When Bermuda Cricket Board president Reggie Pearman first got involved with cricket, two rival groups were running an amateur game on an Island still affiliated with the West Indies Board.

Thirty-eight years later and the country is an Associate nation in its own right, has been to a World Cup finals, and Pearman's looking forward to a well earned rest after presiding over one of the most tumultuous period in the game's history.

Recently honoured with an ICC Lifetime Achievement Award, Pearman's term in office expires in 12 months and he's already decided, after a decade at the helm, that it's time to step aside and let someone else take control.

"I've got one more year to go on my term," said Pearman. "I'm scheduled to leave in 2011. Hopefully by then I can look back and say 'ok, fine, you did accomplish some things'.

"I've paid my dues I think, and it hasn't been all easy. I've had my ups and downs, votes of censorship and everything else, but by the Grace of God I've survived, but I love the sport, it's all voluntary after all. Most of the people on the Board volunteer their time, someone has to do it, the ICC aren't going to do it.

"Hopefully someone else will step into the shoes and carry it forward further than what we have had. I remember when the Board started, Bermuda was still segregated, and those two groups came together and we set up a national association and moved from there.

'We took it from the Somers Isle Cricket League became one body, and it's worked well. Over the years all the guys I have worked with have helped me, and I hope I've helped them. And we use to have some hot arguments boy, but we left the meeting amicably.

"We'd argue back and forth, curse each other right off, and everything else, but at the end of the day we could go and have a beer and come back and start all over again.

"But you don't get too much of that nowadays, too much animosity and the petty gripes people have. That's been my biggest downfall, the petty gripes and the people who hold grudges. I don't have time to hold grudges against anyone, we're here for our appointed time and then we move on."

But he's not going quietly.

Over the course of the next year, Pearman hopes to bring the game's governing body and clubs closer together, create a national academy similar to the one developed by the Bermuda Football Association, increase discipline in the game, and finally convince players and spectators alike, that the sport does not start and finish with Cup Match.

All are lofty ambitions, and ones, given the divided nature of the sport's recent past that may well prove beyond Pearman and the current Board. Not that he isn't going to try, especially as he believes it is the only way the game will continue to develop.

"I think as a board we have to sell it to players themselves, that national team should be the pinnacle," he said. "A lot of the attitudes come from the past, a lot of people don't want to make the change, so the pinnacle to them would be County or Cup Match from a cricketing standpoint. And I think, we as a board have not pushed the issue that, 'hey, there's a higher plateau to reach – national pride'.

"Some people might say that independance would be the way to go, because when we go to some of these countries and the pride that they do have in their country, when their national anthem is played, it augurs well for the team. So that is something we have to sell, they need to understand that the world is their oyster after that."

However, for Pearman, the most challenging aspect of all will be to finally unite the Board and the clubs, who have been at loggerheads far too often in recent times.

"We've gone from an amateur/volunteer set-up to a more professional approach and that has been a major transition that not everyone has bought into yet," said Pearman.

"I think the clubs have to be more cognisant of the fact that this is the way we have to go, because of the accountability. The Board is almost there, naturally we're not perfect, no one is, but the accountability has to be there from us, and we need the same from the clubs.

"I think it is a question of communication, everything has to be tied in, and I think we have a gap there. We try to encourage the (club) officials to come to meetings when we have them, and we've got to work with the clubs more closely, but there has to be accountability from both sides to make this thing work."

It's a far cry when he first joined the Board in 1973. Then, the Board and the Somers Isle Cricket League were both still operating as separate entities, and not everyone had an equal say in how the game was run.

"Alma (Champ) Hunt appointed me to the Board in 1973," said Pearman. "When I was appointed Somerset and St George's had three reps, and I was Somerset. That was before we changed the constitution and made it more inclusive to what cricket should be like, what any board should be like.

"It's changed a heck of a lot, from where the clubs had to more or less dig into their own pockets. I'll never forget in 1979 when George Byron, bless his soul, and the old fellas like Andy Smith, we sat around the table trying to figure out how we were going to send a team across to England for the first Associate Cup.

"Clubs put up money, a couple of guys even took out notes on their house, just to get teams over, but that was the days when we had players. Guys were dedicated to the game, the Parfitts, Colin Blades, and all those guys, they were dedicated, and they loved the sport itself, they knew what it was about.

"We went from there, and my first real thrust into administration was in '79 because we had an inquiry into why we lost the game, semi-finals or final I think it was, and I was appointed secretary of the committee along with Lennett Edwards, and a few other guys."

The money is no longer the problem, and as with many things, the influx of millions of dollars, which reached a peak with the $11million pumped into the game following World Cup qualification in 2005, has proved a blessing, and a curse.

"In '79 we had the players and the administrators but we didn't have the money. I think when money came into it a lot of the players' attitudes changed, then, to be quiet honest, we ended up with money and hardly any quality players, let's put it that way.

"They (the players) are not all bad, and I think to be quiet honest, and quiet frank, they seized an opportunity and thought 'fine, we can get some money out of this', and moved with it, but then the cricket went backwards."

Becoming an Associate nation, joining the ICC, and money, all three brought new issues for Bermuda to deal with, not least the need to have a game run by a professional, accountable body. And while the Board has managed to change, Pearman believes the real problem lies with the clubs that haven't.

"Once we became a financial entity from the ICC's standpoint we had to clean up our act," said Pearman. "The administration had to change, we had to change the constitution, and move forward with it that way.

"But, club life declined, a lot of the guys that were in club life, the adminstrators, had the dedication (to the game) that went with it, but the situation has changed. We have to be more accountable, it demands more time, and the club (officials) are all volunteers, which is why the gap between administrators and the actual club themselves has widened."

So Pearman has a year to fix problems that have been 30 years in the making, and ever the pragmatist, he realises there is only so much that can be achieved before it's time for a new man to take charge.

"I would like to see more co-operation between the governing body and the clubs, on all aspects of it, administration, the playing, the discipline, everthying that goes along with it," said Pearman.

"We have to discipline the clubs if we need to, they should be disciplining their members if necessary, and everyone needs to be working together.

"It starts with the players, they set the tone. If they are picked for the national squad they have to go to training sessions, do the courses in the gym, and if they don't participate we don't want them.

"But the clubs have to get involved too, and while winning is everything, yes, we need to get away from this win at all costs attitude. If a club needs to discipline their top player, and chooses not to, it doesn't help the sport. There has to be accountability, there has to be responsibility."