturday.
 
DalesHack said:
won't argue the track record Danny, or the slug that council's seem happy to justify, it's encroachment into the summer cricket season that's the main concern for mine. I know a neighbouring club regularly refuses to pay the full ground allocations based on our council being unable to organise a chook raffle. Maybe that's the answer? Our thirds and fourths gound which is council allocated has been hijacked by Groundskeeper Willy, employed by the secondary college and seemingly allowed to create merry hell with whoever is trying to use the facility. He took it upon himself to remove the covers stored in the changerooms and sit them on top of the pavilion for 6 months over winter without telling anyone. No wonder our volunteer curator said no this season. There's another $2,500 for a paid curator out of club funds, and I kid you not, the paid bloke is now telling me he can't work with Groundskeeper Willy and prepare a wicket. Council will keep telling us what a great job they do though....
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Agree with DH here - Danny, your first couple of points are spot on. But we shouldnt give up that week. We should be doing everything we can as a club, association and sport to ensure we can get turf grounds up and ready by that first week. It seems like we are hopefully moving down that track.
 
DH, hmmm that has a real Kingston Council smell about it. From being let down too many times I see the most important club appointment being your curator. A shonky curator is a club killer.

Scorer, why the penny hasn't dropped with the VTCA with a 1 in 10 playing record for Rnd. 1 beats me. Why clubs have no choice but to pay ground hire fees for nothing gets me mad.

Maybe with that large VTCA kitty they are sitting on they can help us poor clubs out paying council fees. Every little bit will help as I know my treasurer is still in a state of shock after getting the bill for $2,500 last week!
 
Danny, I know that smell, like a week-old dead cat left in your club wheelie bin over Xmas.... mmmm Kingston alright.
Geez your club got off light- I pointed out our $3000 bill to our Treasurer the other night - same response.
 
I tell you, I'd be interested to hear what other clubs are paying out for ground hire this year by their respective councils. DH, $3K works out at about $130 a week (excluding semis).

What's the chance you are paying for the whole school's water bill for the next 6 months?
 
Danny Morrison said:
Scorer, why the penny hasn't dropped with the VTCA with a 1 in 10 playing record for Rnd. 1 beats me. Why clubs have no choice but to pay ground hire fees for nothing gets me mad.
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I've just looked at the ten seasons from 1926/63, forty years earlier. The First XI played on the first Saturday in October 8 (eight) times. I don't believe that can be explained by changes in the weather - it's all down to changes in the way councils prepare grounds.

Like others, I would be reluctant to give up the first Saturday. I have a suspicion that if the council knew it had an extra week to prepare for the start of the season, it would simply start the preparations a week later. We would not be any better off.
 
Dingo_Jones said:
I said I had heard Deer Park played at their ground on saturday.


I said Footscray Colts were a bunch of Dogs.

Your IQ is obviously some where around 2 points below a carrot. Any more blurts?
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And footscray colts were 'alledgedly part of the forming of yccc according to you ya spud!

Sorry that's being derogatory to potatoes
 
Danny Morrison said:
I tell you, I'd be interested to hear what other clubs are paying out for ground hire this year by their respective councils. DH, $3K works out at about $130 a week (excluding semis). What's the chance you are paying for the whole school's water bill for the next 6 months?
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well I know we're paying for the private business' electricity usage operating from the Scout Hall next to our pavilion, 'cos Council allowed a contractor to knock a hole in our ceiling and run a mains cable into our switchboard, labelled the three switches "Scout Hall" very neatly too.
 
DH, that's crazy stuff. You need to get the dib dib dob dobers over to run aclub BBQ for you each Saturday to make up the difference.

Fair call to all who want to keep the 1st week of Oct but my point is that we ae getting done over here year on year paying for ground hire that we don't use. Councils are in a win/win, delay the preparation so they can do all grounds together to save on sub costs & know that if they start late they will still take ground fees when pitches don't get up in time.

Solution - prepare wickets ourselves. Goes back to my first point. Prob do it for half the cost anyway & take this off this cost to our ground hire bill (on provision of receipt). VTCA gold pot to assist clubs in initial wicket prepaation.

On the topic of decks, I went pass Bonbeach's new turf the other week & it looks to be coming along well. Talking to club members is that they will have that up to play on after Xmas.
 
It is all about ground utilisation. This year we will have the Milo kids on a Friday night and also the T20 blast on a Saturday morning. 200 kids using a ground when 22 adults was previously the maximum. That is the sort of stuff that excites councils
Our second ground has a synthetic pitch on it, so the juniors can use it in the morning for their games before the seniors jump on. It was a bit of a local prototype, but has worked out better than we thought

I don’t want to sound like a council apologist (because I am a long way from that), but there are ways you can maximise your utilisation
 
How are all the decks coming along for this weekend? Hopefully tonight's rainfall won't have an impact. Good to see several grounds utilising covers today (should off happened last week!), been past a few grounds during the week which seem to have good grass cover however haven't been touched even though we are approaching rd 3, Imo looks like both of middle parks grounds haven't been touched since renos, lets hope the tang are given a reasonable deck to play on this weekend! Lets hope the fine weather forecast for later in the week produce some hard decks!
 
turn it round the other way, hav a fake round 1 grand final day lol. Maybe then we can start on time. Getting riduculous when you drive past an oppositions ground and it looks untouched. I knew week 1 that week 2 wasnt gonna be played, well not for us anyway. Council needs a boot up the butt. They topsoiled our ground last thursday (spread soil all over it) Y not do it 2 weeks ago or even 5 weeks ago. Our footy finished months ago but nothing was touched. 1 day out from week 2, we had a massive hole in our ground that council made. Dont think it has been fixed.

We just hav to face it. Council doesnt like cricket as they dont make their cash like footy. Lets hope we can start before christmas
 
Bonbeach wicket is actually pretty good it's just about 1km from there club rooms they will be loving the new table once it's up and running. Brighton would have to be one of the worst grounds going around the massive ditches off the side of the table I was fielding at fine leg last year and one of our fielders were standing in the hole on the other side and could only see him waist up!! Not to mention no cover from the sun... Terrible!
 
redefine said:
Bonbeach wicket is actually pretty good it's just about 1km from there club rooms they will be loving the new table once it's up and running. Brighton would have to be one of the worst grounds going around the massive ditches off the side of the table I was fielding at fine leg last year and one of our fielders were standing in the hole on the other side and could only see him waist up!! Not to mention no cover from the sun... Terrible!
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Brighton D ground is no doubt up there as the worst going. In fact, it was at that ground that finsihed up a great batsmen's career, Paul Brostor. Paul snapped ligaments in his ankle after tripping over the tractor trye divots that would have been at least 6" deep. No doubt the tractor had been used to pick up all the doggy do do.....
 
all yarraville club grounds to be ready this week , they say there's a gun groundsman who works at arden st helping them out . they say hes like the london fog " hey will not lift '
 
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