2007 has been a very active year for the Ewelme Cricket Club. It all started with the Parish Council announcing that they could no longer afford to maintain the cricket pitch, and since the club had no funds at all, there was a real possibility that the club would have to fold before the season got underway.
Thankfully there are a lot of supporters in the village who wanted to see the tradition of village cricket continue in Ewelme. The response to our call for help was better than expected, with cricketers and many villagers giving generously. Great financial support was also received from Grundons, Serco, LaFone, Wallingford Round Table, The Shepherd’s Hut, The Ewelme Society and The Parish Council.
The increased responsibility meant a further formalisation of the club such as inviting local residents to volunteer as Presidents and Vice Presidents. We are very honoured to have Gemma Clive as President and three Vice Presidents; Lord Michael Jay, Cynthia Winfield & John Nash providing excellent support for the club.
The main expense of the club is maintenance and preparation of the cricket square, and the funding allowed us to hire a groundsman. Whilst Andy Ford had no experience of cricket pitches, he took advice from several quarters including Richard Winfield who had maintained the sports field for years, and managed to prepare very good playing surfaces for every home game. In fact the pitch played as well as it ever has, and is one of the best Sunday pitches in the area.
And now to the cricket. It was not a good summer from a weather perspective, with 4 games washed out and 2 abandoned due to rain. We have rarely lost more than 2 games a season to the weather, but had to cancel 3 or 4 games each of the last three years when we could not field enough players. The spirit of 2007 was strong and we fielded 11 players for each of the remaining 14 fixtures. The weather made it difficult for players to build momentum and form, but nonetheless we won 30% of games played, which was double last year, which was double the year before that. We batted first 11 times winning 4, and chased 3 times without a win. It’s also worth considering that we would have expected to win at least half of the washed out games in the form we were playing.
Rather than sending in match reports to fill up the pages of the Ewelme Village News, those of you who are interested can now view all the score cards, match reports, statistics and player profiles on our web site: www.ewelmecricketclub.org.uk
If you don’t have access to the internet, and are interested in following the fortunes of the club, let me know and we can send you a regular news letter.
The annual awards night was held at The Shepherds Hut on 19 October. With player’s wives and girlfriends also in attendance, more than 30 of us sat down for dinner and a very entertaining evening of awards, speeches and the Grand Draw.
The Awards for 2007:
As you can see we are very reliant on Andys for our success !
The Grand Draw was our main fund raising activity, we thank all of you who donated prizes and purchased tickets. There were many prizes and Lord Michael Jay was drafted in to pull the lucky winners from a large box; the top prizes were won by:
In order to secure the future of the club we have set ourselves a target to increase the number of younger players and improve our performance so that Ewelme can once again compete at a higher level in one of the local leagues.
The members of the cricket club extend our sincere thanks to all of you who supported us this season and therefore helped to ensure that Village Cricket remains a fixture in Ewelme.
Next year will be the club’s 75th anniversary and we look forward to ongoing support from the village.
Ralf Moller, Captain