4^th XI Report 2004

When I received the phone call 2 weeks before the season began asking me to be Captain of the 4th Xl I thought it was a joke. I accepted the position with great trepidation.

The season went very well. We won 9 out of the 17 games played and only lost 3 and finished runners up in the league. The team was made up of the young and the not so young. All the players performed extremely well. We had 2 players scoring 100's, Robin Surtees and Mark Foulder. We had an excellent young wicket keeper/batsman in Matthew Phythian. 3 young bowlers to keep our eye on are Matthew Whelan, David Baird and Matthew Pownall - all very good prospects for the future. 2 new members of the club also fitted in very well into the side - Najib Ahmed and Brian Viner. The side was finally made up of Neville Bann, Andrew Foulder, Chris Hart and Gareth Cowley. I think the one thing that stood out for me in the side was that whenever we played we seemed always to play with a smile on our faces and I think even if we had not been winning we would still have played this way.

The season finished with an excellent night in the lower pavilion talking over the season, eating BBQ food and drinking the night away. I would like to thank Dave Cunningham for his support and serving up the drinks, Mike O'Mahony, Charles O'Mahony and Stuart Marshall-Clark for getting the fantastic tracks we played on available and to Dave the caterer for serving up the teas, sometimes a little hot for the time of year and finally on the thank you's, I am extremely thankful to Terry Cordiner for accepting all the ranting and ravings on Friday nights and Saturday mornings when people cried off.

I have not carried on a captain this coming year as I found it far to difficult to get sides together when people cry off late on Friday nights or Saturday mornings.

Paul Foulder

Captain