C Team Captaincy
With regret, I have accepted the resignation, for personal
reasons, of Paul Dawson as London C Team Captain.
He has also left the squad, in the time-honoured tradition of
politicians, to spend more time with his family.
The Association would like to thank Paul for all his hard work
and enthusiasm both as captain and player, and wish him all the
very best for the future. Perhaps we will see him playing for
London again at some point; I hope so.
Before talking about what we do now, I think it would be useful
to say a few words about the job of C Team Captain.
Basically, it's easily one of the hardest jobs there is in the
county, and somewhat different from most captaincy roles.
The nature of the competition, with A, B, and C teams being
drawn from the same pool of players, means that it's rare for
any of those teams to be very stable in terms of personnel.
But that's particularly true of the C Team.
Not only is it true that every absence from the overall squad
can have an impact on the make-up of that team (in contrast
with the A Team for example, where any plans I might make for
the day only get disrupted if one of the players that's actually
in my thoughts pulls out), but also the trials process and so
on means that there is usually quite a big change from season
to season.
It is important that one understands that this is expected and
not a bad thing.
In fact, the only times when the C Team should be stable, are
1) when we are being very successful (with everyone turning up
and with all the teams doing well enough not to want to swap
people around), and
2) when we are doing things badly wrong (ie failing to find and
recruit players who will strengthen us).
All that makes it very difficult to work on "team" things in
a long-term way. So the C Team captaincy should be seen as a
job with more focus on individual development than on team
development.
And of course, real success in those terms means players
developing to the point where they get taken away from the
C Team and moved up to the Bs (and possibly As). So for the
C Team Captain, success in terms of individual development
actually harms the very team you are captaining.
Of course, none of that is to say that we don't want the
C Team to be successful or shouldn't strive towards that.
But as and when that does happen it's likely to include
some change to the make-up of the C Team, and it's going
to be as a result of strength in depth in the whole squad.
Anyone who does take up the C Team captaincy on a permanent
basis needs to be able to take all that on board, and should
see times like the Berkshire match just gone, when there were
a fair few new faces, as an interesting and exciting time
rather than frustrating one.
And then of course there is the issue that, often, the people
who are playing regularly in the C Team and who might be
considered most appropriate candidates for the captaincy,
are also players who might themselves be considered
appropriate candidates to be playing into the Bs insetad
of the Cs.
We will be discussing where we go from here at committee
and subcommittee levels, but I think it's fair to say from
the discussions I've had so far that the feeling is that if
there isn't someone with the skills and desire to take on
such a role on a permanent basis, we shouldn't be trying
to force anyone to do so.
There are alternatives.
One is that we could handle things between captains and squad
managers, and appoint someone on a semi-permanent basis
(possibly from outside the squad or team, possibly a squad
manager) to run things until such a time as an appropriate
and willing candidate for the permanent role emerges.
Another option would be to appoint different people on a
match-by-match basis as the list of attending players comes
into focus, thus using the C Team to give people experience of
captaincy as well as of playing.
Those 2 ideas could also of course be combined, with an
experienced someone from outside the squad assisting the
match-by-match captains.
In the meantime, if anyone does read what I've written above
and thinks to themselves, "that's a job I really fancy", please
contact me privately. Edited by
Rupe 07-08-2014 09:14 AM
|
RupeWebmasterSuper Administrator Posts: 725
Joined: 05.12.08
Location: Hackney
|
Last Seen Users
