GUILD BUILDS FOR FUTURE
GUILD-SAINTS veteran Steve Kelly describes his time at the club as “a very interesting journey”.
It could also describe the club’s recent path.
Kelly can remember the glory days of the early-to-mid-2000s when Guild was playing off in grand finals — and winning them.
However, in the past decade, lack of on-field success and offfield growth forced the club down to GCA3.
It is where the Saints remain, in the hybrid turf and hard-wicket competition, desperate to find their first win of the season as they slowly build for the future with a loyal core.
“One of the hardest things we’ve had to deal with over the last couple of years is jumping from hard-wicket cricket to turf and different divisions, too,” said Kelly, the club captain.
“A lot of people don’t realise playing first XI on hard-wicket and turf is very, very difficult.
“To try to do it week to week is difficult because your line and length is different as a bowler. The batting is completely different and you actually feel claustrophobic on the batting wicket because it’s long and skinny.
“When you’re in a league like that as well, it makes recruiting hard.
“A lot of players in our side have been around for a long time, and the five years previous the players are pretty much the same because recruitment is pretty difficult.”
Not that long ago Guild was a competitive GCA2 regular, making a preliminary final in 2009-10 following on from a grand final appearance only two seasons earlier, but the years since have been a gradual decline.
The first XI did not register more than five wins a season from 2009 on, even when competing in a hard-wicket competition in 2015-16.
Kelly believes the close proximity of higher-division clubs such as Murgheboluc, St Joseph’s and Newtown & Chilwell hasn’t helped player recruitment or retention, as well as not having a cotenant through winter.
“It’s been hard not having someone backing you in the offseason,” he said.
“It helps in other ways, too, with help from the council or someone else, whereas when you’re a standalone cricket club it makes it harder.”
Kelly — Guild’s mainstay middle-order batsman — admits “the club went backwards a bit” in the past five years, affecting on-field performance, but is bullish about the future.
“We had a period where we made finals, then went about five years with a bit of a low where we struggled,” he said.
“The club went backwards a bit with training numbers and recruitment, and that drops your competitiveness on the field.
“Hopefully we can start stringing some wins together this year, starting this weekend so we can start to build something bigger for the future.
“Our goal is to get back into division two as quickly as we can — that’s where we want to be.
“Every year we don’t have many departures because people come on and realise what a good club it is and end up wanting to stay. It is a good club, I love it here.”