PROGRESS TO SENIOR STATUS IN THE LCU IN THE 1970s and 1980s
Following the accession of Old Belvedere in the 1950s, the number of clubs in the Leinster Senior League remained at ten for quite a few years. The only mechanism to reach this level was through a vote at the LCU Executive. Eventually in 1969, after several unsuccessful attempts, Carlisle were elected.
CYM had had their first eleven in Senior 2 for quite a number of years with a reasonable level of success. After winning the Senior 2 Cup in 1975 and the league in 1976 they sought to emulate Carlisle and seek promotion. In the late 70s the LCU executive agreed that senior cricket could be played on artificial wickets which were beginning to be used for club cricket in Britain. Over the years CYM had had difficulties in preparing wickets due to winter sports on their ground. They installed a “mat” between the rugby and soccer pitches which overcame this problem and they sought promotion.
The Leinster league had originally been played all through the season but there was now a second league competition, sponsored by Wiggins Teape. CYM were given access to this for the 1981 season and then having won the Senior 2 cup that year were voted into all Senior competitions for 1982.
During the 1970s there had also been progress in clubs in the Fingal area who had traditionally played at Junior level in Leinster. In 1971, Man-o-War became the first such club to reach the Senior 2 league and in 1973 they were joint winners with Clontarf 2nds. During the rest of the decade they finished well up in that league and were cup finalists in 1975. The Hills also made progress over that period, somewhat spectacularly. From winning their first trophy, the Junior Cup in 1971, they reached the Senior 2 league in 1976 and won it in 1977 and 1978.
Both clubs began to consider promotion to senior cricket as the 70s moved to the 80s. The Hills, like CYM, installed an artificial wicket but gave a commitment that if elected, they would in a few years move back to grass for senior matches. Despite winning the Senior 2 league in 1980 and in 1982 and having players winning individual awards, Man-o-War were rejected on several occasions. The Hills, who also had players winning individual trophies, won the Senior 2 cup in 1982 and were elected to senior status later that year. In 1983, Balrothery, who had reached the Senior 2 cup final in 1979 and 1982, won the Senior 3 league and were promoted to the Senior 2 league.
Merger discussions between Man-o-War and Balrothery took place and in 1986 the North County club competed for the first time. In both 1987 and 1989, North County did the Senior 2 cup and league double and eventually in the latter year were elected to “Senior status”.
At this time there was a certain amount of disquiet at the Executive at promotion being confined to an electoral process. Accordingly it was decided that for the future, a Junior club winning the Senior 2 league would be promoted and the club finishing bottom of the Senior league would be relegated. In 1990 Rush, having done the Senior 2 double, were the first club to achieve automatic promotion. This meant that Merrion were relegated. However Merrion had realised that although the rules had been changed to permit automatic promotion, the electoral process remained. Prior to the executive meeting, they wrote advising that in the event of them being relegated (which was of course obviously going to happen) they wished to apply for admission to senior cricket. At the meeting, following confirmation of the Rush promotion, the Merrion request was debated and it was proposed and carried that they be admitted. Many tend to forget that Merrion were in fact relegated and for a time, admittedly only about 15 minutes, were not a Senior club.
There was and possibly still is a view in Fingal that the failure of Man-o-War and subsequently North County to achieve promotion over several years was due to bias and a “Dublin city” mentality. There may have been elements of this but it is possibly fairer to say that the structure of league competition at the time led to concern at the increasing size of the Senior league and the possible dilution of talent in it. People felt that their only way of expressing this concern was to vote against clubs seeking promotion for the first time. It might be said therefore that it just happened that it was clubs from Fingal that were applying at that time. As indicated at the outset of this piece, there had been a league of ten teams for quite a while and many were unhappy at moving away from this, irrespective of who was applying.
It is very easy to see this as purely a “closed shop” mentality but that is probably unfair. In fact it has taken until now with the current “Birrell blueprint” for the Executive to realise what the real issue is, i.e. abandon outmoded designations of Senior clubs and Junior clubs and just deal with the real issue which is size of competitions.
It must also be realised that there were genuine concerns in some people’s minds about matters such as genuine team strength as opposed to having a small number of exceptional players, facilities, ground standards and the strength of a club in terms of the position of its lower teams and its youth section. The inevitable problem was that a simple yes/no vote gave no real indication to an applicant as to how they should improve matters.
The people who first put in place the electoral system were probably well meaning but any system of this kind has the potential to be divisive and so it became. It also leads to the use of methods of getting votes either by PR or putting people on committees to get a favourable headcount when a vote is taken. This means that matters are not always decided objectively on their merits, which can make matters difficult for those who are unable or unwilling to adopt these approaches.
It is now twenty three years since any such election took place and with the adoption of the new structure it should become a thing of the past.
Copyright: Cover Point
