News

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. 

Saturday 1^st September saw the 1^st team at home against a very strong Blagdon Park team who are sitting 2^nd in the Premier League. We lost the toss and Blagdon decided to bat on our track at the “Rec”.

We had near to our strongest team and we needed to be good at all facets of the game to give us a chance, one big problem was the Tanney brothers did not turn up till 45 minutes after the start. We set off well with 3 early wickets with only 9 men on the field with the captain Dean Greaves bowling a good opening spell. Blagdon finished with 173 all out which was a great effort by the lads.

Bowling figures Dean Greaves 3 for 36, Cory Milburn 1 for 44, Trevor Elliot 2 for 24 and Lewis Tanney 3 for 24.

Chasing a target of 174 to win we set off OK, however it was not long before the wickets started to fall and they continued to fall at steady intervals with no one really getting in and being able to build a score Michael (Midge) Adamson top scored with 24 against his former club, we were eventually all out 107.

Our 2nd Team were at Blagdon Park and played the game with only 9 men following a couple of late cry off's. Blagdon Park batted first and hit 201 for 4 off their 40 overs. We scored 167 for 6 chasing which was a great effort with weak team and only 9 players. Great effort boys!!!!!!!!!!!

Tuesday 28th August saw our groundsman remove 11 wheelbarrows full of water from outfield in 5 areas. We have an area approx 150 yards x 30 yards which is soaking wet and brining up a lot of water when walked on.

We are praying that the heavy rain forecasted for Wednesday and Thursday does not fall on our ground other wise the Saturday and Sunday league matches will be in doubt.  

Saturday 25th August saw both teams due to play Corbridge, the "Rec" had pools of water on the outfield and was still raining when we had to call the game off pitch not fit for play.

2nd team game was called off earlier in the morning ground not fit.

Saturday 18th August saw a weakened 1st team missing 5 players, travel league leaders to Alnmouth, in what was to prove to be a one sided game. We lost the toss and were asked to bat first and we could only manage 87. Alnmouth batters especially Paul Straker went for it from the start and he finished 65 not out and Alnmouth won the game easy by 10 wickets.

We have just got to hold up our hands and say the best team won on the day, they outplayed us in all areas.

Our best wishes to Almouth & Lesbury in their chase for the title this season.