It is the middle of winter
Nobody has picked up a bat since March.
The Annual General Meeting is upstairs at the bowling club, twenty-two people in a room set for sixty, and the Treasurer is a long way into the accounts before it becomes clear the president is not coming back. Nominations are called for. Nobody moves.
Then somebody says your name. Somebody else seconds it before you have worked out who.
Carried. You have a club at the bottom of Division 8, three sides to field by October, and a committee who will spend the next six months finding out what you are like.
Where the club is
Pick the country first: Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa, the West Indies or the United States. In England, teas are a serious matter. In the United States a league game can be three hours in the car, and the pitch might be matting.
Name the club and the grounds, pick the colours and design the crest, then decide who you were before the vote: a former 1st XI captain with two hundred games the club remembers, a local businessman with three hardware stores and a view, a stalwart with thirty years of canteen rosters behind them, or an outsider who ran a Division 3 club. It ended badly, and people read about it.
Every week
On your first weekend the club fields three sides, and all three want the best eleven players.
You call the selection meeting, hear the captains out, take the Chairman of Selectors' recommendation or overrule it, and have the sides settled before the Friday.
The room
The captain has his own ideas about the side. The Chairman of Selectors wants the club man ahead of the better player, or to blood a junior who is not ready. Overrule the captain often enough and he stops being polite about it.
Ring someone on the committee and somebody else hears whose number you rang. The Facilities Officer has not called a tradesman in three years.
Some of them are family. The Treasurer's son might be in your 2nd Grade side. Drop him and she notices, and she may ask for him back: "I will not pretend I am neutral about this." Let him go to another club and she does not forgive it. When one of a married couple on the committee turns against you at the AGM, the other usually goes too.
The vote
At the end of the season the club votes on whether you stay.
Before the vote you get to your feet and make promises: "bring the registration fee down", "put another tier into the ground", "get everyone training twice a week". Next winter they hold you to every one.
Lose the vote and you are gone. Say no to someone on the committee often enough and they may stand against you, and a broken promise gives them something to campaign on.
What the club actually costs
Kit suppliers bring their own designs and prices, and the one you like is rarely the best deal.
Every sponsor wants to know what the club can do for them. A good Treasurer who gets on with you leans over before you sit down with one and tells you what they can afford. "Not a dollar more." Now and then a local firm backs one player.
The cricket, if you choose not to sleep in on the Saturday
Then Saturday morning happens. Somebody texts at 7:43: "can't make it today mate, bit of a situation." No further detail. Somebody tweaked his back getting out of the car. Somebody has food poisoning, and he was fine at the pub last night. Run short enough and you field a ring-in. His file reads: "Watching from the car park. Seemed keen. We were desperate."
The dressing room
Every player at the club has mates in it, and a few of them have somebody they cannot stand.
Every player wants something from the club and does not say what. "He is not in the ones, and it is eating at him."
When a clique turns against the club there is talk in the rooms, and if the man at the centre goes, the rest may follow.
Somebody will dispute an umpire's decision for eleven minutes and forty-three seconds, timed by the scorer, and the association bans him for a week. Somebody will tell a fourteen-year-old to harden up after a blow on the helmet. That one is yours to deal with: a warning, a fine, a ban, or the sack.
In the winter a rival club bids for one of your players. Take the money, or turn it down: "He knows, and so does the dressing room."
A player you release can turn up at a rival club with his record under his arm. When you meet, tempers are shorter and the umpire has a word.
Who follows the club?
Nobody, at first. The club page has about fifty followers and most of them are somebody's parents.
Hire a media manager and the club page starts posting. After a 1st Grade loss the Hype Merchant writes "Chin up. The 1st Grade will front up again." The Controversialist writes "Another one gone in the 1st Grade. At some point this stops being bad luck."
The players post regardless. Somebody who has been in the reserves since October posts something sour. A few weeks later he hands in his boots, and he may turn up at another club.
Who you hire
Advertise a coaching job and the applicants turn up the next week. The best coaches will not take a call from Division 8.
Men at rival clubs who want a higher grade ask to come across. An overseas agent will sell you a man you have never seen bat: "Underrated. Didn't get the opportunities he deserved back home."
Going up
Every winter the association meets to vote on the rules. "Nobody may pay more than four players. The clubs with a benefactor call it levelling; the clubs without call it Tuesday." Your Vice President sounds out the other clubs first. One who wants your job may call it line-ball when it is not.
And then the winter
Finals, the Awards Night, and then the winter's decisions, which come back in October whether you remember making them or not:
- which sponsors you keep
- what to charge in registration, and who makes the kit
- which of twenty-two trialists you sign
- which juniors get a school scholarship
- whether to rent the ground to the footy club for the winter
- which guest coaches to bring in, one of them "Grade cricket legend in his suburb. Slightly too confident about it."
- how many nights a week everyone trains
- who is released, and who captains which side, if he will take it
And then you go around again.
