How are sports teams selected?
During my time on
the BARLA Executive in 1983/84 I was involved in the International Committee
that selected the Great Britain under 19 team to play against France. Selection
committee meetings for Yorkshire that I had attended previously had been fairly
pleasant affairs. Players were selected following reports from county selectors
and the whole process was very thorough and fair. International selection was
very different. I drove to my first International selection meeting with Arthur
Higgins, another member of the Executive, who had been an International
selector previously. On the journey across to Lancashire to a hotel near Oldham
where the meeting was to be held, Arthur warned me that we needed to be clear
on who we wanted to be selected or we would not get any Yorkshire players in
the team. This was despite Yorkshire having won the County Championship! The
meeting was a real eye opener as the Lancashire and Cumbria representatives had
obviously met earlier and decided who they wanted to be selected. Therefore,
when it came to any votes we were beaten by Lancashire and Cumbria voting
together. We did get a few players in the squad, but only because we got very
angry and threatened to walk out. I was fairly shocked by the way in which men
who were supposed to have young players’ interests at heart could ignore their
conscience because it suited their purpose. I realised during the meeting that
Lancashire and Cumbria also seemed to have agreed who to vote for when the
prestigious Managers jobs were discussed. Some of the people on the selection
committee seemed to be more interested in the ‘perks’ of the Managers job. The
players appeared to be of secondary importance.
Is the selection process different today?
Is it better for representative teams to be selected by one person either the coach or the manager?
