The Twelfth Man 2020

Register R obbed of our last meeting of the 2019-20 season, when we should have been presenting the awards to our young players. Robbed of our county and league cricket sea- son. And are we now to be robbed of the start of the Society’s 2020-21 winter season by the coronavirus pan- demic? We cannot know at the time of writing, but your Committee has been zooming its way towards plans for the end of September. Well done, Secre- tary Chris Barron, for setting up the Committee’s ‘virtual’ conference calls - and well done, those who learned how to sign on, or our spouses who pressed the right links for us. We know what we want to do! We want an evening early in the autumn so that we can put matters right with our young players. And we want to do it again at the end of March for our young players of 2021 – unless the virus still stops play! We want our showpiece Christmas Lunch on 6 De- cember, when we expect Yorkshire beneficiary Adam Lyth and YCCC Pres- ident Geoff Cope. Now I come to the point that is per- haps the most difficult I have ever had to write: the answer to this question of whether we should be a Society that meets usually in the evenings or the afternoons. I imagine the Wombwell of 1951, when I was actually a small boy in Lord Hawke’s county of Lincoln- shire! Few if any had TV and Dan Dare seemed more likely to meet the Me- kon than that sports lovers could go home after a hard day’s work to settle in front of a dedicated sports channel. So, the church youth club, the Sir George’s Arms and a gathering one dark night that included our Presi- dent, “Dickie” Bird. All they lacked was Mickey Rooney and “Let’s put on the show right here!” They were giv- ing birth to perhaps the most famous cricket-lovers’ society the world has known. Secretary Jack Sokell – “I will do it for a year” – poured himself into the Wombwell until his death in 2004, and we are living off the reputation he built for the Society to this day. Jack died 16 years ago, fearing for the fu- ture of cricket societies. The world had moved on, as it will always move on. We no longer set out on our own two feet in the evening or on bikes or the bus rather than stay in for the BBC’s radio offering. We stay in for TV sport or we can go to the Cricket Society in cars – whether ours or somebody else’s - if social distancing ever ends. We are no longer a gaggle of 20-somethings : we want to attract younger members – Secretary Chris Barron is spearheading a study on how we might address this – and some of us are still in work, but most of us are pensioners. We become worried about our eyes, and we are less confi- dent about getting the car out at night. So, what do you make of the experi- ment with afternoon meetings at the Holiday Inn? Arrive about midday, have something to eat and drink if you wish, into the meeting room for 1.45pm start and back on the car park for 3.30pm to enjoy at least 30 min- utes’ driving in good daylight even in the darkest weeks. I asked our members this question throughout the winter until the inevitable chal- lenge came at what turned out to be the last meeting before the Covid-19 lockdown: “You are the Chairman. Tell us what you think!” I replied factually: “The members are voting with their feet.” Numbers on a Monday after- noon are sometimes double what we might expect on a Thursday evening. I see members I have not seen on a Thursday evening for years. So, your Committee has staged two spring meetings by Zoom – and con- firmed that Monday afternoon it has to be. Probably 10 meetings each win- ter, minus the youth-presentation par- ties with parents and friends, which really need to be staged after the end of the school and working day, and will probably remain at the Ardsley Oaks Club, complete with pie-and-pea suppers. Apologies to those working who will struggle to make afternoon events. I knew for years what it was like when work got in the way of the cricket society! And...who says the world will never move backwards? Chairman’s Report My most difficult report ever James M Greenfield