Cricket Club President

It is the middle of winter

Nobody has picked up a bat since March.

The Annual General Meeting is upstairs at the bowling club, twenty-two people in a room set for sixty, and the Treasurer is a long way into the accounts before it becomes clear the president is not coming back. Nominations are called for. Nobody moves.

Then somebody says your name. Somebody else seconds it before you have worked out who.

Carried. You have a club at the bottom of Division 8, three sides to field by October, and a committee who will spend the next six months finding out what you are like.Where the club is

Pick the country first: Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa, the West Indies or the United States. Each has its own clubs, districts and names on the teamsheet. In England, teas are a serious matter. In the United States a league game can be three hours in the car, and the pitch might be matting.

Name the club, the grounds and the colours, then decide who you were before the vote: a former 1st XI captain with two hundred games the club remembers, a local businessman with three hardware stores and a view, a stalwart with thirty years of canteen rosters behind them, or an outsider who ran a Division 3 club. It ended badly, and people read about it.Every week

Three sides take the field on your first weekend - 1st Grade, 2nd Grade and the U19s - and all three want the best eleven players.

You call the selection meeting, hear the captains out, take the Chairman of Selectors' recommendation or overrule it, and have the sides settled before the Friday. The league alternates one-dayers and two-dayers. The mid-week T20 is a knockout cup for all eighty clubs, and from the bottom of Division 8 winning it takes seven ties.

Field placings, declarations and coaching are not on you.

The room

A captain who counts the times you overruled him starts voicing his opinion. A Chairman of Selectors with a bias you did not choose: he might take the club man ahead of the better player, or blood a junior who is not ready.

Agreeing with one of them is refusing another. Both remember.

You get one call a week, to one committee member. Level with them, back them publicly or ask what they would do, and somebody else on the committee hears whose number you rang. Stay on good terms with someone who is good at the job and they start doing things for the club. One Facilities Officer keeps the upkeep down until she has not called a tradesman in three years.

Some of them are family. The Treasurer's son might be in your 2nd Grade side. Drop him and she notices, and she may ask for him back: "I will not pretend I am neutral about this." Let him go to another club and she does not forgive it. When one of a married couple on the committee turns against you at the AGM, the other usually goes too.The vote

At the end of the season the club votes on whether you stay: the players, the committee, the staff and the volunteers.

Before the vote you get to your feet and make up to two promises: "bring the registration fee down", "put another tier into the ground", "get everyone training twice a week". Next winter they hold you to every one. You can promise nothing at all. Nobody is owed anything next year, and nobody is grateful this year either.

Everyone on the committee judges you on something different: the Treasurer on the bank balance, the Facilities Officer on what you built this season. Below fifty per cent and the run ends - no relegation needed, no final lost. Say no to one of them often enough and they may stand against you, and a broken promise gives them something to campaign on.

What the club actually costs

Kit suppliers bring their own designs and prices, and the one you like is rarely the best deal. Registration pays for it, and the players notice what you charge them.

Sponsors start with a logo on the training kit and go up to naming rights, where the ground takes the sponsor's name. The biggest only talks to a club with a following. A good Treasurer who gets on with you leans over before you go in and tells you what they can afford. "Not a dollar more." Now and then a local firm backs one player, and pays only while he is in 1st Grade.

The cricket, if you choose not to sleep in on the Saturday

Then Saturday morning happens. Somebody texts at 7:43: "can't make it today mate, bit of a situation." No further detail. Somebody tweaked his back getting out of the car. Somebody has food poisoning, and he was fine at the pub last night. Run short enough and you field a ring-in. His file reads: "Watching from the car park. Seemed keen. We were desperate."

Any match can be watched ball by ball: both innings, real bowling figures, a field that mirrors for a left-hander, and every shot drawn from the middle of the ground. Or skip to the result and hear about it on Sunday. Every card comes with a wagon wheel, a Manhattan and a worm, and the side gives its three votes for the Players' Player.

The dressing room

Every player at the club has…