News

Saturday 6th October 2012 saw our club store our cricket covers frames on the container roofs for safe keeping thanks to D. Greaves, D. Hardy, C. Harwood, D. Wanless Jnr and our groundsman. Our sight screens have also been tied to the changing room gable end for the winter.

Entertainment on Saturday 29^th September the Rugby Club has a gentlemen’s evening planned starting at 7:30pm, the night is made up with 5 Exotic Dancers and a Comedian.

Cost is £10 and you can pay at the door, please note you must be 18 to attend.

Saturday 22^nd September saw the 1^st team at Berwick in a re-arranged game, the game was important as if we won we would miss relegation and if we lost and Corbridge also lost we would be safe.

With three 1^st team player missing for various reason we went up to give it a real go, on turning up at the ground it was hard to tell the difference between the wicket and the outfield, to say it was green would be an understatement. The toss was very important and you guessed it we lost again and not surprising we were asked to bat and a green and very damp track.

Nearly every delivered was ripping back the top of the wicket, we did not really get going only Callum Milburn who ended up with 34 was the only one to really look comfortable, he hit some glorious boundaries all along the floor, once he fell we were quickly dismissed for 91 in 30 overs.

In chasing Berwick took 32 overs to win the game with only 4 wickets down only captain Greaves put any pressure on their batsmen with his 13 overs with 2 wickets for 12 runs.

We were then left hoping for Stocksfield to do us a favour and they duly obliged bowling out Corbridge for 91 after they had amassed 181 for 5.

This is another first for our club every other season we have had in the premier league has always ended in relegation so this is a big achievement for the club.

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Friday 21st September 2012 saw the club heavily invest in its cricket square, with the help of Turf Care who removed the top 24mm from the square with a koro scrapper 12mm across the square and 12mm with the line of play.

We took this decision to help the removing any undulations and the small saddle we had at stump height, it also helped remove any thatch and fibre we have which is hard to remove when scarified with a hand driven machine.

The square was then spike and then tilthed up with a graden maching, this was repeated to break up the next 25mm to give the area a nice bed for the seed and fertilizer, it was then traged matted. The square was then rolled and graded again with the blades set higher so just to scrape the surface it was then seeded again.

Altoghter we put on 4 ton of loam, 5 bags of seed and 1 bag of fertlizer.  

To see more pictures of the work undertaken you can view them in the photo gallery on the left of the screen in a folder called 2012 Cricket Square Renovations.

A very big thank you goes to UK Coal for their support.

Saturday 16^th September 2012, saw Blyth visit the “Rec” for a 1^st team Premier League fixture. Blyth won the toss and put us in and our openers Harwood with 45 and Adamson who scored 30 got us off to a great start, before we floundered in the mid order before Matty Tanney chipped in with 20 not out, we ended up 160 for 9 off our 50 overs. Surge Singh bowled a great spell of spin bowling taking 4 for 36 and Andy Kemp bowling seam up took 2 for 25.

With our captain back in the fold Greaves opened the bowling with Cory Milburn once again we got early wickets with Cory taking 4 wickets in his first 7 over spell, removing Blyth’s top order. Blyth put on a stand with Mark Lawrence who scored 38 before falling to Lewis Tanney and G Quinn who scored 28 before he fell to Cory with a great catch in the gully by the vice-captain Midge Adamson.

We got to the stage just like last week when we had 9 wickets down and thought oh no surely not again, we kept at it and fittingly Captain Greaves took the final wicket caught and bowled, too a loud cheer for the Rugger lads.

Our bowler’s finished with D. Greaves 2 for 47, L. Tanney 2 for 24 and Cory Milburn 6 for 45 a great effort from a young lad who has just broken into the 1^stteam; he caused Blyth problems in both spells. That win gave us 28 much need points, now was the anxious wait for the Corbridge score to come through, when it did we were a lot happier as they lost and only managed 5 points this gave us a lead of 13 point with only one game to go in trying to stave off relegation.

Our 2nd team travelled to Civil Service for their final B1 Division game, we put the Service out for 29 and won by 8 wickets in a one sided game, which saw 30 points earned. 

Saturday 9^th September 2012, saw our 1^st team travel to Warkworth for an important game for the Rugger boys who were looking for points to try to prevent relegation. We lost the toss and Warkworth put us into bat, we never really got going with the bat and ended all out for 125, only Dean Hardy with 31 and Lewis Tanney with 24 managed to put a little time in at the crease.

After a talk before the Warkworth innings we went out looking to take wickets and pick up bonus points as we did not feel that 125 was a bigger enough score to try to defend and taking wickets was the only chance we had. A big blow before the game was our captain and leading wicket taker (Greaves)was still carrying and injury and not able to take to the field, so we opened up with two 18 year olds namely Cory Milburn and Lewis Tanney both of the bowled a fine spell taking regular wickets Cory took 2 for 33 and Lewis 3 for 35. Paul Milburn bowled a long spell from the Castle end finishing with 3 for 35 and ably supported by David Wanless Jnr who bowled a great spell taking 1 for 10.

We had Warkworth reeling and felt we had the game in the bag at one stage with only Steve Lee who scored 39 Not Out kept us at bay, at one stage they were in the 90’s with 9 wickets down and we pushed for the final wicket but it would just not come our way. The truth be told we felt we had a number of good shouts for LBW and 1 caught behind but the finger did not get raised, credit to Warkworth but the looks on the “Ash” boys faces leaving the field said it all we gave a great effort only to fall agonisingly short. Never mind if we show the same spirit and fight in the remainder of our games who knows what can happen.

We ended up picking up 7 bonus points which still left us 10 points behind Corbridge who also lost, we are all looking forward to next week against local rivals Blyth who are up near the top of the table. 

Sunday 2^nd September in a double header of the weekend this game against Tillside also at home, this game was an early rearranged match from the second game of the season when the full fixture programme was washed out, we had a much weakened 1^st team with captain Greaves unable to play with a knee injury and 4 others watching Newcastle, in came the old guard with 2 youngster from the 2^nd team.

Tillside won the toss, so no change there even with a different captain, we still cannot win the toss. Tillside elected to bat and set a good target of 173 for 8 (the exact same score set by Blagdon the day before) their captain G. Turnbull top scored with 63 and Bickerton supported with a useful 38. P. Milburn picking up 3 for 48 with the ball 1 wicket with seam up and 2 wickets from off spin in his second spell.

Captain Adamson opened up with Harwood and Hetherington who was the first wicket to fall early on, onto the field went Adamson who with Harwood built a useful partnership, before the Adamson wicket fell. For once we started to build partnerships scoring just below what we required but that did not matter with wickets in hand. Harwood fell on 66 and we needed to build again, P. Milburn came to the crease and started to pick up runs, he finished with 40 not out with 2 huge sixes and 3 fours in his total. We ended up winning with 7 overs to spare with only 6 wickets down. Cameron McGregor bowled a very fine spell of spin bowling for the visitors taking 3 for 27 off his 13 overs.

Even after our nearest rivals Corbridge managed to tie a game with only 66 runs scored yesterday and picked up 15 points, 9 more that we did we were over the moon with the win against Tillside, when news came through that Corbridge beat Blagdon Park picking up a useful 29 points. Well back to the drawing board for the Rugger boys.