Surely the age and race of any candidate for the role should be irrelevant?
Whoever is appointed should be selected on their ability to fill the role successfully.
Or are you suggesting that the club actively discriminates against some candidates?
Surely the age and race of any candidate for the role should be irrelevant?
Whoever is appointed should be selected on their ability to fill the role successfully.
Or are you suggesting that the club actively discriminates against some candidates?
Exactly which is why it has been so necessary for that club to completely remove what had gone on before. It had previously discriminated and ought not do so going forwards is a point well worth restating.
Several of the coaches I imagine will re-apply for roles in due course. Those with less baggage will have more of a chance within the new set up. Yorkshire CCC have a particularly difficult job now of attracting talent from a wide demograohic within and beyond their county boundaries to want to play for, work with and watch them, Many have clearly previously been put off from working at for the club at Headingley. Hopefully that mindset is ending quickly now. About time too.
I agree that the key criterion is the ability of the candidate to carry out the job. But in this instance, that means much more than being the best coach. The appointee will have to embody everything that Yorkshire CCC wants to be from now on. So somebody like Darren Gough who seems to have the same characteristics of those who have just departed - white, Yorkshire born, played for the Club - starts with several disadvantages in the selection process. When you add in that he has no great coaching experience, I think that rules him out, hence my remark.
I actually think that sacking all 16 coaching staff, whilst a powerful gesture, may cause Yorkshire some problems. Either they were all guilty of offences justifying being sacked and have each gone through agreed dismissal and appeal procedures (which is unlikely) or Yorkshire have lumped the innocent in with the guilty. Unless they are allowed to re-apply for their jobs, I can see a few employment tribunal claims happening.
....and David Hopps has some interesting insights:
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/yorkshire-racism-crisis-sacked-staff-seek-legal-action-after-purge-1292274
From the looks of things it doesn't look like 16 full time appointments have come to an end. Probably 5 or 6 like that with the remainder on rolling or zero hours contracts that conveniently come to an end - e.g. the sub-contracted physio department kinda like a school or college all of a sudden deciding to source their agency catering or supply teaching staff from a different employer next year
It is clearly a move designed to appease the ECB and help get DCMS off the ECB's back this which is why it had to be done quickly. DCMS had threatened the games governing body with a regulator coming in so I guess this is the first step towards trying to ensure that doesn't come to pass. Also to convince sponsors who won't touch Yorkshire with a barge pole unless drastic measures have been taken
If as is almost certain, Yorkshire are relegated to Div 2 and lose some of their higher earning players, they will need fresh coaching and admin staff and they'll be able to cope with this upheaval better in Div 2 anyway - I reckon it'll be good for them to start with a clean slate
Will be quite a culture shock going to Headingley next season. Some of the more reactionary died in the wool stuck in the 1970's tutting fuddy duddies will be gone pretty sharpish. They are bound to have groups of visitors in from local schools - in the aim of reviving (or more truthfully, generating from scratch) interest in the county side among the local Leeds/Bradford population
The cricketer is reporting that Darren Gough has been appointed as the new Director of Cricket at Yorkshire.
It also reports that they want Anthony McGrath as the new head coach, with Kabir Ali under consideration for one of the assistant coach roles.
No doubt some here will be disappointed with the choice!
McGrath is a surprise. Would he really leave Essex? He was also there around the time of some of the racism
As a Warwickshire supporter, I'm not disappointed with Darren Gough's appointment. It's on an interim basis; and according to the Talk Sport website, he will be a "figurehead", in which capacity he may do very well. And, to be fair, I probably underestimated the extent of his popularity in Yorkshire. Also, I did read that when he undertook some coaching on a consultancy basis with England, he did a lot to help Chris Woakes.
As for McGrath, I agree that it would be a strange appointment. Of all the counties that Yorkshire might turn to, Essex would be an unlikely choice bearing in mind the racism allegations that are emerging there. McGrath has not been implicated so far; but the independent inquiry into the Essex racism allegations is only beginning its work today and anyone who wants to provide information has until just before Christmas to do so, so anything could emerge.
It's being reported that Kabir Ali and Jim Troughton are both joining the Yorkshire coaching set-up under Ottis Gibson who is the new Head Coach.
I find it thoroughly depressing to hear that the ECB are to lift Yorkshire's ban on hosting internationals. It is not long ago that Durham were relegated, fined a stack of points and lost their right to host internationals all for the heinous crime of needing a loan. Have the ECB so quickly forgotten the revulsion that Yorkshire's antics generated last autumn? It wasn't just a case of a few uncouth individuals but the ease with which the Club turned a blind eye and then went on to vilify the whistleblower. If they can carry on without sanction, it will leave a very nasty smell behind.
Yeah I don't like how all this is going. I don't want to see Yorkshire go to the wall but there does need to be some pretty tough sanctions imposed.
I think the key thing is that Yorkshire have taken some drastic actions to address the problems that existed, including getting rid of pretty well all the senior people. So it would maybe be a bit unfair to punish the new regime who have made all these changes. Even so, it is still only a conditional reprieve. They have to make amendments to club rules and also remove the powers of the Graves Trust (controlled by ex-Chair Colin Graves) to influence club affairs.
For me the question is do you leave the sanction in place until you are sure the behaviour has changed or do you lift it on the promise that they'll be good boys in the future. With Lord Patel acknowledging that there is a faction actively seeking to delay and derail reform, I think the ECB have moved far too quickly.
Need to also try and find a balance where you're not punishing members and supporters. Also harming young people having an opportunity to develop their game through the counties structure
The club, and multiple players. including Bresnan, charged with multiple offences.
THe comments from David Willey are also interesting.
That's poor from Willey in my opinion. What's going on at Yorkshire is an attempt to drag the club forward 60 years in about 24 months. There's a much bigger picture there than making David Willey's happiness their top priority. It's all a bit 'Why does the worst stuff always happen to me!" Yorkshire don't need players as selfish as that at the moment.
Yorkshire's last four chairmen launch blistering attack on ECB on eve of Headingley Test
Colin Graves, Steve Denison, Robin Smith and Roger Hutton have demanded an independent inquiry into the handling of the racism scandal
By Ben Rumsby
Yorkshire’s last four chairmen have launched an extraordinary attack on the England & Wales Cricket Board on the eve of the Headingley Test, denouncing its handling of the club’s racism scandal and demanding an independent inquiry into the whole affair.
In a dramatic intervention ahead of an occasion the county was previously banned from staging over the crisis to engulf it, Colin Graves, Steve Denison, Robin Smith and Roger Hutton united to declare the ECB unfit to expose the full story behind Azeem Rafiq’s damning accusations of abuse and the botched handling of them.
They did so after voicing a litany of concerns over the disciplinary proceedings opened against the club and individuals charged last week over the scandal, something into which they said they had little input despite leading Yorkshire between them for almost the whole of the period spanning Rafiq’s allegations.
Among those claims about the case that threatens to completely overshadow England’s return to the scene of some of their greatest triumphs were:
That the ECB inquiry had taken too long and was “putting people through even more pain”;
That there had been no sign of Rafiq being punished himself over an anti-Semitic slur that emerged in November, despite him admitting to it;
That Yorkshire were being “tried twice”, having already been stripped of major matches and forced to make sweeping changes to get them back;
That the names of those charged had been leaked even before the ECB announced they would not be identified;
That Mark Arthur, Martyn Moxon and other senior figures at Yorkshire had escaped action for allegedly triggering the scandal by failing to deal properly with Rafiq’s complaints;
That the ECB’s inquiry completely ignored its own refusal to investigate almost two years ago.
Graves, who was himself chairman of the ECB for five years until 2020, rescued Yorkshire from financial ruin two decades ago before becoming executive chair of the county between 2012 and 2015.
Proclaiming he would “fully support” an independent inquiry into the current scandal, he said he was “very disappointed” charges had been brought against both the club and the likes of former England players Michael Vaughan, Matthew Hoggard, Tim Bresnan and Gary Ballance.
“I just find it unbelievable that they’re putting these people through even more pain,” Graves said.
“Once again, these people’s names are dragged through the mire, which I think is unfair.”
He added: “It hasn’t been handled very well at all. It could’ve been handled much better, much quicker, and I think it’s leaving a lot of nasty tastes in people’s mouths.”
Colin Graves said 'it’s leaving a lot of nasty tastes in people’s mouths'
Denison, who succeeded Graves at Yorkshire before stepping down in 2018, said: “The ECB don’t move fast enough and they’ve been so scared of their own shadow that they’re almost paralysed and can’t act.”
On the governing body’s silence over whether Rafiq faced action over his own anti-Semitic slur, he added: “I’m sure that the ECB’s thought process was: ‘S---, we’ve got a cut-and-dried case here. But if we hammer him now, he’s perceived as the victim in all of this, so it’ll look like we’re hammering the victim before we’ve got round to having a go at the “perpetrators”’.”
Denison said he had emailed both recently-departed ECB chief executive Tom Harrison and Yorkshire chairman Lord Patel last week to offer to help “in any way that I can” with exposing the full story behind the scandal.
He added: “They haven’t even bothered to give me the courtesy of acknowledging the emails – which kind of says it all, really.”
Smith, who returned to chair the club between 2018 and 2020 having also served in the role between 2003-06, said: “It seems to me that the club is tried twice on the same facts.
“It just breaches a fundamental principle of jurisprudence. No one can be tried twice on the same facts. It’s very, very unsatisfactory.
“I’m personally on notice from the ECB that conduct of mine will be subject of the proceedings but that I’m not personally charged, nor will there be any personal finding against me, which is rather a hybrid situation.
“It needs a good, independent judicial look at it. Until all these facts go before someone of unquestioned repute and impartiality – a judge, retired judge, someone of that standing – the full truth will never emerge.
“The ECB have already decided on Yorkshire’s guilt and imposed these sanctions. How on Earth can they now, in this second set of proceedings, take a contrary view? It’s just not going to happen and everyone knows it’s not going to happen.”
Hutton, who quit as Yorkshire chairman after the scandal erupted in November, said he would be assisting the club with responding to the charges but was forced to approach them himself to do so, adding that he had heard nothing from the ECB.
He said the latter’s handling of the case was “so far from any judicial process, it’s breathtaking”, adding: “I’ve spent my life in the law; I’ve never seen anything quite like it myself.
“I’m not quite sure what the scope of the investigation is, but my best understanding is it doesn’t relate to any of the actions or inactions of the ECB itself.”
Concerns were also raised about Yorkshire’s own handling of their toxic legal battle with staff sacked in the wake of the racism scandal after it emerged earlier this month the club had admitted unfair dismissal complaints lodged against them were “well founded”.
Just last week, England limited-overs specialist David Willey accused the county of prioritising repairing their reputation at the expense of their own players’ well-being after it was confirmed he was returning to his native Northamptonshire at the end of the season.
Denison said: “I’m not sure whether it’s the club or whether it’s just Kamlesh trying to protect his own reputation but well played, David, for saying that.”
The ECB declined to comment on an ongoing regulatory process, although a source pointed out Harrison had left before Denison had emailed him. Lord Patel did not respond to a request for comment.
Yorkshire, the most racist club in English cricket, complain about the ECB's handling of Yorshire's racism. They'll go to their graves, if you'll pardon the pun, believing that 'P**i' is mere banter.
Every week, the system of privilege and white supremacy they seek to overturn whispers quietly to them. See that? See what we did with the lad from Yorkshire? We can do that to you too. Old social media posts. Ex-teammates. Everyone with a story. How much do you really want this? Shhh. There’s a good lad.
Still much to emerge over the coming weeks. A decent summary of the year since the dcms hearings and how the big firm up at Yorkshire and the wider establishment have responded. I'm pleased at how in particular Warwickshire as an organisation has responded so far
The Times hints today that the loveable Colin Graves has threatened to call in his loan to Yorkshire if they don't make him Chairman again. If I were rich, I couldn't think of a much better use for £15 million than giving it to Yorkshire so that they could pay him off. Sadly, I'm not rich but perhaps a well known Yorkshire MP might ask his wife for some loose change in order to resolve the situation. Come on Rishi - there are votes in it!