Keeping cricket associations going through the winter is vital for the future of the sport | Cricket

HBehind trees in the darkness of dimly lit street lamps, Lees Hall Golf Club is easy to miss on a damp autumn evening. As I park, after initially turning around and getting out of my car, the only signs of life in the deserted parking lot come from another vehicle from which emerge two men in their later years.

Is this the right place for the cricket meeting? I ask. That's true, one of them answers. And considering you're half the age of anyone else coming tonight, I'm guessing you're the guest speaker.

His assumption is correct, at least on the speaker part (I'm at least ten years too old for the other part of his statement to be completely accurate, but the sentiment still holds).

When entering the golf club, there is some commotion in the main hall. Sheffield Cricket Lovers have purchased a new banner to provide a backdrop to their regular meetings, but as the agonizing combined efforts of four committee members reveal, the latest purchase is proving more difficult to set up than expected. I'm glad to see it has a red ball on it instead of a white ball, comments an onlooker once the task is completed.

Every few weeks, somewhere around 50 people flock to Lees Hall, on the southern edge of Sheffield, for an evening attended by a guest speaker from the cricket world. Sometimes it's a former England international. Devon Malcolm, Dean Headley and Craig White are among the recent speakers. Other times a coach, commentator or author. Tonight they have gathered to hear me talk about my book, Batting for Time: The Fight to Keep English Cricket Alive, and the uncertain future of the domestic game.

It is a scene that is repeated back and forth across the country in the gloomiest months. Between October and March, the traditional hibernation period for English crickets, more than 30 cricket clubs regularly organize talks, meals and events to give sports fans an opportunity to get together out of season.

The Sheffield Cricket Lovers, of which Joe Root's grandfather Don has been a member, has been around since 1960. It is a meeting of like-minded people, says vice-chairman Andy Pack. Most of the audience we have here, and across all cricket associations, will be of the adult variety. Maybe they don't get a chance to talk about cricket with too many people because of their age and circumstances. They are also a generation that enjoys the kind of presentation that takes place in a cricket association. They might not be into YouTube or podcasts or things like that.

It's a chance to speak to people who have been involved in the game and an introduction to something they've probably loved for a long time.

English cricket is going through its latest existential crisis at domestic level. The spread of franchise competitions that threaten to change the wider, long-standing natural hierarchy in the sport has resulted in the controversial creation of the Hundred and a sale process that many believe will change everything county cricket has stood for since the Victorian era . As players head off to play in lucrative leagues from South Africa to Canada and India to Zimbabwe, more questions are being raised about how the provincial structure can continue and what its purpose is.

For many cricket enthusiasts, the community aspect of provincial clubs and associations, which, unsurprisingly, have significant crossover in membership, is of paramount importance. In Somerset, for example, the club's foundation organizes monthly Walkers and talkers events throughout the winter, inviting members to chat and guests to join in as they stroll around Tauntons County Ground.

Rob Kelly, the secretary of the Norfolk Cricket Society, suggests that the social value of their group is at the heart of the monthly events. It's a chance to talk and keep in touch with people outside the cricket season, he says. There is a welfare element to it. During the dark winter months it offers people some focus.

But as noted by the arrivals in the car park of Sheffield Golf Club, a common struggle between societies is an aging population. Their future is a reflection of the endless rows over domestic first-class cricket. We try to attract younger people, but I'm in my 50s and probably the youngest person we meet on a regular basis is in their mid-40s, Kelly says.

It's a concern, but we enjoy it while it lasts. It's sad when I look back ten years on a list of people who came by on a given night and there are people who are sadly no longer with us.

We were always trying to attract new members. We all had a fun night and want more people to come because it's fun to come to. At the moment I'm still positive about it, but I'm not looking too far into the future.

There are around 4,000 cricket fraternity members in Britain who come together during the autumn/winter months to chew the fat. At the Derbyshire Cricket Society, the first hand raised during my post-lecture Q&A session results in an unexpected barrage about the ECB's recently changed transgender policy.

At the Yorkshire Southern Group it takes me a shameful hour. Did you used to play cricket yourself? I have asked someone to realize that the person I have been happily chatting to over lunch is former Yorkshire and England all-rounder Richard Hutton, son of the great batsman Sir Len Hutton.

Every association meeting promises surprises, informed discussions and no shortage of passion. Without them the first delivery of the new season would take longer.