Jamie DowlingTeam sports are often tribal when they're geographic in nature. Look at the football teams in say, Birmingham, for example.
Let's borrow from the great Tom Lehrer's "National Brotherhood Week" - The Villa fans hate the Blues fans, the Blues fans hate the Villa fans, the West Brom fans hate the Walsall fans and everyone hates the Wolves 😀
County cricket can be just as tribal. And fuelled by passions and conflicts. See Yorkshire CCC throughout the 1970s and 1980s as a prime example.
There are times when supporters of a club and members (where the club is mutually owned( can't make sense of the direction, leadership or governance of that club. Then things can go from being polite to nasty very quickly.
At Sussex CCC something like this happened in 1997, when members and former players ousted the incumbent board. Which led to some years of success and Sussex gaining a reputation as a place where players go to rediscover and improve their game.
Good Old Sussex By The Sea and all that. A friendly, family club with a nice seaside ground and a shark mascot with a sense of humour.
Recent events has caused the sport's governing body to put the club into special measures. Whatever sector you may operate in or be part of, that is a horrible phrase, loaded with fearmongering.
(Context: I was recruited to work for an organisation in "special measures". Did my bit to help pull them out of that state. I'm proud of that. Wasn't a nice atmosphere to come into though.)
It has come with financial restrictions which may endanger the club's position in Division 1.
The list of signatories to the Open Letter reported below is significant - many are Sussex legends, others are current club sponsors.
Revolution may be coming again. I hope that constructive diplomacy and a peaceful solution will prevail. Cricket here doesn't need to go Full Yorkshire again.
James W
