Anyone who has ever had any dealings with the ECB will know that the initials stand for Exceptionally Cuntish Bellends.
I know whereof I speak.
Been there, done that, got the medals and the T-shirt.
At the highest level they get rewarded for their incompetence and intransigence with huge amounts of money and an excellent benefits package, safe in the knowledge that when they do finally produce one big fuck up too many they will be granted a handsome severance package.
However, further down the level one encounters emotionally stunted individuals who get their jollies from being as unhelpful as possible.
These are the volunteers who have a duty, a calling to suck the joy out of cricket.
They would never admit it but these are the people who would happily build sewage works on traditional village cricket grounds and get just a little bit moist when they have an application from a town club to field a 16th XI in the league.
Honest incompetence doesn't come into it for these people whose bible is a dubiously stained Wisden and believe it is their duty to make playing cricket as difficult as possible for those seeking to enjoy the game.
These administrators are enthusiastic pedants who never had any real ability to play the game, undoubtedly possess one of those fucking stupid tea towels with the fielding positions in humerous poses, regard Prince Andrew as a cracking chap and spent their school days being picked last for every team.
Their bookcases are jammed full with biographies of people they believe shaped the world for the better, people who they like to model themselves on.
Adolf Hitler.
Josef Stalin.
Pol Pot.
Jeffrey Epstein.
During the winter, when they can drag themselves away from surfing the internet for the latest dwarf porn and torturing kittens, they hold online meetings to discuss new laws and subsections of laws and dream up fines and sanctions for clubs who just want to get eleven players out on the field.
Their favourite hobby is devising means of punishing clubs when it is really the league that is at fault.
One trick is to accept a player registration and then retroactively punish the club with a points deduction - even though it's entirely the league's fault.
Genius!
Administrators also like their threats.
A true administrator loves a good threat like a hillbilly loves his sister.
Threatening a team with automatic relegation is as good as it gets.
Administrators like to show off their dazzling wit and humour by sending dismissive, unhelpful messages to club volunteers to let them know who's boss.
They like to think they're Oscar Wilde.
They're not.
They're thick, rude twats with the intellectual creativity of a shopping trolley.
New ECB directives send these people into raptures of ecstacy as they embrace fresh jargon and regulations.
The typical league administrator's idea of kinky sex is tying himself to the bed with red tape while listening to karaoke recordings of Benjamin Netanyahu singing ABBA tunes.
Once having been cut free from the red tape by whichever relative they live with, they will run out of the house (the house will have a name; it will be called The Pavilion or be named after one of the legendary cricket grounds of the world such as Lord's) and jump in the car (the car will have a name; it will almost certainly be called The Lady because even a cricket administrator can dream) and rush off for a meeting with fellow administrators over a pint of mild at the local pub, The Pedantic Arsehole.
It's not a perfect world.
But at least the world can sleep safe in their beds at night knowing that cricket administrators across the globe will be hard at work, doing their best to make it all a little bit more shit for everyone.
Comments
Post a Comment