Chairman Clive Ricks has unveiled the team he hopes will help him defeat the MP Sports Cherwell League rebels.

Ricks’s collection of ten management group members and eight sub-committee co-options are set to go head-to-head in the struggle for power with the gang of eight rebel executive members at an extraordinary general meeting .

It’s understood clubs will vote on who they want to run the league at Rover Cowley Sports & Social Club on Monday, February 7 – although the date and venue has still to be confirmed.

The showdown comes after the rebels passed a vote of no confidence in Ricks at the last executive meeting.

In Ricks’s management group are executive members Dick Giles, David Pryor and Stephen Brain – who has also been asked by the rebels to serve on the executive should they win – and Oxfordshire cricketing legend Keith Arnold.

They will be added to by Twyford chairman Stuart Misseldine, Great Brickhill captain Lee Morgan, long-standing Bicester & North Oxford member Len Payne, Abingdon Vale’s David Ward and Peter Tubb, who umpires for Sandford St Martin and is closely involved with schools cricket.

It’s proposed that Tubb will deal with all umpiring matters, assisted by two other Cherwell League panel umpires, Mick Stockwell (Kingston Bagpuize) and Bob Hutchins (Great Brickhill).

Further crucial roles will also be played at sub-committee level by Chearsley chairman Clive Weston, Cropredy secretary Richard Clapp and Horspath’s Jonathan Stobart, who has volunteered to help attract new sponsorship.

Ricks said: “It has been a very busy week and we are delighted to have got so far, so quickly in assembling such an effective group in such a short time.

“We are aware that clubs will be meeting soon to discuss this situation and we wanted to reassure them that there were enough people from within the Cherwell League with experience of playing, umpiring and administering cricket who were willing to come forward, and ensure that it can continue to move forward.”

With the executive still yet to unveil the fixtures, Ricks also revealed that members of his new team had already compiled an alternative set of draft fixtures for the 2011 season.

Possibly, more tellingly for the rebels, 15 different clubs are represented in Ricks’s management group and sub-committee.

If that number can be taken as being representative of how clubs will vote at the EGM, with 20 needed for a guaranteed victory, it looks like Ricks is well on the way.

RICKS'S TEAM

MANAGEMENT GROUP

Clive Ricks (Horspath), Keith Arnold (Banbury Twenty), *Stephen Brain (Shipton), Dick Giles (Kingston Bagpuize), Lee Morgan (Great Brickhill), Len Payne (Bicester & North Oxford), David Pryor (Didcot), Peter Tubb (Sandford St Martin), David Ward (Abingdon Vale), Stuart Misseldine (Twyford).

SUB-COMMITTEE CO-OPTIONS

Richard Clapp (Cropredy), Bob Hutchins (Great Brickhill), Gary Murton (Stokenchurch), Jonathan Stobart (Horspath), Mick Stockwell (Kingston Bagpuize), Jon Talbot (Tiddington), Clive Weston (Chearsley), Steve Beck (Banbury).

*Stephen Brain has stated he has also been asked by the rebels to serve on the executive should they win.