Lives in Cricket No 47 - Brian Sellers

125 When I’m 64: Illingworth and Close spinnin’, it’s spinnin’’, if some members said the committee was unfit, it was. Later, Kilburn called it ‘times of revolutionary disturbances’. In truth the protesters were rebelling; they were not seeking to overthrow those in power. An active handful was making demands that had little to do with the original uproar. The ‘action group’ asked for contracts for players; vice- presidents ‘in honour only’ rather than active committee members, postal votes at district elections of committee members, and votes for women. Despite the noise at the AGM, only a fraction of the overall membership had stood out against Sellers. What of the majority; were they loyal to the committee, or plain apathetic?! If the club could no longer count on apathy as permission to do as it pleased, it only had itself to blame for making what the press was already terming a ‘controversy’ or an ‘upheaval’. It had all the ingredients of a running news story: an ‘action group’ that was keen to put its case across – indeed, too keen, club loyalists complained; and a regular timetable of club meetings, above all that AGM. In the days after, some journalists took sides – against Sellers, whether on principle or because they were settling scores. Eric Todd in the Guardian , below a headline of ‘Last innings for Sellers’, wrote on 10 February: ‘In any democracy there can be no room for the autocrat,’ and was surprised that none of the committee had done ‘the decent thing and resign’. Kilburn meanwhile suggested in the Yorkshire Post that the committee could treat the vote against them as a rebuke, and carry on; yet without the confidence of members, they had no moral right to rule. It left the committee at the mercy of the ‘action group’. What would satisfy those complaining? An apology? Better catering?! The very fact that the protesters didn’t know what they were doing made it harder for the committee to please them. For instance, Mewies moved a vote of censure and no confidence at the AGM, only to have it ruled out of order, because he hadn’t given it in advance. As in many civil wars, both sides were in the right. Kilburn saw ‘the necessity to replace Close’, and the action group’s ‘reasonable quest for reform’: … but I regret their condemnation of Sellers as cricket chairman because I regard it as both uninformed and ill-timed. Sellers and the committee could not defend themselves without making public some factors that might have reflected unfavourably upon a club servant and this as Sir William Worsley explained they were reluctant to do. Leaving aside that the committee saw its captain not as an employee but a ‘servant’, the ‘action group’ did not have to worry about the feelings of others. It got personal – always the easy political choice. After the re- election of Sellers as cricket chairman – his position of power - Jack Mewies told the Yorkshire Post on 4 March that he was angry: ‘This will annoy thousands of people who made clear their views at the annual meeting.’ As only a thousand had attended the AGM, Mewies was only showing himself up as bombastic. ‘The re-election of Mr Sellers was the last thing anybody wanted apart from the committee members themselves. It … seems to show we are wasting our time trying to talk to these people.’ Mewies was