Umpire shortage adds new twist

Press, 29 January 1982, Page 24

Umpire shortage adds new twist

A shortage of umpires has added another twist to the row over whether the Canterbury Cricket Association should stage its senior matches on February 7, the same day as the Women’s World Cup final at Lancaster Park.

At its bi-weekly meeting on Wednesday to make appointments for the coming round of senior fixtures, the Canterbury Cricket Umpires Association found it had nobody available to stand on February 7, despite having all eight officials ready for the first day of play on Saturday. The secretary of the C.C.U.A., Mr Brian Aldridge, said the officials concerned had made other arrangements for the Sunday of the games. In some cases, this involved the World Cup match itself, he said. “Mr Fred Goodall is in the Cup game and a couple of

others will be on .scoreboard duty for it,” he said.

“One of the others has definitely had a prior engagement for several months for February 7 and I presume the rest have similar reasons. Mr Aldridge ruled out the possibility that some of the umpires may have withdrawn in sympathy with the Canterbury Women’s Cricket Association, which is unhappy with the men playing in opposition to the Cup match. “There is definitely no suggestion of a boycott,” he said. “As an association we did not discuss it. There may be some individuals who feel that way but it was not official.”

Mr Aldridge said that the umpires were unpaid volunteers in any case, and if they chose to make themselves unavailable on occasions they would not be questioned about it.