The new board has replaced the “exhausted” committee that had steered the Gunnedah and District Cricket Association the past two seasons.

A “crisis” rescheduled annual general meeting was held on Monday night to elect a new board after the AGM on May 15 was cancelled when only a handful of people attended it and the new board was not elected.

The association’s president the past two season, David Partridge, said it again appeared no one would be willing to take on the roles at Monday’s meeting.

“It was very, very close (to the season being scrapped),” he said.

“It was at the stage where it was about to happen.

“That would have been sad, because we have such a strong competition here, and it always has been.

“There’s just a problem with people running things – getting people to run the association.”

Partridge said about a dozen club representatives were at Monday’s meeting.

“We opened all positions as available and no one wanted to stand,” he said.

“So we had a bit of a discussion and a couple of guys put their hand up and said they’d have a crack and take it on for the next 12 months.”

He added: “I was about to call the meeting closed and call for one last week and see how we’re situated.

“The boys talked amongst themselves and they put their hands up and said ‘We’ll have a go at it’.”

The new board is Brad Gander (president), James Mack (secretary) and Lachlan King (treasurer).

Gander and King are Court House members and Mack is from Albion.

After the virtual no-show at the May AGM, Partridge and his then fellow board members – secretary David Callaghan and treasurer Troy Sands – responded by issuing a “notice of a special meeting”, in which they announced the revised date of the AGM.

They warned that if a new board was not elected “no cricket will played in Gunnedah”.

Partridge had said he and his fellow board members were physically and mentally spent, given they also ran Kookaburras.

He said they had done a successful job and would leave cricket in the town in good shape.

“We just feel it is time for some other club to step up and help out a bit,” he said.

“We’ve sort of neglected our own club the last two years because it’s a big job to run an association … the three of us want to have a break because it is non-stop work week in, week out, and we’ve all got young families ourselves and it just makes it very hard.”

Given the demands of the positions, he said on Wednesday he and his former board members were willing to help the new board “all the way through”.

“I believe Brad, who took over my job, will do a good job,” he said.

“He’s involved in a pretty large business here.”