Sport
3 October, 2022
MKM pulls out of A grade for 2022/23 as they look to rebuild and improve club
The Maryborough District Cricket Association (MDCA) A grade will remain a five-team competition for the 2022/23 season with the MKM Cricket Club pulling out last week, choosing to field an A reserve side only for the season. It follows...
The Maryborough District Cricket Association (MDCA) A grade will remain a five-team competition for the 2022/23 season with the MKM Cricket Club pulling out last week, choosing to field an A reserve side only for the season.
It follows Maryborough’s decision to sit out the competition last season, although the Owls are set to make their return on Saturday afternoon for round one of the competition.
A player exodus has seen MKM make the difficult decision to drop out of A grade for the season, which newly-installed club president Craig Horner believes is “unprecedented”.
“We knew that we were going to lose our captain from last season, Joel Radlof, as he wanted to play in Ballarat to test himself to see how he would travel at a higher level. But we didn’t realise we would end up losing so many others. It then became a snowball after that. We decided that if we were going to have three A grade players and top up the rest with A reserve players, it’s not really worth putting an A grade team in,” he said.
“I wanted to battle through, but a few on the committee decided that we would probably lose more players over the duration of the season if we proved to be uncompetitive. We have enough at an A reserve level to field a team there.
“I think it’s unprecedented for MKM. I’ve only been there for five years, but we have to start rebuilding from the ground up. There have been a few guys who have stuck around for positions on the committee, but we lost our president as well this year, so we are virtually starting again. It’s put us back a bit from where we were.”
For Horner, having never been president at a sporting club, he’ll be treating 2022/23 as a learning experience, and will try to gain the perspectives of past players and administrators to understand what needs to be changed to ensure MKM can be competitive in A grade cricket going forward.
“I put my hand up for president this year. I’ve never been a president of any sort of club, but I have to think about running it like a business, and get some interest coming back, which could be difficult,” he said.
“The first thing I am looking to do is to talk to players who have left recently, and get honest feedback on what we have done well within the club and what we haven’t done well. I have also started to talk to past players and past administrators of the club to work out where the club was. It’s been a slow degradation over the years, we have had some really good cricketers and people who have moved to other clubs within the administration. I want to work out whether it’s been a culture thing or a financial thing, so I’ll be digging deep to try and encourage players and administrators to come back.
“The way the financial market is could have also been a factor. MKM are behind a bit in that aspect of cricketing realms. We’ve never paid players before, so we’re a long way behind the eightball in terms of incentives and trying to keep people with other clubs around the area offering those incentives for players, especially if those players are from out of town.”
Horner says there are still plenty of positive factors around the club, including their sponsors and people who continue to volunteer their time.
“We still have some excellent people in the club who live and breathe for it, who volunteer their time and money. We still have that core there. I’m a firm believer in talking to people and getting their ideas, whether they align with mine or not. If you hear the same tune continually, then there is something there, even if you don’t believe it,” he said.
“We have some great sponsors who have been fantastic over the last year or so, who will continue to be involved with the club. They’re all local people. They may be business people and are busy, but it’s a way to work out how it suits them and to ensure they are a valued part of our family.”
Horner will also enquire about whether their results from last season — which saw MKM finish last with two wins and a draw — could have also played a part in the player exodus.
“Last season, we had a really good start. We had about 30 plus blokes at our first training session, and it was a good vibe around the club. I’ve been asking the question of the fact that we had a lot of promise last year, and the players there that could give us a very productive season in a results-sense. We did have a good season on the field, we played well, and it showed by having three players in the league’s best team. Things just didn’t go our way as far as the results were concerned. There was still a good vibe right until the last few games,” he said.
“I don’t know whether that has contributed to player drop off as well, where people think we had a good team last year, but didn’t get the results. These are things I am trying to find out. I still believe players would have hung around this year if we had a bit more success last year. But I think they might have fallen out of love with the game as we didn’t get the results, and players didn’t perform to the level they thought. Also, their circumstances might have changed in their personal lives that have affected their ability to play cricket. I don’t want to bank on that, though.”
Horner laments the changing attitude of local sport, harbouring concerns about the viability of the increasing financial exposure in the local game.
“I think we are going down the same path as football. It’s a hard thing. I didn’t think cricket would go down that path, but it feels like we are going down that same avenue and it creates problems as it does in football clubs. You pay players to come in, but it could also isolate people who are considered highly regarded to the team and feel a bit left out by the club they supported through their juniors. Some do it very well, some do it poorly, but it’s going to be an education for us to understand what that balance is to try and get the club back up to where it was,” he said.