THE Bradford Junior League, which has set many players on the pathway to county cricket, are facing financial difficulties.

Having made a loss of £1,876.97 in 2018, the league, which is unsponsored, announced a further loss of £1,970.29 in the year ending October 31, 2019.

This leaves the league with only £4,608.45 of capital, but treasurer and chairman Phil Ratcliffe admitted that there were "very good reasons" for the latest loss.

He said: "It is either a lack of income or extra expenditure, and a big increase in expenditure is representative cricket, be that the Joe Lumb Competition or the Yorkshire Junior Cricket Festival.

"We played about 12 games of cricket and (representative) cricket does not come cheap.

"We have to provide refreshments for home matches and it is very difficult to get umpires and scorers without contributing to their expenses, but we have decided not to renew our contract with CricHQ, which has saved us £600."

One means of raising money is to increase club subscriptions (which should bring in about £1,000), and the increases, proposed by the league's executive committee, went through unanimously at the league's annual meeting at Cleckheaton Sports Club.

Entrance fees for a club's initial team have been raised from £50 to £80, with each additional team costing £25 rather than £15.

An additional fee of £10 has been levied on each under-nines team, while clubs, as they had to before, must purchase at least four tickets for the end-of-season supper.

The under-15 cup final has been shortened from 40 overs per side to 30 overs per side, while discs will be used to denote fielding positions in under-nines and under-11s cricket to help educate the players and speed matches up.

Alan Dobson has stepped in as the league's fixture secretary, while Danny Bell will continue as league secretary, as will Shiv Krishan and Taj Butt on the executive committee and George Debenham as president.