Bowling News
It is the Yorkshire CCGBA Annual General Meeting at Cleckheaton Sports next Saturday and on the agenda there is a proposed change in the rules governing the Yorkshire Cup and the Henry Taylor Cup. They have both always been a male-only competition with the Yorkshire Cup running for over 100 years in that way. The proposed change deletes the word 'male' from the rule opening it up to lady bowlers by default.
Proposed change to rule: Rule Title: Yorkshire and Henry Talyor Cups Rule No. 5
This change is proposed by Holbeck Bowling Club Limited and seconded by Stanningley Park Crown Green Bowling Club.
Delete the word "male" in line two "The competing Team for the Yorkshire County Challenge Cup and the Henry Taylor Cup shall number twelve 'male' players, each shall be a bona fide registered member of the Club represented by such a Team." The remainder of the rule as is.
Any YCCGBA rule change needs a two-thirds majority to get adopted. The rationale for the change is covered in the following supporting documentation sent out to all clubs.
For many years now there has been a steady and worrying decline in entries to the Yorkshire Cup. In contrast there has been a steady increase in the entries to the "mixed" Eric Hutchinson team competition especially with the introduction of the supplementary Derrick Radley Cup in 2006 following the merger of the Men and Ladies Associations.
This proposal in itself will not see a combined increase in entries to the County Cups, as the game is suffering a decline in participation generally but it may go some way to balancing the entries to both Cups. Last year there was a similar proposal put to the AGM which despite a large majority of members voting in favour, the two thirds majority requirement failed by two votes.
Many Leagues in the County are already mixed and if it wasn't for female bowlers, many Clubs and for that matter Leagues would not be viable. If the game is going to survive, then it needs to move with the times. Many Saturday Leagues are mixed with many teams relying on ladies in order to commit to entering the aforementioned Leagues. In the past this raised a moral dilemma, "do we enter the Yorkshire Cup and give the ladies a "day off", or not enter and just concentrate on league bowling?"
With the introduction of the Eric Hutchinson Memorial Cup this moral dilemma became a little easier to address but the minimum of two males and two females requirement can still be an issue. Clubs that only have a few female bowlers can and indeed do struggle at times to meet this minimum requirement and have to forfeit matches due to the inability to meet the requirement.
If the Yorkshire and Henry Taylor Cups were "open" competitions, Clubs with only a few regular female bowlers could enter the Yorkshire Cup knowing that they would in all probability be able to field twelve players. This of course is in addition to allowing our "elite" County Ladies the opportunity to bowl at the highest team level within the County as well as giving other aspiring ladies the opportunity to play against the best that the County has to offer regardless of gender. In many cases this will see Clubs being able to put out their strongest side in the Yorkshire Cup which currently is not the case..
You will note that there is no mention in this proposal of tinkering with the Eric Hutchinson Memorial Cup, if it isn't broken, then don't fix it! By making it and the supplementary Derrick Radley Cup "open" competitions and extensions of the Yorkshire and Henry Taylor Cups it could become quite a challenge to administer (Cup Rule 14 for example) in addition to increased league fixture disruption.
N.b The Armed Forces have moved with the times. WRAC (1992), WREN (1993) and WRAF (1994) all disbanded, with females joining directly their chosen branch of the Armed Forces. In 2018, all ground close combat roles in the British Armed Forces were opened to women, making all the roles in the Armed Forces available to women for the first time.
To put this into perspective, our daughters, granddaughters and great granddaughters can fight for King and Country but they are currently not able to represent their Club in the Yorkshire Cup!
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