Amersham CC

When Ducan Ward traped Luke Sinclair of Kidmore End LBW on Satruday May 3rd he claimed his 700th wicket for the club. See the match report in the Saturday 1st XI section.

Amersham journeyed to South Oxfordshire on Saturday to visit Kidmore End for their final fixture before the serious business of League cricket starts at Harefield next Saturday. The weather prior to the fixture guaranteed a soft and bowler friendly wicket, and, predictably, a low scoring but competitive game ensued. Batting first, the men from Shardeloes got off to a good start. Richard Stephenson (16) and Andy Viney (35) were very willing to drive anything that was over pitched and the score rattled along to 29 off the first 7 overs. Richard Stephenson was caught behind at that point, but Chris Cann joined Viney and there was no discernable reduction in the rate of scoring. Cann's bat speed meant that he was able to react to any devilment the pitch leant the bowling, but he was powerless against one which kept low to bowl him for 21. Drinks were taken with the score at 84-2, but the introduction thereafter of spin from both ends led to a reduction in scoring rate, although Luke Jackson (35) and Rob Viney (23) both spent valuable time in the middle. The innings closed after the allotted 45 overs with the score on 158-6. This seemed a respectable total in bowler friendly conditions, although less than looked likely half way through the innings.
After one of the largest and best teas likely to be experienced this season (although Harefield next week should run it close) Duncan Ward (5-15 off 11 overs) continued his rich vein of early season form. In an admirable display of swing bowling he removed 2 Kidmore batsmen before a run was on the board, persuading Tom Sheldon to chip to cover (he may have expected the delivery to be quicker than it actually was...) and pinning Cameron Livingstone Smith lbw. Ward, a model of economy and efficiency, possibly derived from his environmentally friendly lifestyle, also passed the significant personal milestone of 700 wickets from Amersham when he claimed his fourth wicket. He is to be congratulated on this feat of stamina, persistence and, of course, no little skill. While Ward did the damage in terms of wickets, David Atkinson (2-56 off 19 overs) wheeled away at the other end, delivering his traditional diet of nagging economy. This prevented Kidmore End getting ahead of the required run rate and when he bowled Jeff Sheldon the game swang decisively in Amersham's favour. A late flurry brought the home side within a few runs of Amersham's total and the game concluded with Amersham the victors by 3 runs.

You will have probably noticed that we have some new bins at the Club.

These have been purchased as we are now obliged to recycle our waste.

The ones with the green tops are for bottles, cans & plastic bottles.

Please note that these are not for other waste, such as half eaten burgers, banana skins, apple cores and napkins and any cans or bottles that are put into them should be emptied beforehand.

Any other waste sould be put in the perforated wire baskets or plastice bins outside the pavilion.

Your help will be appreciated.

I'm pleased to say that we have been notified of our first contribution to Club funds via the Easy Fundraising link.
If you shop via the Internet, then please do it via our site - each purchase that you make through the more than 500 retailers that this link gives access to, will make a contribution to the club coffers. This doesn't cost you a premium and is equally as safe as any other Internet shopping, since you are dealing direct with the retailer in the normal way - it is simply a referral.

Many thanks

Philip Ketteringham

Congratulations to Ollie Lansdowne, who has been selected for the Chiltern and South Bucks U12 playing squad for 2008.

Congratulations to David Sidebottom, who has passed his UKCC level 2 qualification. With more of our Monday helpers taking their qualifications this year, we are building a strengthening coaching base at the Club

Would all senior playing members please update their availability for the National KO fixture at Harrow Town on Sunday 11th May. It would be good if we could put out a strong team so that we can progress past the first round! If successful we have been drawn away to the winners of Cockfosters or Eastcote the following Sunday.

Nick Piper

Bledlow Ridge v Amersham CC Saturday 1st X1 on Sat 19 Apr
Amersham CC Won 8 Wkts

Beamers & Beanies!

On a cold and grey afternoon high up on Bledlow Ridge, Amersham CC began their 2008 campaign. Multi-layers of sweaters was the order of the day and some even resorting to wearing beanie hats in the biting easterley breeze.

The home skipper had no hesitation in batting first when he won the toss and Amersham took to the field full of enthusiasm, looking forward to spending the next two and a half hours in the field. Tom (Angus) Dixon & Andy (the ferret)Viney opened the bowling and both quickly found a good length and line with the new ball. Bledlow looked to up the scoring rate and started to play a few shots. Dixon unfortunate having to retrieve a huge six off his own bowling from the horse paddock at long off, narrowly missing the numerous piles of manure. Viney claimed the first wicket of the new season in the eigth over, clean bowling the Bledlow opener for 7 with the score on 23. Stuart Rogers & Hanook Gill were both introduced into the attack, both bowling good spells. The second wicket fell at 67 in the 18th over courtesy of a direct hit from an athletic Rich Stephenson. His sharp reactions and strong throw just clipped the stumps and left Bledlow's No.3 well short of his ground. Gill quickly claiming the third wicket with a beautiful leg-cutter, clean bowling Rolse.

Turner, the Bledlow opener, anchoring the innings well, moved onto fifty and was looking to increase the scoring rate. Luke needed an experienced head who could bowl with flight and guile and so brought himself on to bowl. Unusually he proceeded to bowl seam up off his longer run, the pace gradually increasing every over. Jackson picked up two wickets in the final overs of the Bledlow innings, the second of which coming from a superb catch in the deep from Stuart Rogers. Bledlow finished their 40 overs on 156-5 with Jackson the pick of the Amersham bowling, claiming 2-29 off his eight overs.

Amersham opened up with Stephenson (43) and Piper (18) who started cautiously against a tight bowling attack, but increased the run rate as the opening bowlers tired. Stephenson was the first to go, after putting on 57 for the first wicket, miscueing a long hop straight down the throat of mid-on. Colquohoun was next in and proceeded to dominate the attack for an attractive half century before he retired. Piper soon followed, but not before being struck behind the ear from a beamer that should have put into the horse field. Piper's ear soon looking like it had been 12 rounds with Joe Calzaghe!It was left to Rob Viney (29*) and Oliver Wilson (5*) to see Amersham home with 13 overs to spare.

A great way to start the new season with everyone, apart from Harry Heslop, getting a chance to bat or bowl. Thanks to Phil Sidebottom for enduring the elements as well.

Nick Piper.

The draw for March 2008 has now taken place - see the download page for the winners and how to enter or add to your current numbers.

The 200 Club remains an important source of income for the club and we are very grateful to those who have maintained their membership.
The cost of membership is only £24 a year (46p per week) and there are monthly draws for one £50 prize, two £20 prizes, and two £10 prizes plus an annual draw for a £500 prize.
At present there are only 138 members leaving 62 unallocated numbers and each month some of those unallocated numbers have to be redrawn.

If the majority of spare numbers are taken up then the number of monthly prizes will be increased.
Yours sincerely Ken Ward Hon. Treasurer

There is a short video here http://www.hitsports.com/flash/teamselection.html showing how the availability & team selection works for the captains of the teams. Either copy and paste this link into your browser or go to the 'Links' page where I have posted it as well

Philip Ketteringham

As you may be aware the 4th, 5th & 6th of April have been nominated as the days for the NatWest Cricket Force for 2008 by the ECB.
Essentially, the Cricket Force weekend is the one where Cricket Clubs make repairs and prepare the Clubhouse & grounds for the season.

We have a long list of tasks, some large & some small that we would like to achieve before the beginning of the season as follow at the end of this news item.

A great deal of work has already been done by a few hardy souls over the winter & spring, but we do need some volunteers to help over this weekend (and claim their free T-Shirt).

If you can spare a couple of hours, then any help that we get will be most appreciated. We would aim to run the days from 10:00 am until 17:00 pm, so if you could let me know when you could make yourself available on either day, it will make it much easier to allocate teams of people to tasks.

The task list is:

Put together new mobile net for use on the outfield
Re-varnish scorebox
Rake & replace parking area gravel
New shackle & padloack (equipment shed)
Re-furbish bar screens
Clean out showers
Clear the Colts cupboard & Umpires Room
Teach in on the new website for Captains
Teach in on the new website for players & their availability
Erect picket fence o/s clubhouse
Replace broken shingles on clubhouse roof
Put out benches
Karcher sight screens & paint where necessary
Install boarding along bottom of dividing hedge
Remove & store scorebox cover
Hang netting for artificial wicket nets
Netting / fencing along river
Netting at rear of back pitch
Hedge trimming
Remove netting around front & back wickets
Repair light in Gents toilet
Change taps in Gents toilet
Repair dressing room patio
Paint pavilion railings
Paint / repair exterior of pavilion
Clear & repair gutters
Board up old scorebox
Trim more of willow tree
Re-cement in place drain covers / manholes
Retrieve old covers from field!

As you will see, there is a lot to do, so please step forward - every little helps.

Philip Ketteringham

As you may be aware our regular umpire, Phil Sidebottom, has been elevated to the Thames Valley League panel and as a consequence will generally not be allocated to matches involving Amersham!
It could be that there are enough panel umpires to cover games in our division, but if that isn't possible we are required to provide our own umpire.
Are there any budding umpires within our membership that might like to put their name forward? The club will pay £35 for each game with tea included and the promise of at least one pint from the skipper!
We are also keen to encourage our colts/social members to become more involved in the club. With that in mind we are also looking for scorers for both the 2nd & 3rd XI Saturday sides. I realise that travelling to away games might not be possible, but this year there will always be a Saturday when either the seconds or thirds will be at home. The club will pay £10 to a person who can score the complete match with tea and fizzy drinks included!

Any offers of help would be greatly appreciated, please get in touch.

Nick Piper
07788 583409

As we gradually emerge from winter (despite the heavy frost outside this morning), I wanted to share with you a few important details about senior cricket at Amersham this year. The fixture list is just about full, and we are looking to turn out 3 quality League teams on a Saturday, as well as one League team on a Sunday and one Friendly team on a Sunday.

Our new website will improve the way the captains of the senior sides will communicate with playing members, and report on our collective and individual successes throughout the season. For those that have not arranged a Username and Password, please do so as soon as possible by contacting philip.ketteringham@ntlworld.com, as you will definitely need them if you want to play cricket this year.

The website enables players to review all the season's fixtures, and enter availability throughout the season, and for the captains to select the teams and send group emails out communicating selection. This year, it will be everyone's responsibility to make sure their availability is updated on the site. This will make the weekly availability check, and all the associated phone calls and text messages redundant. Just as importantly, it will allow the captains to plan out the season to ensure continuity and that everyone is given an opportunity to make runs and take wickets. The captains will start the selection process for the first few weeks of the season in early April, and if you are not shown as "Available" for a game on the website, you will not be considered, so please ensure you spend 5 minutes entering what you know now regarding your Availability by the end of March. Equally, throughout the season, you will all need to ensure that you keep this up to date as your plans change.

It is really straightforward to do this on the site - once you have logged in just click the Availability link at the top and then use the drop downs to mark your availability against each game. If managing your availability on the website is going to be a problem for you, please let me and the other captains know - our contact details can be found in the "Club Officials" section.

Finally, this year is a real opportunity for all of us to play some really good competitive cricket. Our full fixture list on both Saturdays and Sundays means that there will be opportunities for everyone, and I would really urge some of the younger players in the club to make themselves available to play senior cricket. Hard though this may be to believe, the older senior players were all once youngsters, and are committed to making younger players welcome and to giving you an opportunity to come and "have a go" and improve your cricket.

We shall be holding two Summer Colts Cricket Camps at the club this summer - further details & application forms will be available for download soon, but the two weeks concerned will be 28th July - 1st August & 11th - 15th August.

On Monday 4th February BT will be installing a broadband connection at the club, to which will be attached a wireless router. This will enable managers & captains to update it's match reports & results immediately games are complete.

It will also allow those who are wireless equipped to communicate with their offices and the rest of the outside world. This will be a free access service.