President: Mr. R. Shenton
Chairman: Mr. K. Reynolds
Hon. Treasurer.
Hon. Secretary : Mrs. SK Finney
BAGNALL C.C
Est. 1951
Bagnall C.C Secretary's Report
The 2011 season began with fresh faces in many roles at the club, a promotion to a higher league for our first team and the long awaited central heating in the clubhouse.
One of the fresh faces at the club is our new groundsman Colin Wilkinson. Colin has slotted into the club so well with his friendly and genial manner. The work he has put into the grounds has not gone unnoticed and there have been praise from members past and present for the square. Colin has also played a crucial role in the first team with his quality batting and bowling, whilst his knowledge and cricket wisdom steadied many a fellow team member through tough matches.
Kevin Reynolds took on the role of chair whilst Matt Brazier became vice chairman. It’s fair to say that Kevin did not realise the magnitude of the role he had volunteered for at first but as the season progressed he has had to deal with many issues and has fully immersed himself in his role. We even got to see him playing again in the seconds and by all accounts doing a good job of it. Matt sorted out winter nets and was crucial in the pre season work carried out on the clubhouse. He has been instrumental in making sure the club moves forward and has been helping with profits from both side of the bar. I would like to thank them both for all of their support this year and also to apologise to their wives Jenny and Eve for the many phone calls and also meetings I have dragged their husbands to.
Roger Shenton took over the role of President at the club. Roger is a very generous benefactor to the club. He arranged for the installation of the central heating for the clubhouse and also been responsible in getting local business’s to sponsor us. His larger than life personality and hard work ethic is vital to our club.
The start of the season kicked off with an event for The Cathy Newton Charity. This event was the largest ever held at Bagnall CC. We raised thousands of pounds for the charity and also the club. The event was attended by hundreds of people all day and also into the night. Many thanks to Andy Wright and the charity committee for their excellent organisation of the event and to all the club members who worked so hard to ensure the day was a success.
So it was with great optimism that we looked forward to the first match of the season and the arrival of our professional player Khasif Daud from Pakistan. However, it became obvious early on that all was not well with Khasif. He had an ankle injury that left him unable to play for the first part of the season. Due to his outstanding contribution to the previous season the committee decided to keep him at the club and hope that with physio he could return to fitness and be the player that decimated many opposing teams last year. Unfortunately his injury limited his success on the field and the club then also had to use the services of Oliver Newby to try to stay in the league.
Andy Rowson became first team captain and attacked the role with his usual gusto until business commitments limited his time at the club, with Simon Gordon taking over his role as Captain. Throughout the season Simon has grown into this role and I am looking forward to what he will achieve with his team this season.
As we all know the first part of the season was not good for us and we were at the bottom of the league but the team picked themselves up and had a terrific run of wins and it went to the final matches of the season to decide our fate. As we now know, the weather played its part and we ended up being relegated.
The second team also had a new captain Chris Baldo and a group of young players. It was tough as Chris often had to scout around for available players and quite a few members found themselves being called up to play.
This year our ladies team has grown in popularity and has had some local friendly matches. One of our ladies, Andrea Bowditch, has also played in the second team. This is one area we would like to expand in the future so watch out lads the ladies are taking over!
Our junior coaching side have been working hard with our ever expanding junior teams and three of our coaches Andy Moran, Russell Gammon and Rob Bennett have been on level 2 coaching courses during the winter. The junior teams are our future and it is vital that we invest time and money in this section and help Andy and his team to fulfil the potential of our youngsters.
Early on in the season I asked some of our younger players to help with the coaching of the juniors. They became a dedicated bunch of volunteers, working with the youngsters and some also helped in other areas of the club. Tom Gordon and Jack Walker joined the committee and Alex Moran has used his skills as a graphic designer to design signs and posters for us. Many thanks lads your help has been much appreciated.
The club has a fantastic new website, www.bagnallcc.com, designed by David Walker. It has all the latest news and also a forum for people to get involved with. Please take a look at it its well worthwhile and David would like your input in to further development of the site.
We have a small band of dedicated volunteers and I am most grateful for the contribution that they all make, and I would just like to name a few. Andrea Bowditch and Carla Brindley put so much time in with the juniors and are always helping out at events. Beth, Alex and Jenny, our superb tea ladies and barmaids. New cake recipes have already been tried out for this season as my waistline can attest to. Rob, Anthony, Daryl, Bill, Terry and Dave Curwen for the years of work at the club
Last season was the 60th Anniversary of Bagnall CC and we celebrated by having an event where past, present and future teams played matches. Matt Adams organised much of the event and it was fantastic to see past members returning to the club to see how it has developed over the last few years
This last season I have been to various clubs and also spoken to officials within Staffordshire Cricket with a view to writing a new development plan for us and it has become obvious that to ensure that the club has a future we have to treat the running of the club as a business and bring a degree of professionalism into all areas whilst still keeping the feel and friendliness of a village cricket club. We shall continue with our policy of building on coaching staff for the juniors. Hopefully we will finish our new bar extention and look to improving the outside of the ground whilst building bridges with the local communities.
With your help and support all this is possible and much more, so let’s look forward to bright future for the club in 2012.
Karen Finney
Secretary
