Evert Jelgerhuis Swildens is a former manager of the HCC first team. He is also active in the touring club De Flamingo’s, and co-organiser of the annual Flamingo Youth Tournament.
In response to Fred Beekman’s article I set out to see how cricket in the Netherlands really is placed. Is it really so bad, or are things OK? Look at the figures and draw your own conclusions.
In the whole country 244 teams took part in [last season’s] competitions, men, women, youth, veterans, Zami and Zomi. These teams come from more than 50 clubs, 15 of which have three or more teams in the senior Sunday competition. They field 57 of the 110 senior Sunday teams, which amounts to 52%.
There are 93 youth teams in the competition. HCC provides 15 teams, Rood en Wit 9, Quick 8, HBS and VOC 7. So you see that five clubs provide 46 of the 93 teams! Voorburg and Bloemendaal have seven teams, VRA and ACC five each, so 68 of the 93 teams are provided by nine clubs! More than 60% of the clubs have no youth team, or just one in the youngest age group.
How is cricket constructed?
U9 plays 6-a-side, so a team comprises 7 players.
U10 and U11 play 8-a-side, so a team comprises 9 players.
U13, U15 and U18 have eleven-a-side, and each team comprises 12 players.
Allowing one additional player per team in respect of withdrawals etc., the numbers are:
U9 22x7 players = 154 U10 12x9 players = 108 U11 18x9 players = 162 U13 16x12 players = 192 U15 13x12 players = 156 U18 12x12 players = 133 Total = 916
There are 110 senior Sunday teams, with 13 players per team, therefore 1430 players.
There are 21 Zami teams, which comprise 13 players per team, therefore 273 players.
Together with the youth, this gives us a total, then, of 2901 active cricketers in the Netherlands.
Just to be clear, the number I give per team is an average, since experience shows that many young players are also active on Sundays in an older age-group and some Zami players also turn out on Sunday. The figure is therefore an indication of the number of players who are very regularly active in their own team . . . or who play more than eight games a season in the various competitions.
Let’s be positive and add in all the incidental players, and there are still no more than 3200 players members in the Netherlands (an average of 64 playing members per club)! Now, we know that there are only 15 clubs with three or more senior Sunday teams, these clubs all have a youth section as well, and nearly all also have a Zami team, so the conclusion is that 35 clubs are really too small to be deemed a completely autonomous club!
Looking at these numbers, we really have to conclude that cricket is a very small sport in the Netherlands, a sport which not only occupies a great deal of time, but also field space. There are only eight, perhaps ten, grounds in the Netherlands which are exclusively used for cricket. The remaining grounds are shared with other sports. There are only a few clubs who possess the level of accommodation that enables you to speak of a more or less autonomous ground (VOC, Hermes-DVS, Quick Haag).
Cricket is being caught in a jam by the growth of other sports: sad but true.
You can imagine my astonishment, therefore, that the KNCB wastes a month of cricket with a programme for the top sides, with a scheme which has been completely not thought through: matches that don’t matter to anyone. This doesn’t draw any spectators to the grounds, and the players just go through the motions. So when the climax of the season began, the footballers and hockey players were already in full action!
Whoever came up with the programme for the Topklasse, Hoofdklasse and Eerste Klasse has absolutely no notion about sport, and no contact with reality!
As I have shown, there are 2900 active cricketers in the Netherlands, and yet many (youth) matches have to be cancelled because of problems with the grounds or with insufficient players. Cricket is for 85% of players a sport that you play purely as a hobby; but the KNCB really has the idea that with its 2900 players the Netherlands can be compared with the international top. Around 400 players take part at the upper level in this country (Topklasse, Hoofdklasse and Eerste Klasse), of whom at least half will never be considered for the national side. So the KNCB thinks that with 200 players we can compare ourselves with the international (sub)top.
Truthfully, the performances of all the Dutch teams in 2010 were below par. The national men’s team depends upon a few players, certainly with the bat. Of 33 matches only nine were won – once against Full member Bangladesh, it is true, but we failed to qualify for the Twenty20 World Cup. In the English competition [CB 40 League] is became painfully clear that the Dutch side falls well short, and that the shock win against English was the exception rather than the rule. So we can conclude that the Netherlands belongs with the subtop of the subtop . . .
What needs to happen with domestic (top-)cricket?
1. We no longer play 50 overs, but 40 starting at one o’clock. This means that you can play more matches on Sundays, or other sports can be played in the morning on shared grounds, and the finishing time is not later than in a 50-over game
2. The Dutch side pulls out of the CB40 competition
3. There is a logical system for the championship and for promotion/relegation
4. The competition is so structured that it is completed in August, and not later than the first weekend in September.
The focus must be on an enjoyable, attractive and serious domestic competition with clear rules about promotion and so on.
Furthermore, we must cut recreational cricket to a maximum of 30 overs a side, and adapt the rules so that every player gets a share in the game. With the rise of other sports, such as golf and tennis, we have to recognise that cricket in its present form is no longer relevant as a recreational sport! If you’re a little unlucky you don’t get the chance to bat or aren’t in for long, you’re allowed to bowl one or two overs, and you give up six hours or so of your time. That is difficult to sell to mothers, a wife or an enthusiastic older beginner.
The KNCB needs to come to understand that cricket in the Netherlands is kept going by a handful of enthusiasts. But what is the priority at present? The national side, the Dutch Lions, and the national women’s team! Out of 2900 active members, therefore, the Bond is principally concerned with a maximum of 150 cricketers! They take the lion’s share of the money. So the many enthusiasts in the clubs are really working for the ‘happy few’.
The KNCB is held hostage by the requirements of the ICC, but doesn’t have the guts to say: ‘if we spend your hundreds of thousands of euros on the national side, make sure we get additional money to do more for cricket in the Netherlands, because otherwise the money will ultimately have been poured down the drain.’
And that money will seem to have been poured down the drain if the ICC really decides to cut the World Cup to just ten countries from 2015! The ten top countries take part, and what remains, the World Cup for B-countries, will never get the media attention and thus get people enthusiastic. The Netherlands organised the World Cricket League last season, effectively the World Cup Second Division, and there wasn’t a single television camera to be seen! Or are we going to foster the illusion that Scotland, Canada, Ireland, Kenya and the Netherlands can draw an audience of millions on TV and that thousands are going to go to the matches?
Our top imported players currently get the chance to play in a World Cup, but if that possibility no longer exists with these players then put their well-paid county contracts in the balance in order to play a game which counts for nothing?
For recreational cricket in the Netherlands the KNCB has just €50,000 available! That works out at €1020 per club for recreational cricket, or you could say €54 per youth player. In the financial year 2008/09 HCC alone paid the Bond €5977 in fees. On average HCC expends, not counting coaches’ salaries, around €40,000.
If we look at the final tables of the lower competitions we see that many are not played out completely, and some teams only play 9 or 10 of their 14 matches. That’s not how you hold on to your members. But if you read on the various websites, including the KNCB’s, that the national side has lost narrowly, then I think, losing narrowly is and remains a defeat . . . and that with many ‘ imported Dutchmen’.
Now, it’s pleasant to read that HCC has committed itself via the club charter to the growth of the sport, but as I have shown, there is almost no funding for this within the KNCB. How can we expect the sport to grow with the current KNCB policy?
It is perhaps good to state that if you want to allow youth cricket to grow, you also need enough volunteers to organise the kids, train them etc; pavilions have to be opened, and not many clubs have paid staff as we do! A junior cricket match lasts on average four times as long as a junior football or hockey match, and you have to add travelling time on to that.
The problem is therefore much, much deeper: if six children sign up at a club like Ajax Leiden in the under-13 age Group, they can’t form a team. So they have to divert them to Voorburg or HCC (nearby clubs). The KNCB has caught on much too late that they have to do something. The freefall can indeed be stopped, if the parachute opens . . . the final outcome is that you reach the ground, but you only survive if the parachute opens.
Have a good look at the figures: 60% of clubs have one youth team or none at all. That means that once these kids start playing on a full ground, you need to recruit three more after 3 years to be able to continue to play in a competition. There are six age groups in youth cricket, and only five clubs have more teams than age groups, so you can see that growth is really difficult! Acknowledge that these clubs also have flourishing football sections (Rood en Wit shares its complex with a large football club). And you also have to take into consideration that 90% of cricket is played in the Randstad.
Hockey clubs, who almost all play on artificial pitches and consequently no longer have room, have virtually disappeared from the cricket world. And furthermore, the hockey season now runs so long that there is almost no room for youth cricket. In addition, you have to take account of the fact that hockey is in general played by people from the same social class as cricketers. Nine out of ten football clubs have absolutely nothing to do with cricket, and are often also quite differently socially orientated from HVV, Quick etc.
Another problem is the spread of the vacations, which makes it difficult to plan competitions effectively. Through the decline that set in years ago it is becoming ever more clear that the vacation issue is not a problem which the KNCB can tackle. Will the KNVB and the KNHB listen to the KNCB? Listen perhaps, but the football and hockey associations have 1.1 million and 850,000 members respectively, so are they going to be impressed by a KNCB with so few members and a Mickey Mouse competition with which we decide the national championship.
In short, Fred Beekman is right: if we do nothing, we will soon be playing only Zami cricket! In reality I think we’re already too late – or is the parachutist still in the plane? Of course cricket will continue to be played, but in a reduced form and by a few enthusiasts.
One advantage is that HVV would then be able to gain promotion to the Hoofdklasse on their own ground, if we only play recreational cricket . . .