Match Management
An Insight by John Reynolds (Old Citizen)
Last season the Old Citizens, Old Cholmeleians and Old Reptonians took advantage of the facilities offered under the match management system and all have prospered as a result. Match Management, the brainchild of Howard Wiseman, provides a professionally run diary service ensuring that all matches are properly set up with all necessary arrangements made for players to attend the right venue and at the correct time.
John Reynolds, Old Citizen writes:
"Match Management has proved a great success for the Old Citizens. We turned to Anne Wiseman, the facilitator after several badly organised seasons and pretty much as a last resort, but we're very glad we did so.
The club's members had tried and failed to do the job themselves. Possibly this is because we are a small club of largely ageing players who are increasingly distracted by their families and careers. We lost our home courts at Blackfriars in the early 1980s, and there are only about a dozen or so of us left. I gather that when the club was bigger - and we used to boast a fixture list of possibly eighty matches and maybe as many players - it was less trouble. But that was a long time ago.
Whatever the reason, and despite an enthusiasm from the remaining players in the club, many of our fixtures were not being fulfilled. Either we couldn't muster six players, or the opposition failed to do so. And we simply didn't have the time to pay attention to the important details such as game-rotation, or speaking to opposition match managers to make sure team strengths were even. And we weren't encouraging young players. For the last couple of years, boys at City of London School have been playing at Westminster, have had a keen master-in-charge and have had coaches supplied by Howard Wiseman. But the old boys weren't contributing.
Anne has changed all that. Almost all our scheduled fixtures were played in 2000/2001. Once Anne had been supplied with the club membership and an idea of how strong each player was, we could rely on her to do the rest. No more frustrating evenings on the phone, or exasperation over unreturned e-mails, but much more Fives.
Anne suggested we reserve third pair for schoolboys and we arranged to play many of our matches on Sunday afternoons to accommodate them. When the opposition couldn't come up with a full six players, thanks to Anne we could often supply the extra two. And because of Anne's connections with the other teams she managed and the Olavians, she could sometimes come up with a surrogate side at just a week's notice.
Some of our players had fears that our players wouldn't turn out for a woman they didn't know but such misgivings were soon forgotten.
We agreed to pay Anne a fiver a player per match - £30 each fixture. Anne was originally supposed to arrange just ten games for us. It ended up being about fifteen, or pretty much our entire fixture list. In exchange for £450, we had a season's stress-free exercise and considered it a bargain.
Now that we have fives players leaving City of London School each year, we can rely on Anne to chase them up and get them to turn out when they can. We would never have found the time to do that, but it will be invaluable if the club is to flourish. Thanks partly to Anne, that's a realistic prospect."
For more information on Match Management why not contact Howard Wiseman on 020 8778 0752.
J.P.R.
Match Management by John Reynolds (Old Citizen)
Constructed 15th September 2001
efa@etonfives.co.uk