News

Friday 18th November at 7pm start, we will have a race night with the presentation taking place after 4 races as normal. Get your horses names and money to our chairman asap, as we need to sort out our race cards and programe.

We also need to know how many members and friends will be attending so we can accomodate everyone. Lets have a right go and try to beat last year when we had 92 in attendance. 

Friday 23rd September saw Dean Greaves, Cory Milburn and our groundsman put in a canny shift with scarfing and brushing our square, getting it ready for Saturday. The also built 2 shelves in our container to safely store our mobile cricket cover tops and domes.

Saturday 24th saw our groundsman, Cory Milburn, Craig Jobson, Dean Hardy, Mick Hudson and Ryan Pringle get down and dirty spearding our seed, fertiliser and 100 bags of loam. We also pegged out the square with pins and rope.

Our groundsman then drew in help from the rugby players to help him shift out sight screens to their normal winter parking space against our changing room gable end, he stripped the panels and stored them away and lashed the screen to the gable end as normal. 

All that is left to do is to strip our covers and practice cage store them away for the winter.

17^th September is the final day of the season and saw the 1^st at home to neighbours Ulgham who had struggled lately with their form seeing them drop from 3^rd in the league 6 weeks ago to bottom; they needed to win to hopefully avoid relegation after their first season in Division 1. The Rugger Boys needed a win and hope that Kirkley who were in 2^nd place lose at home to Monkseaton who were 3^rd from bottom.

The game saw Captain Dean Greaves lose the toss and Ulgham asked Ash to bat first on a dry good looking track, Scott Madison was run out on 0 early on with some stop start running, enter Dean Hardy to the crease he and Chris Harwood started to build a score when Hardy was bowled the score was on 90 for 2 enter Paul Milburn, he and Chris had to face up to some good pace bowling from D, Campbell and spin floaters from M. Skinner the score almost came to a standstill, Harwood was caught and bowled by Campbell on 77.

Then a mini collapse occurred with Milburn at the other end the score stood at 111 (dreaded nelson) for 8, before Milburn and the number 10 and jack moved the score onto 168 all out. Milburn tried to keep the strike by running two’s as often as he could or hit fours, he did hit two sixes one huge hit straight which landing at the rugby club end on the road area and the other behind square off a full toss, Milburn eventually being left stranded on 50 not out.

168 was thought to be a modest score on the wicket, it was now up to our bowlers and did they start well Dean Greaves and David Wanless opened up and they bowled a very tight opening spell, David took the first wicket in his second over with the score showing 0, and the score stayed this way for 14.5 overs before Ulgham eventually scored a run which was greeted by a cheer from the away team. Our bowlers kept it tight all the way through bowling out the visitors for 65 giving the rugger boys a winning margin if 103 runs.

Dean Greaves had a sweat on he only needed 1 wicket to take him to 50 league wickets for the season he left it late to take his wicket which came with only 3 balls left in his spell. The bowlers figures were D. Greaves 1 for 10, D. Wanless 3 for 15, T. Elliott 3 for 8 and P. Milburn 1 for 24.

Word had come through earlier that Monkseaton had beaten Kirkley who only picked up 2 points, leaving the Rugger boys to celebrate their win and promotion to the Premier league.

Saturday 10th September saw the 1st’s pay a visit to the Whitley Bay Oval, on arriving you could hardly tell the difference with which was the actual playing wicket, it obviously did not help that the rain over night and the lack of covers made the wicket very wet and the outfield grass was very long. The toss would play a big part in how the game would go with both captains wanting to bowl first, you guessed it we lost and were put in, and all the players struggled to come to terms with the wicket eventually being bowled out for 94, we only had 3 players who made it to double figures they were C. Harwood on 11, M. Tanney on 14 and P. Milburn who made 16 our top score was the extras which amounted to 23. S. Awan was Whitley Bay’s top bowler with 5 for 13 with a wicket with his very first ball.

The Bay batsmen set off at a gallop to try to get to the total as soon as possible on a now drying wicket, B. Harris top scored with 43 once his wicket fell our bowlers got stuck into the Bay batters bowling them out for 86 winning by 8 runs. Our bowlers shared the wickets with P. Milburn taking 4 wickets for 21, T. Elliott 3 for 27, D. Wanless 1 for 21 and D. Greaves 2 for 16.

Overall a great effort from a difficult situation and we are not normally good at winning in tight situations. Rugger boys picked up 25 points out of 30 for their win.

League leaders Blyth were next to visit our hallowed turf on 3rd September, they came knowing that 18 points would give them the league title and 3 points would have them promoted back to the Premier Division after only 1 season in Division 1. It was a shame about the damp weather and over cast conditions with heavy rain forecast. Blyth won the toss and elected to bowl and the opening attack of Blyth Thompson and Allen bowled a very tight line and length and the Rugger boys found it hard to score runs, at one stage Ash had only 38 runs on the board after 26 overs. During the game we saw some fine spin bowling from Surj Singh who took 3 wickets for 33 runs in a 10 over spell.

The score picked up later on in the innings with Harwood scoring 29, “the young laid back horizontal” Maddison scoring 35 and Milburn chipped in with 27 before the rain came and did it come down. We had the covers on but the rain kept coming down and after our early tea and plenty of sitting around the game was abandoned with Ash on 129 for 5 after 47 0vers, both teams picked up 7 points, enough to see Blyth promoted and their captain flash the cans to celebrate.

Saturday 27^th August saw the visitors GEMS at the Rec, the game was delayed by approximately 35 minutes as the away team turned up late, they could only muster 3 players at the ground on time. GEMS conceded the toss and Ash captain Dean Greaves elected to bowl on a dry wicket which had been covered all week to keep the inclement weather at bay.

Following on from to exceptional victories in the last 2 games, where our bowlers did the damage, our deadly duo set to work, and it was not long before the wickets started to fall. Dean Greaves bowled a spell of 9 overs with 1 maiden, for 13 runs with 4 wickets and his partner in crime Dave “Dibbley Dobbler” Wanless bowled 8.5 overs with figures of 3 maidens, for 15 runs with 6 wickets. GEMS batsmen were all back in the pavilion with only 17.5 overs bowled with a score of 28 all out YES 28 all out.

Tea was not taken and our opening batsmen set to the task of chasing down a low score which they managed only using 8.1 overs to get to 29 for no wicket, Chris Harwood scored 14 and young Scott Maddison 9 not out.

In our last 3 games our bowlers did all the damage bowling out all 3 teams for only 107 runs in turn taking all 30 wickets, some achievement well done boys not bad for a 4 prong attack with a combined age of 194 .

The Rugger boys travelled to Monkseaton for another important game with 6 teams in the mix for relegation. The toss would play another big part of the game and this week our skipper lost the toss and the home team elected to bat.

With the bowlers still on a high from last weeks demolation of Ulgham the team sprits were high, Dean Greaves opened the bowling and once again his spell of bowling was top draw leaving the home side scratching their heads "Captain Fantastic" took 4 wickets in his 13 over spell with 3 maidens for only 16 runs, he was once again supported by the other bowlers who did a great job Dave Wanless 6 overs, 1 maiden, 1 wicket for 15 runs, Trevor Elliott stepped up to the crease he bowled a tight spell giving nothing away with 9 overs, 7 maidens, 2 wickets for only 2 runs. Up stepped Paul "Golden Arm" Milburn who bowled 2.3 overs he took 3 wickets, with 2 maidens for 2 runs, leaving the home team all out on 40 runs.

The batters stepped up to the wicket knowing we had to win with losing as few as wickets as possible knowing we could not afford to give Monkseaton any points from the game, we lost 2 wickets in the chase with Chris Harwood out for 8, Paul Milburn out for a duck leaving Scott Maddison not out 14 and Michael Adamson not out on 8 to see the club home for another 30 point win for Ash Rugger Boys.

Another great effort by the team especially the 4 bolwers who once again did the damage, who's combined age adds up to 194 years, a little bit of experience goes a long way as the say.

This win saw Ash go up to 3rd in the league however there are less than 40 points from 3rd top to bottom, another big game next week at home against GEMS.  

Ash travelled to near neighbours Ulgham knowing that only a win would do, the toss was crucial and for once our skipper called correctly and inserted the home team in on a damp track.

Captain Greaves opened the bowling and bowled straight through his 13 over spell, in his spell he was just about un playable, his swing did for the Ulghan batters returning with figures of 13 overs, 5 maidens, 7 wickets for 10 runs. He was supported by Dave Wanless Snr who alo returned fine figures of 13 overs, 5 maidens, 2 wickets for 24 runs. The other bowlers only bowled 2.1 overs between them Paul Milburn picking up the last wicket.

Leaving Ulgham who were third in the league before the match finished all out for 39 runs with no extras. Ash batted through for the win with Scott Maddison scoring 14 not out, Kevin Hetherington scoring 9 with 11 extras. Ash took 30 points for the win and Ulgham only 1 point.

Another big match next week against Monkseaton who are 4th in the league.