January 30, 2013 at 5:54 p.m.
'Players' attitude needs to change or I'm out'
YMSC’s Marshall said some of his players had been ‘an embarrassment’ this season
The defending champions started the summer aiming or a three-peat but ended it relegated to the First Division and unable to scratch a team together to compete in the 20-20 Cup.
Now Marshall, who took the club from nowhere to win the league in 2007 and 2008, is considering his future.
A post-mortem between coaching staff and club executives is planned and the legendary left-hander says he will make this position clear - 'either things change or I'm out'.
He said: "Anyone who knows me, knows I don't give up easily. But if the players are not willing to give 100 per cent then I will pack it in.
"I'm not going to go through another experience like this year. It was an embarrassment."
He insisted that he wanted to stay and help take the club back to the top flight. But his final decision will depend on the commitment of the players.
Marshall said pre-season at Berkeley School had gone well with the squad training hard and talking enthusiastically about winning a third successive title.
But things quickly turned sour after they lost the opening three games.
"I think that was a psychological blow for some of them. They felt there was no hope and after that they were just going through the motions. We were getting three or four guys out to training. A lot of the time I just had to cancel the sessions because there weren't enough players out."
The season ended in further embarrassment for Marshall, team manager Dennis Hart and fitness coach Leroy Wilson, after the players failed to turn up for the 20-20 games. Despite the best efforts of the management Social Club were forced to pull out of the competition.
"I saw it coming, to be honest, because all season the players hadn't been putting in the work that they did in previous years. I think the players were embarrassed to go from champions to being relegated. That's probably why they didn't show for the 20-20."
Marshall said when Social Club were doing well in the last two seasons there had been 14-plus guys at training and reserves were coming out on match days to help with scoring or carry the drinks.
"This year, we didn't have one reserve all season. If guys were told they weren't in the team they would just go home."
More often Marshall found himself scrambling to get eleven men on the field.
"Our skipper Kevin Hurdle was calling up players sometimes at 10:45am on match days to try and get them to the game."
There were a few notable exceptions. Marshall said the likes of Jeffrey Tyrell, Kanai Darrell, Winston Simons, Kenny Phillips, Hurdle and Jemeiko Marshall had given their all.
But he insisted that too many players had not shown the necessary heart or character during the bad times.
"Because we were losing guys couldn't pick their games up. They didn't show the character we needed to get us through... their approach to the game got worse. They didn't turn up to play cricket."
Marshall, who has taken Social Club through a major rebuilding process over the past five years, insisted he did not want to go out on such a low.
"I'm in the final days of my cricketing career and it feels like starting all over again.
"If they (the club executive) ask me to stay another year to get the programme back, then I think I would do it.
"I would need to know who is staying and who is leaving, do some recruiting and go from there.
"I'll say to the players 'if you're not going to put in the effort this year in the First Division, then I encourage you to move on', if you're willing to work to get Social Club back in the Premier Division I would appreciate it if you could stay."[[In-content Ad]]
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