\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Southampton Rangers president Darren \u201cButch\u201d Burchall (File photograph)<\/p>\n
The Western Counties Cup appears to be in turmoil with Southampton Rangers contemplating withdrawing from the series and PHC facing expulsion.<\/p>\n
The Royal Gazette can reveal that Rangers are considering pulling out of the competition after being denied what they feel is their right to host it this year in accordance with the Western Counties Cricket Association constitution, while PHC may be kicked out after accepting an invitation to compete in the Central Counties.<\/p>\n
Rangers president Darren \u201cButch\u201d Burchall is angry at the decision to deny Rangers the opportunity to challenge for the cup on their home ground, with champions Willow Cuts set to get their title defence under way on August 9.<\/p>\n
\u201cAccording to the constitution, the two grounds for the Western Counties are Southampton Rangers and White Hill Field, and the game will be played in a rotation year by year,\u201d said Burchall.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe executive committee can hold the game elsewhere if needed, but elsewhere means not at Rangers or White Hill. I remember one year they had it at Somerset Cricket Club when there were some issues, and when PHC came into the fold they allowed PHC to host one of them. But in the rotation, it is Rangers\u2019 turn.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burchall met with Western Counties officials at a special meeting after not hearing from them to discuss logistics for hosting the 2025 series.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said to them that we\u2019ve started spending lots of money fixing the club up and getting the place ready, and we haven\u2019t heard from you and we need to sort out the logistics,\u201d Burgess said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to share our innovative plan to host the Western Counties and make it a cricket festival occasion like it used to be.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey showed up to the meeting and I gave them a presentation \u2014 they made me try to prove why we should have it. I told them I shouldn\u2019t have to prove anything, as the constitution says it\u2019s a rotation and it\u2019s our turn to host it. Their thing is that the Western Counties had died and the last time it was at Rangers it lost money.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said to them they weren\u2019t innovative enough to plan for that and have something to keep the fans there, whether it be a marching band, majorettes, Gombeys or even a second game that day. I continued to try to convince them, and said over and over, \u2018I shouldn\u2019t have to convince you\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe closed the meeting agreeing to not come to a decision and let it go to the meeting the next day, which was a general meeting of the representatives of the Western Counties.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Willow Cuts won last year\u2019s Western Counties Cup Final at White Hill Field (Photograph by Akil Simmons)<\/p>\n
It was at that meeting that Burchall said Western Counties officials confirmed that the 2025 series would be played at White Hill Field after privately discussing the matter among themselves rather than allowing the member clubs to vote at a recent general meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was like they were afraid to allow the reps to vote,\u201d Burchall said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time I spoke, everything just went silent, so Teresa Burrows [Western Counties president] decided to take her board out of the meeting into another room and have a vote on their own. They came back and decided contrary to the constitution that it\u2019s going to be at White Hill.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe feel hard done by and that it\u2019s not right. I just don\u2019t have confidence any more in the leadership of the Western Counties, and as a result I met with my executive board.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t spoken with all my membership, but I have spoken to the cricket team and they are deeply upset. Basically, a lot of us are on the same page \u2014 I don\u2019t think we are going to take part in Western Counties this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burchall feels the Western Counties\u2019 decision is based primarily on the allocation of plots and goes against the \u201cspirit\u201d of a revision to the constitution allowing for the year-about change of venues.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll they are worrying about is plots, and the cricket is secondary,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told them the experience at Rangers is different to the experience up White Hill. Up White Hill, you get that culture of plots and at Rangers we have less plots. But we can put up scaffolding and we have seating areas where people can sit, and if they want to cordon off areas we can make them nice and sell those as plots as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Western Counties is about the different communities hosting it in their community, and all those people around Rangers want to feel a part of hosting it because that\u2019s what the history of the Western Counties is all about.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about my neighbourhood against your neighbourhood, so that\u2019s why historically when Rangers were dominating the Western Counties and the cup holders held it at their club and the other clubs up the west wanted a chance to host it, Rangers and Warwick got together with the Western Counties and said, \u2018OK, we\u2019ll do a roundabout to give everybody an equal share\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat Teresa [Burrows] is doing now is going completely against the spirit of that change in the constitution \u2014 this will be the third year straight of the Western Counties being up White Hill.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe wants to do what\u2019s best for the Western Counties and I told her what\u2019s best is allowing it to be held where it is supposed to be according to the constitution, and let each club and community have a chance to come together and host it.\u201d<\/p>\n
It has also emerged that PHC could face expulsion from the Western Counties because of their decision to take part in the Central Counties.<\/p>\n
According to Burchall, Western Counties officials gave warning to PHC at the recent general meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWestern Counties offered PHC an ultimatum, which I think was unfair, to either play in just the Western Counties or not be included in the Western Counties,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
PHC recently accepted an invitation to rejoin the Central Counties and were looking forward to competing in both competitions.<\/p>\n
The Royal Gazette has reached out to the Western Counties and PHC for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Southampton Rangers president Darren \u201cButch\u201d Burchall (File photograph) The Western Counties Cup appears to be in turmoil with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4101],"tags":[67189,67190,1406,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-158847","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-bermuda-cricket-board","9":"tag-county-cups","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114627910328308413","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}