JUDGED by playing standards, the All Rounder Cricket Bradford Premier League is in rude health.

After all, Hanging Heaton have just won the Yorkshire Premier League play-off final and Woodlands have completed the Heavy Woollen and Crowther Cup double, giving the league three inter-league titles.

But in other ways, such as administration and umpires, the Bradford League is creaking and groaning.

The league's chief executive officer David Young, addressing their rules revision meeting at Cleckheaton Sports Club this week [Thursday], gave an impassioned 'State of the Nation' address.

He said: "We are the strongest league in Yorkshire, and if we are the strongest league in Yorkshire then we are probably the strongest league in the country.

"We believe that we have the best website in the country, with reviews by Alan Birkinshaw, photographs by Ray Spencer and previews by Reg Nelson that bring the game alive.

"But we feel that we are at a pivotal stage."

Young then tackled the league's chief problems – overworked league officials and a lack of umpires.

He said: "We lost a secretary (John Virr) and a treasurer during the season, and there has been a massive amount of work for Bob (Shackleton), Alan (Birkinshaw), Mark (Heald) and myself.

"Last week I got 365 e-mails for the Bradford Cricket League and (only) 302 for work.

"I had 62 (Bradford League) e-mails on Monday night alone, and there are a lot of e-mails that I haven't even replied to.

"We have had more disciplinary issues than we have ever had before.

"We need people to come and help us.

"We need a secretary, a treasurer and four results secretaries because we don't want to be staying up until midnight dealing with things.

"We also probably need a disciplinary recorder, and we have had some offers of help for a couple of those positions.

"We also need umpires because we want to staff every match with two umpires."

However, umpires' appointments secretary Neil Johnson confessed: "We need clubs to come and help us, and two umpires per match is just a pipe-dream at the moment."

But realising that it is good to talk, Young also confessed: "We probably bit off more than we could chew a year ago and we have have been a bit dictatorial and we don't always listen.

"But we intend to have four roadshows in January so that clubs can tell us what we have doing well and what we have been doing badly."

He added: "We have had a very difficult year, and not just the league, but the clubs.

"The registration and scoring system has not lived up to expectations, but we are not going to ditch Cric HQ for the other ECB system of Play Cricket as it does not allow for live scores.

"But we are working with Cric HQ to make things easier.

"Someone in New Zealand decided earlier this year that you had to register to get Cric HQ, but clubs will no longer have to register with Cric HQ to get live scores.

"Also we want to continue with Duckworth Lewis as we only used it on two occasions and we don't feel that this is enough information to decide whether to ditch it or not, so we will carry on with it for another year."