MMVCA - future of the competition

The Moreland Moonee Valley Cricket Association will not exist in the 2011/12 season, following a delegates' meeting on May 25.

The MMVCA turf clubs will enter the Victorian Turf Cricket Association, and most of the matting clubs will affiliate with the North West Cricket Association, either individually or as part of a co-operative "merger" between the two comps.

These outcomes will not impact directly on the Moonee Valley Cricket Club, as we are already affiliated with all three competitions, field teams in each and can seamlessly move our teams over.

The Victorian Turf Cricket Association - where our Firsts and Seconds play - has been approached by a number of MMVCA turf clubs in recent months with a view to joining. The VTCA then developed a proposal to absorb all the MMVCA turf clubs into its structure, and held meetings with the MMVCA and club delegates.

Only two of the MMVCA turf clubs - Socials and Ascot Vale - have not advised a position on the move, and the others have either formally advised VTCA that they will be joining it next season, or are awaiting ratification by their players and members pending their application.

The meeting was advised that Glenroy, St Andrews, West Coburg, Pascoe Vale, Sunshine YCW, Haig Amateurs, East Coburg and Barkly Street Uniting have applied to VTCA. St Francis has also accepted pending ratification from its members, as is the case with what will be the merged Maribyrnong Park/St Mary's club.

Moonee Valley has today advised the VTCA that our Thirds and Fifths - which played B Turf and C Turf in the MMVCA - will affiliate next season, after we had been assured that the new structure will accommodate these two teams playing Sunday home games in a two-day turf grade.

In terms of the MMVCA hard-wicket competition, St Francis, St Andrews, Glenroy, Haig Amateurs, West Coburg and Strathmore Heights all indicated at the meeting they had either advised NWCA they would be moving to that comp next season, or intended to do so.

Our MMVCA hard-wicket teams are our Sixths (two-day grade) and our Sevenths and Eighths (one-day grades).

While several other clubs at the delegates' meeting did not favor joining NWCA or merging the two comps, none were prepared to put anyone forward to try and run a stand-alone MMVCA competition. MMVCA chairman David Lyons, who is stepping down, pointed out to all the delegates that unless there was a strong and committed board, a stand-alone competition would not be viable - and there were no nominations to join the board.

Moonee Valley already has strong representation in the NWCA - our Fourths (two-day grade), Ninths and Tenths (one-day grades). Our juniors all play in the NWCA.

 The delegates meeting voted to authorise David Lyons to seek to meet with the NWCA board to negotiate a merger based on the documentation from a couple of years ago.

Our position at the meeting was that Moonee Valley Cricket Club had always been a strong and public advocate of a merger between the NWCA and MMVCA. We favored being part of a group of MMVCA clubs coming together with the NWCA in a spirit of co-operation, rather than just pulling our teams and abandoning MMVCA - as we could easily do as we are already a senior NWCA club.

The final vote at the meeting was that if the merger talks do not come to fruition, the MMVCA be dissolved at the annual general meeting. It was passed with only a couple of clubs voting against.

Charlie Walker.
President,
Moonee Valley Cricket Club.
26/5/11