As a timely reminder that the Hampshire Cricket League season is about to begin, a cold north easterly has set in across the south of England as I write this post.
It seems longer, but it was just a couple of weeks ago when the temperatures soared to ‘HOTTA THAN THE COSTA’ levels under azure blue April skies with an intermittent waft of barbecues floating across from the nearby gardens where I live.
However, as nice as the weather was in April, the early days of the cricket season wouldn’t be the same without intermittent hail showers, low temperatures and mistimed pull shots on pudding pitches. Let us also not forget the utter joy that is garnered from seeing a ball of red wet leather zinging towards our terrified fingers, leaving us with ‘Tom & Jerry’ style injuries and raucous hilarity amongst our team mates.
It’s what the early stages of the cricket season are all about.
Oakley have had a great pre-season of preparation, with constant nagging doing the trick with regards to members doing their bit for the club. This has resulted in the ground and the clubhouse having the most amount of TLC our Life President, Gordon Scott, can remember. It is believed that Gordon has been at the club since it opened in 1849, so that is a marvellous achievement.
The clubhouse, once a place where you were only allowed to enter after receiving injections for rabies, typhoid and cholera, is now clean, well decorated, and serving a range of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages as well as bar snacks. It’s amazing what you can do with a little effort; we can now let parents, colts, wives and girlfriends into the building without hanging our heads in shame.
We have also completed the ‘chicken wire installation project’ on the boundary fence. This has been designed to stop the fours to the short boundaries racing into the surrounding crops in the farmer’s field. We have calculated that on an average Saturday, this should reduce the match times by approximately half an hour, or four hours if Brad Compton-Bearne gets his eye in, and starts playing baseball.
Oakley CC is looking in great condition for the new season
On the pitch we have had a good few pre-season knocks, with the captains busily working out their ideal team sheets for the opening fixtures. At the beginning season, with enthusiasm in full flow and thoughts of glorious victories on sun soaked afternoons, the numbers are traditionally high.
However, with summer holidays, injuries, fatigue and relationship breakdowns, by August, amateur cricket teams are full of the ludicrously old or the ludicrously young, with criteria for selection being a pulse, four semi-operational limbs and the willingness to pay a ten quid match fee for a number eleven slot and a limp cheese and cucumber sandwich.
“Chaps, this is my Great Uncle, Wing Commander ‘Buffy’ Beaumont. He hasn’t played for a while, but he had a decent knock of 29 not-out for Brasenose College in 1952.”
“Great to meet you Buffy, nice wheelchair”.
It is alleged that a former captain at Oakley once pencilled in his ideal starting XI and discovered they were all available. However, that was in one of the last matches before the Second World War, so the details are patchy and it may just be that history and nostalgia are playing tricks on the mind.
“Eeeeh, back in our day, all the summers were hot and we got the same players out every blooming week until Ted got gangrene and Bert was sent to Porton Down on a government sponsored chemical weapons trial….he must have moved away old Bert, as we never saw him again”
That said, we had a mind-blowing 33 members at training the other week and we are boosted by the fact we have maintained the membership of all but one or two players and we have gained one or two more. Sadly, our gain has come from players joining us from cricket clubs that are in a growing list of ‘former cricket clubs’ with Hurstbourne Priors being the latest local victim of cricket apathy.
On a personal level, my quest for a ’50 before I am 50′ will be curtailed in what will be my final summer of being under that age. I have decided I am no longer going to be indulging in Sunday cricket, focussing my time instead, to helping with the Saturday League games as umpire, scorer, reporter, or perhaps even, a number 11. When you are useless, 50 runs seems like a decade away when you are starting on nought, and I have learnt to accept that a dashing 45 not-out versus an eclectic Crondall XI in 2015, may well have been my peak.
One thing that I have learnt over the last five years as chairman, is that to run a cricket club, you have to move forward with new ideas to stand still, constantly trying to be innovative with your spare time to keep the enthusiasm going in a world of a million distractions. We have done well lately and we are always well backed on social media by the like of the Hampshire Cricket Board who also helped us with funding for new covers that are vital to (#gethegameon) give us maximum possibility of fulfilling fixtures.
However, if you rest on your laurels, it becomes harder and harder to stop the reverse and it is no coincidence that many of the clubs who struggle, are those who do not have colts sections and are rather insular in their thought process with regards to bringing in new members and supporters.
The Hampshire Cricket League are now trying their best to modernise and keep up the numbers up but in my opinion (and in our case as a club) needless points penalties and fines due to accidental administration errors by volunteers, is not the way to encourage participation in a sport that, let’s accept it, is facing some of its biggest challenges in the history of the game.
It was deflating as a club to discover that a 10 points penalty deduction was administered after a basic communication issue although in fairness to the new Chairman (an undoubtedly thankless role) he is trying and planning to move the league into a 21st Century way of thinking to reverse an awful decline in numbers.
Rules are rules but circumstances are also circumstances and genuine appeals should be offered due consideration by the board.
So, good luck to all the clubs in the HCL this season (except when they play us of course) we are looking forward to entertaining Basingstoke on Saturday whilst the Two’s go to Holyborne, in what is always a friendly and entertaining fixture displaying a dubious range of talent from both teams.
The teams will be announced tomorrow…whether they are the same two teams that make it on to the pitch is another matter.
We shall see!
Cheers
Bob Lethaby
Chairman