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Ousted president of the SVGCA prepares to leave the meeting after a no confidence motion against him was upheld. (IWN Photo)
Ousted president of the SVGCA prepares to leave the meeting after a no confidence motion against him was upheld. (IWN Photo)
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Ousted president of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Cricket Association, Julian Jack, left a special meeting of the general body on Saturday humiliated and licking wounds inflicted by the “snakes” on his own executive, and the association’s affiliates.

“The executive members, they are like snakes,” Jack told reporters at the Arnos Vale Sporting Complex shortly after 65 ballots were cast in support of the motion to remove him, while 25 voters said he should stay.

Kishore Shallow, the former assistant secretary in Jack’s executive, who resigned on the floor on Saturday, was elected president of the association, in what sources in the know said was a well-orchestrated plan to remove Jack from the executive.

(Click for photos from the meeting)

Shallow’s executive includes three other members of Jack’s executive, including 2nd Vice-President Denis Byam and Committee Member Deighton Butler, who also resigned from Jack’s executive on Saturday, and 1st Vice-president Elson Crick, who suggested that Jack had failed to implement programmes to improve the game locally.

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“It’s only snakes that come around and [wrap] round you and don’t bite you, and when they see you coming, they sting you in your head, and you can’t see them,” Jack further said at the end of his nine-year stint, which came crashing down in less than one month.

On May 5, Marvin Harry, captain of Smashers, an affiliate of the cricket organisation, brought the petition for a vote of no confidence in Jack.

At the meeting, Harry elaborated on the 10 reasons his club gave for Jack to go, including the national Under-15 team not winning a game for over three years, and placing last for over seven consecutive years.

He further spoke of conflicts of interest in the banking of the association’s money at the Teachers Cooperative Credit Union, which Jack manages, and the sourcing of funds and equipment for Jack’s team — Radcliffe.

After Jack had responded to the accusations against him, Harry and his team were still not convinced, and maintained that Jack should go.

“His presentation is one where he sounds as if he is attempting to run for president as someone who just come in cricket, and as somebody who doesn’t have any idea how the cricket association is being run,” Harry retorted.

“Look at it, all the points that he raised are things that [they] failed to do. ‘We tried to do this, we try to do that’. …  But [are] we trying so many things and nothing seems to be happening. So, [it makes] sense we just let somebody else deal with it; give somebody else the opportunity, [let us] try new ideas,” he said.

Captain of Smasher Marvin Harry, centre, reacts as Julian Jack responds to the motion of no confidence. (IWN photo)
Captain of Smasher Marvin Harry, centre, reacts as Julian Jack responds to the motion of no confidence. (IWN photo)

But even as Jack was booted out of office, he maintained that the reasons given for his recall were “unjustified” and the matters ”trivial”.

He said the issues could have been dealt with at the executive level, had executive members expressed concern and made suggestions for resolution.

“You didn’t hear that, and when they come to the meeting, they want to talk,” Jack said, adding that while some of point raises were factual — such as the poor performance of under-15 cricketers — none of them merited his recall.

He further suggested that there were confidentially issues among his own executive.

“Some of the things that Smashers raised, Smashers could not know about those things. That means that there are people inside the executive who would have come out and talked about certain things,” Jack told reporters.

Jack, however, said that he had accepted the will of the association, saying, “Well the people … have spoken and whatever they say, I would abide by that.”

Jack was booted out of office, 65 votes to 25. (IWN photo)
Jack was booted out of office, 65 votes to 25. (IWN photo)

He described his presidency as “a generally good period overall”, saying, “I think the problems start coming, I would say, in the last year when there are people on the executive vying for president and sabotaging some of the programmes.”

He said he did not get a sense that he was no longer wanted as president.

“I think I didn’t have it right, in terms of my assessment, but, as it moved on — the process — we thought so. But some people who would have said, ‘No man, go ahead; fight it.’ I think eventually they didn’t get the full support of those who said go ahead and fight it.”

Jack told reporters he was leaving the post without ill feelings, saying maybe the word to describe his feeling is “relief”.

But it was not only Jack’s executive who had “betrayed” him, but also other members of the general body that he had thought would have come through for him.

“I asked a few of the persons who … have been supporting me over the nine plus years and I said, ‘I figure that people were saying that I should give it up. What do you think about that?’ They said, ‘Manage, I don’t think you should just leave.’ Well, they didn’t think I would lose in the first place. If they thought I would lose, they would say so.”

A section of the crowd at Saturday's meeting. (IWN Photo)
A section of the crowd at Saturday’s meeting. (IWN Photo)

Meanwhile, while Jack acknowledged Shallow’s skills as a cricketer and his academic training, he said  he did not know about the 30-year-old man’s ability “to lead in terms of cricket.

“But he is a qualified person so I suppose giving that situation, he should be able to rise above his lack of knowledge about cricket and management.

“… He has not been in the administration for long in terms of cricket and how much he knows about running cricket at this level, I can’t swear for that,” Jack said of Shallow, who was an executive member of the association for over one year.

Jack further said that should things not go as affiliates hope, he will not return to the leadership.

“I am not even thinking about that at this point in time. The membership, in my view, has spoken, and it give me more time to deal with family and other matters I have been neglecting,” he said.

President of the SVG Cricket Assocaition, Kishore Shallow, centre, and his execitive. (IWN photo)
President of the SVG Cricket Assocaition, Kishore Shallow, centre, and his execitive. (IWN photo)