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http://www.app.com/article/20100309/NEW … t-schedule
Dan, article on Monmouth. Many of the themes in the article (loading all the racing at the weekend, upgrading purses for the better races), are R4C totems though the US has a completely different structure to ours and the parallels aren’t exact.
The problem which might occur with twenty/20 at the moment is that it doesn’t stop at the end of the domestic season, you now have the top 2 sides going into a
champions league
with even more riches to be won
Nathan, do the top two from the 2010 tournament go to India in 2011?
Nathan, do the top two from the 2010 tournament go to India in 2011?
The winner and runner up of the 2010 Twenty/20 competition will qualify for the Champions League which is/was due to take place at the end of September 2010, venue undecided, last i heard was that South Africa were going to host it, but I’m unsure if that was confirmed.
The ECB were unhappy about it being staged in September due to it clashing with County Championship fixtures.
Somerset if successful will be committed to fulfilling their Championship fixtures
Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
Thanks for that, Nathan. I’m sure I heard something on IPL the other day about the best County sides going over. Must be a different plan.
The IPL and Champions League are two different competitions Max, I cant tell you anything about the IPL as i don’t watch it. ((Where’s Andrew Hughes when you need him))
Were they saying that County sides could play in the IPL 2011?
Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
LOL, Nathan, I figured that out!!
Yes, they said that the best 20/20 side from England MAY be invited to play in the IPL in 2012. It might have been just banter in the commentary box. Andrew will know, as you say.
Did they say it April 1st
The IPL’s quite a long competition and clashes with the start of County Championship, unless they change dates cant see it happening.
Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
County Cricket may not get huge attendances but the 5 day Test Matches are always sell outs with tickets selling out very fast all the time.
20/20 may be a dumbed down version to the purists but yes it does bring in the crowds who want to see a more faster game where the kids wont get bored as easily than if they went to the 4 day county version.
As for crowds going to places where the racing is secondary then how come the Cheltenham Festival,Chester,York,Royal Ascot,Goodwood,Aintree and Epsom Derby are always packed to the rafters and even Cartmel where the quality is never brilliant always brings in the masses.
This is Simon Bazalgette’s take on things in the Independent today. Wouldn’t disagree with most of it.
Another chinless disaster merchant who wants to run the Gold Cup on a Saturday. That was possibly one of the most depressing articles I’ve read this year – and he’s in charge.
"Racing is a day out"
"The problem is the flat"
"We need a narrative"
"The levy is going to shrink 20 or 30% next year as bookies move offshore…" (WELL,STOP THEM THEN
YOU ARISTOCRATIC DANGLEBERRY).
Lions led by donkeys to their slaughter.
What racing needs is a sabre rattler who loves the sport and can sell its boundless merits to both the disillusioned hard core and the sofa-bound lumpen proletariat who prefer cabbage patch doll games like poker or online slots because they don’t know any better.
Grrrrr…
- Total Posts 17716
That’s my point. Golf did .racing can.
You’re right, but not I fear in the way you intend.
Golf has continued in robust financial health, because the powers that be focus on luring in the small proportion of a (largely male) population who are both wealthy enough to spend large amounts of money to join, and leisured enough to have mid-week time to play.
Except in Scotland, where the "public" and democratic ethos is much stronger, golf is the middle-class, middle-aged game
par excellence
.
If you believe that Racing should focus on the pensioned portion of the population with time to spare, rather than throwing pop concerts at them (which makes the racing a mere pretext for the event), then I heartily concur.
One may have thought Pinza that RFC et al were aware of the shifting demographic profile in this country viz an ageing population with the most disposable income being in the now-arthritic hands of the baby-boomers
Thanks for being the only one to have a bash at explaining why golf has boomed despite its format being the same as it was when Bobby Jones and his plus-fours were marching the Links, but I’d question the ‘middle class’ bit
Don’t profess to be particularly
au fait
with the professional game but it seems to me that those with what can loosely be termed a ‘proletariat’ background have risen through the ranks
Lee Westwood
Ian Poulterspring to mind
And I’d warrant this general shift from refuge of the privileged to accessibility for all has been mirrored in both Club membership and TV audience
Should Racing For Change be talking to the bods responsible for Golf Didn’t Change? …
but it has thrived
I haven’t a clue why golf has thrived. Its a mind bending sport with the capacity to drive the most stoic of men to the point of insanity.
Football. (People forget football was on its knees in 1988, post-Hillsborough. My lad won’t believe some of the attendances at matches. 3000 at a league match at Ayresome Park? You went to football and you were a pariah in some cases.)
Golf. 20/20 cricket. Darts. Snooker soon.
What have they all got in common?
Someone believed in the product, nay someone
loved
the product, believed in its potential, invested in it, and was able to sell it to a wider public with enthusiasm, bounce and, yes, hype.
The BHA, The Jockey Club, the ROA, the REL, this Charterhouse dribbler Venusian introduced us all to this morning, the bookies, the betting exchanges, the bloggers, the broadsheet doomsayers, and all the other navel-gazing special interest groups attached to horse racing are queuing up to do racing down, telling us all what’s wrong with it, rather than what’s right.
People respond to light not to darkness.
Racing is a sleeping giant ready to burst from its slumbers and we need a standard bearer to take that message to the people.
Go high enough and you always get to one man – who is that man to take us forward. And how?
I would question what, if anything, racing can learn from Golf. I’d also question it being the preserve of the middle-class (whoever they are) as I know some right rough-asses that play Golf.
To explain, when me and my mates stopped playing football there was an almost unwritten rule that we would take up playing Golf. As it turns out I’m about the only one that didn’t. For me, its popularity is based on it, as opposed to racing, being a simple sport to participate in and watch on the telly – you hit the ball up the thing until it goes in the hole.
You don’t need to be at a level of physical fitness above that of a normal person to play, almost every council in the country has at least one municipal course, therefore there are no prohibitive costs involved and the handicapping system means that players of different ability can compete in a sporting manner if they choose too.
In short – it’s just easy – to understand, to participate in and (perhaps most importantly) to feel the game you may play at the Slough Council Golf Course today is exactly the same game as will be played at Augusta this weekend – therefore more or less everything racing ain’t.
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