ORMSKIRK - MORE THAN JUST A TEAM

Date: 18th September 2014

A Paul Edwards copyright exclusive for L&DCC Official Website.

Paul Edwards takes a look at what makes the club tick.

At just gone ten past six last Saturday Dane “Krone” Currency had Lytham’s Danny Edwards lbw first ball and sprinted off to cover like Usain Bolt. The only surprise was that he didn’t salute the crowd, as he had done when he caught and bowled Alex Davies for 74 just over an hour earlier. Currency was soon joined by the rest of the Ormskirk team, all of them keen to celebrate winning the ECB Premier League for the third time in seven years.

Twenty-four hours later, the Brook Lane players were cavorting about again, this time on the outfield at St Anne’s after defeating Norden by five wickets in the Lancashire Cup Final. No surprise then, that skipper Ian Robinson was happy to describe it as maybe the best weekend in the club’s history.

How do Ormskirk do it? It’s a question which a fair few clubs in the Liverpool Competition might do well to ask. To say they have a side stuffed with very fine cricketers rather begs the question. It’s not money, either. Club chairman Tim Dickinson admits that they pay a couple of players but adds that the sums are “insignificant compared to what they could earn elsewhere”.

Why, then, do players join Ormskirk? Yes, there is a tradition of success and a nucleus of a fine team already in place, but we need to dig a bit more deeply.

“I believe we ensure that the club is run in the right manner,” said Dickinson. “We don’t invest in players, we invest in the club, and we try to make it a good place to watch cricket. We are not just about the first team; we have three senior teams, a thriving junior section who won leagues throughout their age groups this year and there is a good social side to the club as well.”

All this takes work and not all of it can be done by Dickinson, who has been chairman for 11 years. If there are any factors which seem characteristic of Ormskirk they are, perhaps, localism and volunteerism.

First, let’s take localism. Yes, Robinson knows that he can attract players from further afield like Simon Kerrigan or Gary Knight, but the vast majority of the Brook Lane squad still live within a few miles of the ground. As much as any club in the league, Ormskirk seems to be truly a town team that the inhabitants can identify with and support.

Then there is volunteerism or working for relatively insignificant recompense, which in their way are just as important. People are happy to take on jobs at Brook Lane. There is probably no better scorer in the Comp than Chris Rimmer; there’s a public address announcer to keep the spectators informed and there is a catering operation which seems happy to supply meals and hot drinks at any time of day, bar the players’ teatime.

So what does Robbo do? He captains the first team and can do so in the knowledge that all the other bases are covered.

The result of all this could be seen at Ormskirk on Saturday evening. What I noticed was that so many of the players’ families were there and some wanted to be photographed with the Premier League trophy. At a time when a game of top level recreational cricket lasts seven hours and takes up the whole day, it is incumbent on clubs to make themselves as attractive as possible to wives, partners and children.

When asked what advice he would give to a struggling club which wanted to thrive, Dickinson said the following: “Get your infrastructure in place before you invest in players; appeal for volunteers; make sure the club is as convivial a place as possible; and get the supporters behind the club”.

Easier advised than accomplished? Sure. I’m sure Tim would agree, too. And yes, I do understand that every club has its own way of doing things, its own atmosphere. Yet, it’s interesting that Sunday’s Lancashire Cup Final was fought out between two of the friendliest clubs I’ve been to in the past few years, and that when the cricket was done, Norden tweeted congratulations to Ormskirk, said what a good day it had been and added that their victory was deserved. Pure class.

I suppose the point I’m making is this: if you get the club right, the good players so often follow and some momentum is created. In the midst of the best weekend in Ormskirk’s history, when even Walter Armstrong’s anxieties were allayed, a lot of credit went to the players and rightly so. But Ian Robinson’s cricketers are representative of a wider effort which they hope will be in existence when they are retired.

When you visit Brook Lane and look at the facilities they have on offer and the sort of operation they run, maybe it’s no wonder they win things. Like some other clubs in the Comp, the cricket is good because the whole club is strong.