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“Or fans from my area (Merseyside) are expected to support a Manchester team – no chance!!”
Completely agree. I am happy to spend an hour travelling to Old Trafford to watch Lancashire. But I am not doing so to watch a contrived franchise named after Manchester, playing a manufactured format of cricket that is not played anywhere else. I know plenty of other Lancashire supporters who are the same.
I recognise Cancello’s point about the Sunday League. I expect there was criticism of the Gillette Cup as well when it first started. However, I do not see what purpose The Hundred is serving. There is far too much domestic cricket now. And how is a format not played anywhere else helping the national team?
Having said that, no one really wants The Hundred to fail because the ECB has bet the house on it. But I have heard hardly anyone talk about the competition. Hardly anyone identifies with these franchises with no basis in history or culture.
It might attract a few fair weather fans but it has alienated its core audience, which is not a good move.
The JPL was different – a natural extension of something that already existed, using the same infrastructure.
Counties would often play their JPL fixture on the Sunday during a Saturday, Monday, Tuesday County game against the same opponent at the same venue.
The Racing League is completely contrived.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"‘You cannot recreate the tribal nature of football club support, ingrained and handed down from generation to generation, by creating contrived teams, even regional ones.’
Quite. And frankly, why would you want to?
Agree about supporting Lancashire – and have been to Aigburth & Birkdale numerous times – especially during the 2011 County winning season. And Merseyside, (and Gtr Manchester) was originally part of Lancashire, so there’s no real dispute with supporting them.
Lancashire County Cricket Club stands above the Liverpool and Manchester rivalry. A franchise named Manchester does not.
I lived in Manchester for three years. I enjoyed it there and still quite like the city, although I have not visited since a few days before the first lockdown.
However, I do not identify with the city in the same way as I do with Lancashire.
I do wonder who the “Southern Brave” Hundred franchise is aimed at. Is everyone in the south of England outside London meant to support it?
“I do wonder who the “Southern Brave” Hundred franchise is aimed at. Is everyone in the south of England outside London meant to support it?”
Well as a lifelong Sussex supporter I can tell you that I certainly won’t be supporting the “Southern Braves” or indeed paying any attention to the competition. One look at the BBC trailers for it demonstrate that I am not the target demographic so the ECB will be neither surprised nor concerned by my stance. I understand that the franchises have been created to appeal to an audience that thinks “counties” are an outdated concept that they can’t relate to (and don’t like cricket enough without it being delivered with additional gimmicks).
It’s as if both Racing and Cricket’s organising bodies don’t have enough confidence in their core product and their only strategy is “How can we make our sport more like football?”
I know a guy who works at the ECB , he admits the hundred is just an attempt to sell the game to an American audience.
Even the IPL which has the best players of the short formats in, I can’t get interested in as it’s so transient and souless.
I don’t know a single person who is into horse racing that doesn’t have an affinity with a horse or race of the past. That’s what people fall in love with.
The idea people are going to get excited about a league of jockeys /Z list celebrities is nonsense.
The individual horses have always been the superstars of our sport.
Racing and cricket are the same in this respect, they are great games in their own right. The administrators just are deluded in thinking new and whacky, gimmicky formats are what’s is needed to take them forward.
Racing has the added handicap that betting is pretty much seen as the devil’s work in the modern Woke world.
End of rant
“Unless my memory deceives me there is no way itv comes close to the quality of coverage you got with julian wilson on the bbc.”
Just using this post as a hook to hang the following description of Julian Wilson as observed by Jamie Reid on 1,000 Guineas day in 1988.
“Ears flapping, hair slicked back severely and with the most doleful and humourless expression on his face, the greying Wislon (sic) looks more than ever like some haunted character out of a Bram Stoker novel. He rightly regards himself as a highly experienced journalist, cruelly underestimated by comparison with his more charismatic colleagues, but it would still be fair to say that he will never enjoy a thriving alternative career as a stand-up comedian.”
Ouch.
Gladiateur – Jamie Reid is a prolific author on horse racing.
Below is a select bibliography. I say ‘select’ because at least one of his books is absent from the list, namely ‘Emperors of the Turf’ which contains the Julian Wilson character sketch as above. I’ve always found him both informative and entertaining.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/275955.Jamie_Reid
Note also his two music biographies of Diana Krall & Chris Isaak.
“Who’s Jamie Reid?”
My thoughts exactly.
And I am aware of who Jamie Reid is.
Julian Wilson was no angel, but he had a distinctive approach that I enjoyed.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Thanks, Seasider. 👍
I should have Googled him, but had been down the pub all day and didn’t think to do so! 🍻
I’m aware he was pompous and up his own backside, Colin, but I could laugh at that and when I watch old BBC racing footage on YouTube I’m often reminded how opinionated Wilson was – he never sat on the fence.
I find inter-media bitching distasteful, especially in print, and Jamie Reid didn’t do himself any favours with his comments in my opinion.
Write about your subject, not about other broadcasters/journalists.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"I quite liked Wilson. He was a poor commentator but he was a good presenter, interviewer and analyst.
As for Reid’s remarks, Wilson was not trying to be funny so what point is he making? His other comments about Wilson’s appearance are petty. As soon as someone makes personal remarks, you know they do not really have an argument.
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