OK, so this is a differnet question to normal.
Hibaldstow CC has, for years, existed with one Saturday and one Sunday team. We've recently hosted a second Saturday team. We now face the real possibility of acquiring an existing junior section, lock, stock and barrel. Two U11, two U13 and an U15, maybe U17.
Our square is set up for our existing needs, with 8 tracks needed for the seniors and 2 tracks being brought in to play in reserve. I can easily bring 2 other tracks back in to play (too close to the road for seniors), giving me 12. We have no artificial.
Is this enough? How would you organise summer training for the juniors - do you create tracks on the outfield?
This COULD be a major step forward for our small club and could be the breakthrough from also rans to real contenders, but the scale of the increase worries me somewhat!!!
Tips please
Jon
The ciderman rolls
Some of the younger teams may have to use a shorter track so feed that into your availabilty programme as you won't be able to use them for anything else.
To answer your original question, it seems to me that you have just about enough tracks but ,as ever, more would be better. If it's anything like our club, your main problem will be in finding enough 'volunteers' to look after all the players but good luck to you anyway.
Presentation is the name of the game.
Another couple would be handy Jon. Two u11 and two u13 to see you through a season, especially if they are two be used for training as well.
Assuming that you play an eighteen week league season, nine or ten tracks will be fine. Play a new one each week and then midway through season come back on them for a second time. You are bound to get one or two rained off so should be enough.
You will certainly learn what managing a square is all about now. Games coming out of your ears and you desperate to do some good watering. Best of luck.
Jon, the development of the club is fine and I'm sure you would cope with the fixtures BUT are others willing to help otherwise within 2 years you will become another grumpy old groundsman like many of us.
As Bath has suggested the thing you'll find most difficult is going to be getting water onto the square with all the games that will be going on.
Of course there's no bounce, bend your back and put some bloody effort in.
Rather than having 4 dedicated juniors tracks (as Bath suggests). What I have is one U11 and one U13 which are used primarily in the first half of the season. Then once the main tracks have had their 2nd use they are used for junior games as required during the 2nd half of the season.
One thing I would advise Jon is that you get agreement from your committee that if YOU say the ground is unfit for play then that's that and no arguments - obviously for certain games the umpires get the final decision but for midweek games you need to have the final say.
Of course there's no bounce, bend your back and put some bloody effort in.
1 Jun 2009 by k-hib
hi jon just be a little carefull as our club have got an ever rapidly expanding junior section who all want to be training/playing on th square and outfield and this is already causing repurcusions with our groundsman not being able to get on the facilities when he needs to as it has always got kids on which has resulted in some heated exchanges already and him handing in his resignation after being the groundsman for 30 years so just remember having the juniors is great but no ground time means no cricket many thanks karl
once a ransomes man allways a ransomes man !!!!
Jon, whose's junior section are you acquiring?
On your track use remember that the junior leagues dont play that many matches and dont really cause to much damage, not until you get to u17 level anyhow so you should get away with 1 track each for those that use the shorter wickets. I only use 3 of my tracks for adult midweek games through the season 1st 1 coming to its end of use now and had over 750 runs on it last week in 120 overs so manage them well and you will have no probs.
Ive found if your starting preparing wickets from outfield dont take too much grass off after scarifying and put plenty of water on them and roll when at ultimun point. WD
Can you just is the longest sentence in the world !!!!!!!
Thanks for the input guys.
One of my worries has been access to do work - as an evening / weekend volunteer I can see all sorts of problems.
Thankfully our field is huge (8 acres) and so my thoughts had been to work on training areas for the juniors away from the square and also off the football pitches.
As for whose section Martin - can't say right now as we are still in early discussions both within and between clubs - this input provides important feedback for me to give to our committee about how advisable any expansion would be! However, when I spoke to representatives of several existing clubs about how to start a new junior section from scratch (our initial plan), more than one showed an interest in transfering one or more of their existing team(s).
I'm not sure what that says about the wisdom of starting a junior section - but.......
The ciderman rolls
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