Cobo in GCA's sights

COBO president Dave Nussbaumer is fuming that the top brass at the GCA have released controversial draft proposals for next year's Barclays Evening League without, he claims, proper discussion. Mark Latter, president of the GCA, this week sent out an email to club secretaries which included a number of proposals to make the top division more competitive and spread the available talent.

The 2005 season was a two-horse race between the champions, Cobo, and Clubhouse Optimists.

GCA argue that a two-tier system has been created with Cobo and Optimists in a league of their own, then the rest.

The most controversial of the seven ideas put forward for the 2006 season is to restrict a team to no more than two island players in any one match.

As acting vice chairman of the sport's umbrella body, the Guernsey Cricket Board, Nussbaumer claims that the first he heard about these proposals was when he received the email.

He is furious that they were not brought up for discussion before being made public.

'I'm absolutely appalled,' said Nussbaumer.

'This shouldn't have been sent out without full consultation of the board. It's scandalous.

Nussbaumer's club would be the hardest hit by the most controversial proposal, as they have a number of island players.

'I can't understand where they are coming from,' he said.

'With the evening league last season both Cobo and Optis hadn't won it in four years. Why there is this knee jerk reaction I don't know?

The GCA has fully set out the proposal and the reasoning behind it.

It reads:

'There is to be no restriction on the number of these players who might be registered by any one club, however the number able to be fielded by that club in an evening league fixture is to be restricted to two.'

GCA say it is their intention is to encourage the spread of the island's best cricketers across clubs to create a more balanced Division One and see these players involved in more games and against each other 'in more rewarding competition'.

But the captains of Cobo and Optimists, Stuart Le Prevost and Mark Jefferies, whose teams were littered with island players in 2005, are unhappy.

'I think they are trying to change things too quickly,' said Le Prevost.

'They say it was a two-horse race last year but that's the one time in six years that Cobo has won it and we could have easily lost to Rovers or Optis.

'St Pierre ended up in the bottom few and a few seasons before they won it. Now what's to say whether Cobo or Optis are going to be any different?'

Jefferies points to the impact that the South Africans GH Smit, Divan van den Heever and Andre Van Rooyen have had on Optimists.

'They're trying to redesign a format that has always worked because of one season,' he said.

'We have a lot of transitional players who can't say whether they will be here next year and these proposals have come on the back of these players. They have no real roots here.

'If they all disappear then we're back to where we were.'