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Eye-witness: It's simply not cricket, sir, to drop the local match men

Maidstone - The peace of the pavilion is riven by a reporting row

Simon O'Hagan
Sunday 07 July 2002 00:00 BST
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County cricket press boxes tend to be homely places, where colleagues who might go back decades make themselves comfortable for the long hours spent scrutinising the play. Here at the Mote ground at Maidstone, where Kent are playing Warwickshire, the box is an elderly, wooden affair under the eaves of the pavilion, in which the tiered desks provide ample space on which to spread out your laptop, reference books and refreshments.

It is in an elevated position, square of the wicket, and because space is shared with the official scorers, the umpires turn towards the box when they give their signals. The Mote is regarded as one of the loveliest grounds on the county circuit. A leafy park lies beyond the marquees that line a stretch of boundary. In the distance you can see the North Downs.

These are congenial surroundings in which to work, and by and large cricket writers are a contented lot. But this summer the equanimity of the press box has been disturbed, amid talk of betrayal and lost livelihoods. Cricket writing's most loyal servants have been cast aside.

These are the freelances known simply as "the local men". Every one of the 18 first-class counties has one, or did until this season. By unofficial but ancient arrangements, these men enjoy exclusive rights to provide scores and reports to those media organisations that do not have their own representatives at a match. And although none of the local men was in the employ of his county, each one performed an invaluable service in keeping its name in the public eye.

The bedrock of their summer employ was provided by the Press Association, the national news agency. It would take statistics from the local men, and regular reports throughout a day's play. But just before the start of this season, the PA dropped a bombshell. It wrote and told them they were no longer needed. From now on, information would be provided by each county's official scorers, or another designated person, in an arrangement the PA had made with English cricket's governing body, the ECB. The local man could take his notebook and shove off.

The decision has caused a furore. Matthew Engel, the one-time editor of Wisden, describes what has happened as "bad for the game and terrible for cricket journalism". Letters pages seethe with indignation. Even the august Cricket Writers' Club is protesting. "For some of the younger freelances, with mortgages and families, this has been a real blow," says its secretary, Derek Hodgson. The PA's decision will cost them more than £2,000 a season.

"It's money that you budget for," says the local man at Kent, Andrew Gidley. "For the arrangement to go out of the window at such short notice is very disappointing." At least he still has some radio work. At Derbyshire, Nigel Gardner has been left with no cricket work at all. "I'm extremely unhappy," he said. "It's been a miserable summer."

But what really galls the local men is the way that raw cricket data is apparently being turned into "match reports" at the PA's offices, by writers miles away from the action. This, they say, is leading to a string of inaccuracies and misinterpretations ending up in newspapers. More than one local man is compiling a list of these as evidence against the new system. In another twist, there are official county scorers who are refusing to carry out the extra PA duties, partly because they involve much more computer use, and partly because they are sensitive to the position of the local men. "We took pride in our work," says the Northamptonshire local man, Andrew Radd. "It's sad to see things done wrong."

The ECB's justification for the new system is that it needs to capitalise on the commercial value of cricket data, and that means statistics compiled in a more varied and sophisticated form than it believes the traditional local man can provide. The PA says it wanted "more control over what goes out to customers under the PA's banner".

But that just doesn't wash with the local men.

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