THREE members of the Aire-Wharfe League’s management committee have quit.

The resignations of Mark Sugden, Mark Dearden and Steve Phillips have come in the wake of the league’s recent special general meeting (also known as an EGM) at Otley RUFC.

Press and publicity officer Sugden and Dearden, who is also deputy vice-president, sat on the league’s rules and administration working group.

Sugden was unhappy at the conduct of some of the league’s leading figures at the sgm, particularly when they made it clear that some of the management committee would resign if the vote on the night went against them.

As it happens, Pool’s motion to debar any club from relegation – as happened to their second XI at the end of the 2022 season – if they finished outside the bottom two places in a division received 17 votes in favour and only 13 against.

However, the six abstentions meant that the motion was defeated 19-17 but how abstentions are counted is down to a league’s constitution.

Pool’s second XI were relegated despite finishing ninth in the 12-team division.

Sugden admitted: “I didn’t sleep a wink the night of the meeting and resigned the following day at 8am.

“We had talked as a committee beforehand about what we would say on the night and agreed that if that question came up about ‘would we resign if the vote went against us?’ we would treat it with a straight bat.

“And then on the night we didn’t do that. My personal belief is that we should not contact clubs individually prior to the vote so that we didn’t affect the vote.

“A league statement much like the one that was read out on the night should have been put on the website and sent out to clubs explaining this situation weeks ago in my opinion.”

Pool believed that they had 27 clubs prepared to vote in favour of the motion but that reduced to 17 on the night, with Pool reckoning that the difference was down to “coercive behaviour” or even “bullying” by some members of the management committee in persuading clubs to toe the party line and vote against the motion.

Meanwhile, Pool have not taken the failure of their motion at the sgm lying down and have put in a formal complaint against the Aire-Wharfe league’s management committee to the Yorkshire Cricket Board.

David Murphy has penned the email, which states: “We ultimately feel that we cannot overlook the coercive behaviour that affected a recent EGM vote, and therefore wish to pursue a formal complaint.

“Our complaint centres upon what we believe to be coercive and bullying behaviour to influence the voting of member clubs both before and during the EGM.

“After our initial EGM application was submitted, Mark Shaw, league secretary, publicised thereafter that ‘while performing due diligence of the request it has come to light that one club have confirmed that they had not officially confirmed their support as stated on the letter and some clubs who originally supported the request have since withdrawn their support. As such the request failed to have sufficient support for the request to be successful’.

“In addition to the obvious coercive behaviour to influence a democratic process – and causing much hardship to Pool CC by having to raise a second EGM application – it is very much worth noting that this interference had a major effect on the EGM’s ultimate outcome.

“This being that the vote fell two votes short of reaching the 19 votes supposedly required for our rule amendment to be passed.

“In relation to the EGM held on March 8, the theme of mass resignation leaving the league without administration continued. This was not a specific item on the agenda and our complaint also encompasses this coercive tactic being used during the meeting to distract from what clubs should have been voting upon (the rule amendment) and again to unduly influence a democratic process.

“In summary, we have been appalled by the actions of a league committee – and in particular the league president David Bell – throughout this process.

“While a further grievance is subjective, we are also very unhappy about the lack of clarity upon abstentions within the voting numbers.

“While Pool CC’s proposal received more votes in favour (17-13), the LMC did not advise clubs beforehand that an abstention (of which there were six) would effectively mean a ‘no’ vote.

“It has become apparent that most of those who abstained did so in the belief that that their vote would be counted neither as a yes vote nor as no vote.”