23rd August

Gwalia Welsh Cup
Sunday 28th August
@ The SWALEC Stadium

Llandudno v Swansea
Umpires: Paul Jones (North Wales) & Ken Hembrow (Llanelli)

28th was rained off so they played on 29th and Swansea won

11th August

Thomas Carroll SWCA KO Cup
Sunday 21st August
@ The Gnoll, Neath

Gowerton v Port Talbot Town
Brian Watkin-John & Mike Turner
nominated by SWCA

1st August

Gwalia Welsh Cup semi-finals
Sunday 14th August

Llandudno v Ammanford
@ The Oval, Llandudno
Paul Jones & David Alun Williams (North Wales)

Swansea v Cardiff
@ St Helen's, Swansea
Bob Miles (Llanelli) and Steve Kuhlmann (East Glamorgan)

umpires nominated by Wales ACO

21st July

25th ESCA/Bunbury U15 Festival
at Monmouth School 25th - 29th July 2011

Monday 25th July, 2011 – 50 Over Matches
London & East v Midlands – Ground 1: Umpires: Derek Rees and Lyn Hall
North v South & West – Ground 2: Umpires: Richard Lewis and Mostyn Lovett

Tuesday 26th July, 2011 – 50 Over Matches
Midlands v South & West  - Ground 1: Umpires: John Schofield and Richard Lewis
London & East v North – Ground 2: Umpires: Derek Rees and Peter Williams

Wednesday 27th July, 2011 – T/20 Matches @ SWALEC Stadium
Match A - North v London & East: Umpires: John James and Peter Williams
Match B - South & West v Midlands: Umpires: Lyn Hall and Mike Rouse

Thursday 28th July, 2011 – 50 Over Matches
Midlands v North  – Ground 1: Umpires: John James and Richie Thomas
London & East v South & West – Ground 2: Umpires: Simon Green and Dean Price

Friday 29th July, 2011 – T/20 Matches
Winner Match A v Winner Match B – Ground 1: Umpires: Simon Green and Dean Price
Loser Match A v Loser Match B – Ground 2: Umpires: John Schofield and Mike Rouse

Monday , Tuesday, Thursday – 10.45 am start- lunch between innings
Wednesday – 1st Game - 10.45 am, 2nd Game 2.45 pm
Friday – both games 10.30 am start

Umpires selected by John Prickett (ESCA) assisted by Tony Davies (Wales ACO)

18th July

Welsh Cup quarter final umpires

Mumbles v Llandudno
John James & Ken Hembrow (Llanelli)

Chepstow v Swansea
(this fixture is now at Chepstow as St Helen's is unavailable)
Michael Harries & John Dye (East Glamorgan)

Abergavenny v Cardiff
Dean Price (East Glamorgan) & Richie Thomas (Monmouthshire)

Ammanford v Hawarden Park
John Williams & Alan Hansen (Pembrokeshire)

All fixtures scheduled for 24th July

Umpires nominated by Wales ACO

8th June

The ECBACO has launched a scorers' initiative to encourage existing scorers to become registered and graded. Experienced scorers may be entitled to a grading without the need to undergo examination. More details here in a letter from ECBACO COO Nick Cousins and the application form is here.

Scorers please take advantage - it's to your benefit.

Umpires print a couple off and hand them to scorers over the next few weeks.

The letters have been widely circulated so your club/branch/you may get several by email.

13th May

The May 2011 edition of the ACO newsletter has been published.

Hard copy will be in the post. E-version is here.

12th May

The ECBACO is introducing a "grandfather" rights scheme for scorers. In English, that means that they can ask to be assessed and will be given a grading based on current performance without examination. This concession will only last for 12 months. Thereafter, scorers will have to follow the examination route.

Initial explanation here. There is supposed to be an explanatory letter but that hasn't been issued yet. It will be circulated to all the leagues when it is.

Contact me for more info.

4th May

Denis Harman's funeral is on Monday 9th May at 12:00 at the Co-operative Chapel of Rest, East Avenue, Gadlys, Aberdare followed by burial at Aberdare Cemetery at 12:30
The wake is at The Rock in Aberaman

22nd April

Denis Harman

I am sorry to report that Denis passed away earlier today after a short illness. He was a Londoner by birth but moved to Aberdare in the early 1970s. He soon became involved with Aberdare Cricket Club as both player and coach and many of the current members of the club's senior sides owe their cricketing skills to Denis' efforts.

He was no mean cricketer himself. Although never the most mobile on the field he was a more than useful right hand bat, bowled occasional left arm finger spin and, as a 'keeper, had a very safe pair of hands.

He was also an ACU&S qualified umpire and stood throughout South Wales. In recent years he stood in the SWCA and in 2010 was on the Premier League panel during its inaugural season.

Despite having lived in Wales for over half his life, he never lost his "Sarf London" accent and that, coupled with a bulky physical presence, gave him a slight air of menace that meant that no-one ever argued with his decisions. He was in reality a lovely, gentle, family man.

I knew Denis for over 20 years and played cricket with him for Aberdare. During my first season in the SWCA I stood with Denis for virtually every game and he was my mentor as well as my friend. I will miss him dearly.

Condolences to Vera and their sons, Chris and Nick.

Peter

17th April

2011 Gradings here

Cricket Wales is now fully up and running. Here's a circular from Robin Varley explaining the whys and wherefores, or some of them at least.

5th April

The 2011 SWPCL umpiring crew
(up for it)

L to R (back row): John James; Lyn Hall; Simon Green; Richard Thomas; Ken Hembrow; Dean Price; Reg Shah;
Brian R. Jones; Bob Miles; Mostyn Lovett
(front row): Steve Kuhlman; Derek Rees; Peter Williams; Richard Lewis; John Schofield
Absent: John Dye
photo: Steve Jones

4th April

Cricket Wales starts operations today. It effectively combines the WCA and the CBW into a single body responsible for overseeing all recreational cricket, both adult and junior, in Wales. The CBW employed staff including the CDOs will remain in place.

Cricket Wales will be overseen by an independent management Board. The interim Board for 2011 has been assembled by invitation to supervise the transition process but from 2012 the various participating groups will elect the Board members. The 12 members for 2011 are
from Glamorgan CCC: Hugh Davies; Roger Morris; Harry Lazarus
from the Senior leagues: Phil Thomas (Pembs); Eddie Davies (NWPCL); Graham Crimp (G&MCL)
from the Junior leagues: Ted Tipper (Newport); Peter Everson (Gwynedd)
Finance: Colin John (Carmarthen)
Admin: Robin Varley (Mid Wales)
CWO: under advertisement
from Wales ACO: Peter Williams (Aberdare)

1st April

2 Level 1 passes at Swansea - well done those men

29th March

All 5 Pembrokeshire candidates have passed the Level 1 exam.
Congratulations to them.

17th March

At the management committee meeting last night the SWPCL resolved to adopt the 2010 Law changes without any amendments. At least, that's how we understand it at the moment. Clarification is being sought.

13th March

10 candidates sat the Level 1 exam at the SWALEC Stadium today. They all passed. Congratulations to them and welcome to the priesthood.

6th March

At the AGM in Llandrindod Wells today, John Owen stood down as Education & Training Officer. Our thanks to him for many years of outstanding service to the ACO and the ACU&S.

John has been succeeded by Peter Williams. All the other officers were re-elected. Contact details are on the Contact page of the website.

All the proposed constitutional changes were approved.

2011 Gradings are expected from the ECBACO in the course of the next few days. We will publish them as soon as they arrive.

4th March

The March 2011 ECB Newsletter is now available here

The 2011 Fearnley kit catalogue is available here

23rd February

2nd version of SW Premier League allocations here

1st version of G&ML allocations here

17th February

Steve Jones has started a new (non Play-Cricket) website for the South Wales Premier Cricket League. You can find it here. Info includes umpires' allocations, which have been slightly amended and corrected from the original version.

The SWCA has decided that the ECB double bounce delivery guideline will not be implemented in the Association in 2011 and that bowling of the ball into the ground as part of a warm up routine will not constitute changing the condition of the ball and will therefore not incur a penalty.

14th February

The government has backtracked on some of the proposed CRB checking reforms.
It will make no difference to umpires, who will still need to be checked.
The full Home Office explanation is here if you're interested.

7th February

Reminder:-

The Annual General Meeting of the Wales Association of Cricket Officials will be held at The Metropole Hotel, Temple Street, Llandrindod Wells, Powys, LD1 5DY on Sunday 6 March at 11:00 a.m. Coffee will be available from 10:30 a.m. The secretary will circulate the Agenda and Minutes shortly.

Resolutions for consideration at the Annual General Meeting and nominations for officers or committee members must be proposed and seconded by current members and sent in writing to the Secretary not later than 21 days before the meeting. Both the proposer and seconder(s) must append their ECB ACO membership number to the proposal in order that their current membership can be authenticated. The secretary’s address is on the Officers button.

Here are the agenda, nominations so far received, and draft constitutional changes.

Here's the constitution.

6th February

At a meeting today the Welsh Cricket Association formally voted to accept the proposed re-structuring of recreational cricket in Wales. This means that all recreational cricket in Wales, both junior and senior, will now be administered by a single body - "Cricket Wales" - which is a combination of the WCA and the Cricket Board of Wales. The new body will have a Board composed of representatives from all parts of cricket. Full details will be published very shortly and we'll have them here as soon as they are available.

12th January

The ACO insurance cover has been improved for 2011 - see here

Fearnley have recently revamped the ECBACO Shop website.
You'll need to re-register because they didn't save any of your details.
Doh.

A reminder
If you haven't done it yet, create/amend your ACO membership details by going here.

11th January

The Annual General Meeting of the Wales Association of Cricket Officials will be held at The Metropole Hotel, Temple Street, Llandrindod Wells, Powys, LD1 5DY on Sunday 6 March at 11:00 a.m. Coffee will be available from 10:30 a.m. The secretary will circulate the Agenda and Minutes shortly.

The constitution is annexed to the website. Resolutions for consideration at the Annual General Meeting and nominations for officers or committee members must be proposed and seconded by current members and sent in writing to the Secretary not later than 21 days before the meeting. Both the proposer and seconder(s) must append their ECB ACO membership number to the proposal in order that their current membership can be authenticated. The secretary’s address is on the Officers button.

26th December

The December issue of the ACO Newsletter has been published

22nd December

The SWCA rulebook has been radically re-organised
The constitution and the match rules have been disentangled
The league and cup match rules have also been re-ordered
There are no substantive changes apart from those approved at the recent AGM
(see entry for 7th December)
An authorised copy of the revised rulebook can be downloaded here

17th December

Trainers have been issued with Level 1 Course application forms
Contact your District rep for further information

13th December

Alex Wharf has been added to the first class reserve list for 2011

12th December

Wales ACO committee met today to review and report ratings to the ECBACO. The proposed amended table explaining the ratings is here. The ACO may amend it again at the next meeting in January 2011. The ACO will issue everyone with a revised rating before the start of the season and we will post the new listing when it's available.

7th December

The SWCA AGM was held today

All the Officers were re-elected
The Umpires' Administrator will be appointed on 12th January

Swansea & Neath 3rd & 4th XIs were admitted to Division 4
All the 2011 fixtures have been posted to the SWCA website

Some rule changes were adopted:

All Cup games (except for the final - 13:00) will now start at 13:30 throughout the season.
An amendment to Law 2 was made - a player who does not appear until after the first innings has been completed will only be allowed to field.
3rd and 4th Division 2nd XIs will play 40 over matches with a maximum of 10 overs per bowler.
The draw points split has been amended so that a run difference of 81 or more will lead to an award of 12 points to the superior side. The table in the rulebook has been revised.
If the side batting second wins it will receive an extra batting point for every two wickets still standing but the maximum number of points will remain at 5. (This change is designed avoid penalising sides who win easily after bowling out the opponents for a low score.)
Transfers are now allowed (subject to approval) throughout the season but a player moving after 30th June will only be eligible to play for the 2nd XI of his new club
"Glass ceiling" rules have been added to prevent 2 teams from the same club being in the same division - this change was necessary to deal with the admission of Swansea and Neath's additional sides.
The promotion and relegation provisions have been revised to cater for 0/1/2 relegations from the SWPCL. A table will appear in the new rulebook.
All current ECB playing directives and guidelines will be applied in every match.
When assessing the fitness of the ground the umpires must inspect the conditions without the interference or involvement of any other persons.
From July 1st 2012 only clubs holding a current ECB Clubmark Accreditation will be eligible to play in Division One.
(and as usual there were a few minor corrections and re-wordings)

3rd December

Mike Rouse is the G & MCL appointments officer for 2011
His details are on the Districts page

30th November

The SWPCL match rules have been revised for 2011
Amended version here - changes in red

23rd November

You've all read about the Glamorgan hoo-ha in the papers over the last week. Here's the official statement from Chief Executive Alan Hamer explaining his version of events.

Fearnley have finally revamped their ECBACO Shop website to match the catalogue so you can actually see all the clothing etc you all hope you'll be given for Christmas. Please make sure you correctly address your letters to:-

Father Christmas,
Santa’s Grotto,
Reindeerland,
SAN TA1

That's the address on the Royal Mail website. Last date for posting is 15th December.

22nd November

The ECB has revised the Juniors in Open Age Cricket guidance. The amended version is now posted - see the Library page. The changes are highlighted in yellow. Basically, really good youngsters are now allowed to play sooner, subject to conditions.

Remember that umpires have a legal responsibility for player safety. To quote a Court of Appeal judge in Vowles v Evans (a successful scrummaging spinal injury claim against a rugby referee arising out of a match between Llanharan 2nd XV and Tondu 2nd XV):-

"Liability has been established in this case because the injury resulted from a failure to implement a Law designed to minimise the risk of just the kind of accident which subsequently occurred."

For cricket umpires you can change "a Law" in this quote to "Law 42.6/7/8 and ECB Guidelines". But that's only my opinion.

16th November

We won an award!!

Our "haka" video (see News for 24th May) was given a Gold award as the Best Sports Promotional Video in the Originated category at the 2010 Promax UK Awards in London recently. No more £30/game for us. If you want the talent you'll have to pay for it.

Meanwhile you can see our class for yourself here

30th October

Steve Davies (Barry), John Dye (Cardiff), Mike Holcombe (Newport), David Stevens (Magor), Bob Szpadt (Caerphilly) and Peter Williams (Aberdare) were at the SWALEC Stadium today for their "Professionals' Discussion" with their course assessors to complete their ECBACO Level 2 Training.

All 6 have been recommended for approval and may expect to receive their Level 2 certificates shortly. Well done, gents.

28th October

The ACO Education Committee have decreed that all trainers must attend a Trainers Workshop before embarking on Training Candidates for the Level 1 or Level 1A Certificates in 2010/11. That means that all existing courses are suspended for the time being. A "CTS" Workshop for Wales is being held at The Metropole Hotel at Llandrindod on Sunday 28th November and will be run by Eddie Lunn, the ECB's Education Officer for the South, which includes Wales. To get on the course, apply via your local branch to John Owen, the Regional Training Officer. His details are on the Officers' page.

From now on, a course not delivered by a CTS accredited training officer will not be an accredited course. You have been warned.

Level 1 and Level 1A material will be distributed to those who complete the course and no-one else.

26th October

We have been notified that Ken James has replaced Leighton James as the Llanelli and District contact. Ken's details appear on the Districts page.

19th October

The Cricket Board of Wales is on a mission to re-organise Welsh cricket. Here's a copy of the plan. Discussions are continuing with the Welsh Cricket Association about the creation of a single body to run Welsh recreational cricket. More on this when available.

Over the next couple of weeks Roadshows are being held around Wales to explain the plans. Contact your regional cricket development officer if you want to attend.

Who are the CDOs? Contact details here.

19th October

The ECBACO is at Lord's on 20th November and there is also a bit of a day out surrounding it if you want to go the whole hog, Those of you with email will have had an invite from James Dexter. The programme looks like this:-

0930 Tea and coffee on arrival

1030 Opening Welcome by Roger Knight, Chairman of the Board, followed by the AGM

1100 Session 1

1200 Session 2

1300 Re-gather in Nursery Pavilion for lunch (continuous open buffet)

1330 Keynote Speaker – Henry Blofeld

1400 Seminar 3

1500 Seminar 4

1600 Closing Address and ‘Farewells’ at end of day’s events

Each Session will cover a wide range of interests for umpires and scorers. You will be able to attend any 4 presentations available on the day. The presenters are

Hawkeye – Paul Hawkins
Duckworth Lewis – Frank Duckworth and Tony Lewis
Elite Officials Q&A – Ian Gould
Practical Umpiring – John Holder
Inside the Sky Commentary Box – Benedict Bermange
Scoring in the Media - Malcolm Ashton
Total Cricket Scorer – Lee Marmara and Paul Thurstance

After the success of the ‘You versus Hawkeye’ session last year they will again be running the session in the Lord’s indoor school. There is only space for 8 attendees per session and spaces will be allocated to those who reply first. The MCC to run tours of Lord’s for members who fancy an opportunity to view the ‘hallowed turf’.

The cost for the Conference Day is £30 per person, which includes all the Sessions, refreshments and tours. The ACO will also be sending out a Conference pack to all attendees including DVD and leather folder. Admission to the AGM is free for those who prefer to attend only that element of the Open Day.

Contact James Dexter at the ACO for more details.

1st October

New Laws now in effect. You can get a copy of the 4th edition Laws booklet direct from Lord's for £4.50 including postage or from Acumen for less than that if you can work out how the website operates. I understand that those doing courses, or at least Level 1 courses, over the winter will get a free copy. Gosh.

13th July

The MCC has approved some changes to the Laws which will take effect in October so will apply to us in 2011. Full text and a summary in the Library section.

16th June

The ECB has issued some revised rules about "double-bounce" deliveries. Since the changes are ECB-led and not MCC approved it is strictly the case that they only apply to the competitions listed in the notice, which is here

10th June

The ECBACO has published its May Newsletter. It will come in the post in the next week or so but you can read it here if you want.

I posted some stuff on the ECBACO Facebook Discussion Forums. Two of my posts, which were critical of the smug tone of the Newsletter and of the organisation of training courses, have been deleted. No dissent allowed, seemingly.

9th June

We are sorry to hear that Larry Payne has retired as Llanelli & District secretary through illness. He has been replaced by Leighton James - see Districts page for contact info

24th May

Message from Dave Carter
02920 515283
dave@daveandclaire.plus.com

S4C are in the process of producing a joint cricket/rugby promotion for the forthcoming T20 cricket and rugby internationals. They are keen to involve cricket umpires, which in turn gives us the opportunity of promoting umpiring within Wales and the Association. The theme will be based around ‘umpiring signals’ in tune with the music for the ‘HAKA’. This is a serious commitment on behalf of S4C with the filming likely to take up to a full day and involve around 12 to 15 umpires.

The filming is planned for Thursday 3rd June the exact location has yet to be confirmed. You would be expected to come suitable attired (i.e. ready to officiate in a match) be prepared for a full day commencing around 9.00/9.30 a.m. They have indicated that a fee would be payable together with travelling costs.

As you can see by the date of the proposed filming time is of the essence and I would welcome any positive responses by this Thursday (27th May). Due to the time constraints I am using e-mail (known addresses) as the preferred means of communication if you know of anyone who is not on e-mail and may be interested can you cascade the information. For those of you in the old SWCA area who are interested can you let Trevor Jones (01792 423909) know.