News

9th April saw the finishing touches to our new score box, number boxes fitted, lettering fixed, carpet tiles fitted ready for our scorer Jim "The Hoover" Peacock.

It is fitting that long standing member of our club Jim will be the first scorer to use our score box as we entertain Rock a club from Alnwick in a freindly fixture on Saturday 16th April in a 35 over match.

Jim has thrown his hat in the ring after hanging up his whites a few years ago. He has put himself through the ECB scorers course to be ready for a new chapter supporting the club.

All cricket clubs need retired members like Jim to continue after their playing days are over, supporting our club in what ever way they can as there is nothing better than experience and knowledge. The members are looking forward to Jim taking up the scorers seat and they really appreaciate his comittment to the club " Thanks Jim"  

On the 16th April we also will see two more former players who used to open batting they are  Bobby Dodds former Treasurer now plays for Rock and Ken Ward who took up umpiring when he hung up his whites. Bobby brings his team down for a warm up match and Ken will don the umpires coat. 

Saturday 2nd April only 4 members turned out to help and 2 of those had to leave around 12.00. They assembled the sight screens, practice cage and set up our square using 3,4,5 method it would have been a lot easier but our square markers put in at the end of last season had dissapered, which made it a longer job our groundsman did not finish until 5.00 which was an 8 hour day.

We are planning our day of action for Saturday 2nd and 9th of April, on the 2nd we hope to build our sight screens, practice cage and hopefully clear away our 2 flix practice strips. We are then looking to assist the grounds man with setting out our cricket square with the 3, 4 5 method and if time allows mark out our boundry lines.

9th will see us aiming to complete our new score box, finsihing off the painting inside and out and lay our carpet tiles ready for our first friendly with "Rock" a Alnwick based club on the 16th April. We hope we have ourselves ship shape with our playing facilities and score box by then, our tea room we can only keep our fingers crossed. We would normally have a squad in our tea room and kitchen washing everything down but there is not much point as it looks like a war zone with all the damage. 

Following the breakin and the terrible damage which resulted from the water, the club is drying out the building with industrial heaters and dehumidfiers. The insurance loss adjusted has been and given the go ahead for temporary repairs to the electrics and replacing the stolen copper pipe in plastic the big problem is that the pipework was 42mm which is hard to get a hold of.

The next job is the quotes from builders for the repairs, majority of the ceilings will need to come down, along with the majority of the electric lights will need replacing as the fluorescent light fittings were burnt out. The amazing thing seen on the morning was the water rushing through the fuse box when still live as you can gather this will need repacing, along with our microwave, hoover, carpet etc which were full of water along with many other items.

We are hoping we can save our kitchen units, our club photos, all our framed awards and the histotry of our club, we cannot save our carpet and a number of the walls will need hacking off and replastering in the kitchen and tea room as the walls are drying out the plaster is bursting off the walls.

What have we done to deserve this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Friday morning at 8:30am on 18th March members turned up to work on new score box only to find water pouring out of changing room block under the metal shutters.

The club is devastated by thieves breaking into the changing room and stealing pipework which has resulted in a huge flood, bringing down all the ceilings in the tea room and kitchen. This could have grave consequences for the start of our season only 6 weeks away.

The water must have been running for hours and hours as the water had caused a flood out side the building right up to the metal containers about 80 yards away. The tea room and kitchen was under 2" of water and this was only 2" beacuse of the small step which is 2" high otherwise if would have been 3, 4 5ft deep who knows, "What a sight"

All the electric fittings are damaged, our new kitchen units tea room carpet are in a state, ceilings down plaster coming away from the walls, to be blunt the whole lot is a right mess everything we have in our tea room and kitchen may have to be thrown away.

Our members who were first to find the damage opened the tea room door to be met with a waterfall of water running from the ceilings, they spent most of the day brushing out the water and trying to save what they could.

We had a tea room and kitchen to be proud of, now it to looks like a bomb site, I am totally devasted, reported the Chairman, we need all the members to rally around and try to save what we can and try to get back to normal as quickly as we can. We have great team spirt in our club and we cannot let this destroy what we have worked so hard for over the years.

2 of our club members are currently building a new score box behind the metal security shutters, in the changing room block beside our tea room, this score box will have electric lights and a umpire signal light we will also carpet it out.

We are using the tradesmen skills of our members who have taken time off work and are offering their services at no cost to the club, great effort boys.

We have taken this decision as our old score box did not have power and the single leaf brick structure is past its best and we thought it wise to build a new box in a secure place, instead of looking to repair our old box as this would have been a backward step.

In conjunction with Ashington Rugby Club we have just been awarded £6500+ funding for 24 new UPVC windows. This is for all the windows including our 3 large windows in our tea room.

Windows are on order and will be fitted before the season starts on 20th April our first midweek league game. Our first Saturday game is 30th April 1st at home to GEMS.

Cricket nets training as usual at Hirst High School on Monday nights 8pm till 9.30pm.

Last session is Monday 11th April.