HOME PAGE | FACTFILES | QUOTES | COMMENT FORM |

Just over two months in office, Dave Burden tried to get the message through again. (As it happens, Dave distributed copies of his speech, rather than delivering it. It didn't change the message, though). This time he had some good news to give them....................

Dave Burden statement to General Council 28.5.05

Mr Brandon , with certain others, has called this Special Council meeting today on your behalf because you are apparently concerned about the future of the Association. Indeed, Mr Brandon stated in a letter to me that this is possibly the most important meeting in the Association's history. On this occasion, I could not agree with him more.

By now, you will have received a copy of my letter to Mr Freeman asking various questions, some of which were posed but side-stepped at the AGM. As it happens, one of the questions received an outright lie in response, although not from Mr Freeman, who remained silent. You will also have seen that, far from having no knowledge of what was going on, at least some members of the Finance Board were aware of many of the events unfolding before their eyes and some of them expressed increasing alarm. However, they all seem to have accepted, to a greater or lesser extent, whatever Mr Stuart-King and his acolytes chose to tell them about allegedly imminent forthcoming sponsorship monies.

Following Mr Stuart-King's departure from the Club Cricket Conference - as you may know his redundancy was announced the day before our AGM - literally thousands of e-mails came into my possession as the new Chairman of ACU&S. Some of these you have already seen, and others will be made available to any inquiry set up either by the Association, or an outside body. They all tell the same story. There never was any real likelihood of sponsorship and Mr Stuart-King would have known long before the Annual General Meeting.

The Kafkaesque situation has now been reached whereby a member of this Council is actually about to put his hand into his own pocket to bail out the Association in order to cover up the actions of Mr Stuart-King and himself. I should warn him that if we go bankrupt he will lose this money since it would be merely a donation, not a loan.

Have we really come to this?

Many of you will know, or at least have guessed, that I enjoy the support and backing of both MCC and the ECB. They are as anxious as I am to put things back on an even keel. Moreover, I am in a position to assure this Council that, thanks to their support in helping persuade our creditors to reschedule the debt, I have the means to save the Association from financial ruin and ultimate oblivion. Unlike my predecessor, I have witnesses to my meetings with these bodies who can testify that I do have the support I am claiming and that, given the opportunity, I can and will deliver. However, neither MCC nor ECB will have any dealings with the previous administration and, in consequence, there need to be several changes at the top. With such changes, I can guarantee both the continuing existence of the Association and, very importantly, that it will remain independent. Neither MCC nor ECB have any wish to run or to control the Association. ECB's only condition, and this is not negotiable, is that Mr Stuart-King and Mr Brandon must hold no office in the Association nor any further part in its administration.

It must be apparent to all of you by now that Mr Stuart-King is incapable of delivering on any of his promises. He has absolutely no credibility in the corridors of power. He has acted in an utterly foolhardy and reckless manner, seemingly without thought or concern for the well-being of the Association. In addition, at the AGM, he was guilty of lying to the meeting when, in response to a question, he flatly denied that the Association had liabilities not acknowledged in the Accounts - an answer about which the member asking the question already had documentary proof to the contrary.

I would also remind you that Mr Stuart-King, as self-appointed Chief Executive of a company with just £55 in the bank, nonchalantly signed a guarantee to our auditors that NACLCC were good for £117,500 - a figure which grossly distorted our year-end Income and Expenditure account and the Balance Sheet. A graver breach of the Nolan Committee principles enshrined in our constitution could scarcely be imagined. As his loyal lieutenant, Mr Brandon bears a share of responsibility. Other resignations may well follow - I draw your attention to the e-mails attached to my last letter - but they are for the future, not necessarily for the present moment.

Ladies and Gentlemen - I was elected by majority vote in a ballot of the membership of the Association prior to the Annual General Meeting at Durham on March 19th and, in the ensuing nine weeks, some members of this Council have acted wilfully to stop me carrying out my duties. You might care to reflect that, in view of the legitimacy accorded me by that vote, it is I who represent the will of the majority - the will of the Association - and certainly not my predecessor. The actions of those who continue to frustrate the will of the majority will not go unrecorded in the history of the Association.

To sum up - we have two possible routes down which we may go, and whether you like me personally or not is irrelevant at this point. You can continue to use your votes to stifle any attempt at rescue and watch whilst the Association drifts inexorably onto the rocks of financial disaster. As you know, we are perilously close to this even as I speak.

Or, you can give me your support in working to save the Association, as an independent body before, as is increasingly the danger, we finally run out of time and options. I must urge you, whatever your loyalties may have been up until now, to consider whether those loyalties may not have been misplaced and whether you do not owe a greater duty of loyalty to your fellow members by acting now to save the Association. There is still time, if you will give me your support.

I intend to adjourn the meeting and leave the room for a few minutes to give you the opportunity to digest and discuss this informally. However, I would like you to bear in mind that whatever your decision may be, given the vote of the membership, my resignation will not be an option. Nor will there be any change in my resolve to save the Association.

David L. Burden 28.05.05.

So, there you have it. The Association could still be saved and it could remain independent.

You may wonder just what some people have to hide for them to have put the interests of the Association - the members - so far behind their own. What is in the books that they are so determined to keep hidden? Why would they prefer ACU&S go to the wall rather than allow others to see the books? Why so nervous about ECB - who have proper accountants - looking at them? (Forget their childish nonsense about it being like a company preparing for a take-over. We've never had assets that could interest anybody). What don't they want us to know?