Round the Wicket

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AGM first - Sunday 7th December at 3 pm in the clubhouse. All welcome - members and non-members - the more the merrier.

Children’s Christmas Party - in case you are not here to see the notices around the village - the party is in the clubhouse on 21st December, from 2.30 to 4.30 pm. There is a list in the clubhouse to enter names of all children who wish to go, and the deadline for entry is 23rd November. If you can’t make it to the clubhouse, give Lesley Ramage a ring on 01337 857 496.

To be eligible, children must have parents who are club members, or be junior members in their own right, and be of primary school age or under.

There was a player’s meeting recently, well attended by senior players - and, we are delighted to say, by two of our ’senior juniors’ - but seriously lacking in those more commonly turning out with the Twos. Let’s be precise - there was only one guy at the meeting who has been a Twos regular this year. Come on, guys - we need to see all players helping to plot our course for the future.  More of that in a moment.

Robbie Birrell was elected unanimously as captain for 2009, Alan Wallace stepping down after what everyone agreed had been a very difficult year. More of that in a moment as well. Dave ‘Coo’ Cowan was unanimously elected as vice captain, with some delicately euphemistic words from Dave Christie. ‘Delicate’ like “then he needs to get himsel’ fit. Get some o’ that weight aff.” Coo has been plagued with injuries for a long time, but he still has so much to offer, both as a player and as a reader of the game, and we all hope that we can indeed see him back as a playing regular next year. Elections for second XI captain and vice will be held at a date to be advised.

Now to the bits alluded to above - ‘all the players’ and ‘a difficult year.’

One of the big factors in our ‘difficulties’ was the fact that we had no overseas players. In the last few years, our overseas players have not necessarily been our highest wicket takers or run-scorers, but they have always been very, very, useful players who did a lot to add to our home-grown guys. The problem has not been about finding candidates - it’s been about getting accommodation for them. So we have a team of three guys charged with the task of finding us suitable players for 2009, and another team responsible for making sure there will be accommodation for them.

And ‘all the players’? In the season just past, we sometimes had difficulty in getting two teams on the park on a Saturday. When Bill Frindall was with us for our Centenary Dinner, I was telling him about our concerns over player numbers. “It’s the same all over,” he said, “shortage of players leading to clubs having to merge, in many cases to clubs going out of existence.” We have to make sure that doesn’t happen to us, and that calls for more commitment from some of our people. Remember the picture of the ninety or so kids taken up the park this summer? We have to make sure that a decent proportion of these kids come through to the senior teams, and that the club is competing a senior level when they get there. The AGM is on Sunday 7th December at 3 pm, and that’s going to be one of the items on the agenda. Make sure you are there to help.

This column has been deplorably neglected of late, so here’s some bits and pieces.

We’ve finally settled plans for The Centenary Whisky, which will be a cask-strength (46%) 12 year old single malt from Tomatin with our own label. The design of the label is just being finalised, the order is already placed and we should be getting delivery mid to late November.

We’ll have Centenary Ties as well; the design was agreed at the last meeting of your hard-working committee, and I’m proud to say I’ve got mine already. (Just to pay for it!)

We’ve also ordered some rather smart pens which will carry the legend Freuchie Cricket Club, Centenary Year, 2008, with forest green bodies and black ink. They’ll be with us in the next couple of weeks as well.

Christmas presents? Nae problem.

We are delighted to announce that Mrs Elspeth Skinner of Lathrisk House has undertaken to be one of our patrons. Details have still to be worked out, but her support will be invaluable and we’re hoping that we may be able to apply for a Sportsmatch award for one of our major projects. However, they’ve dished out all their cash for this year, so we’ll have to wait to see what can be done.

Plans for Mrs Skinner to meet with Dave Christie this morning didn’t work out, though, because he was away skiving. What? A dry morning and Dave not up the park? What’s his excuse? Answer: Dave has again been awarded the accolade of Scotland’s Grounsdman of the Year, and was off to Ingliston to view the flash ground-keeping machinery and be presented with his award. We are talking about the need to replace our aging outfield mower, and this was a chance to see what’s available. I was glad I was sitting down when Dave told me about costs, but Dave being Dave, he might have a work-around… More news soon.

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