2009 End of Season Report

By Gerry Goodwin

What a year!!! The Club’s first in Division A and, it’s fair to say, we exceeded everyone’s expectations, especially our own! We were in the top 2 or 3 for the vast majority of the season and led the league for a long spell. We only missed out on 2nd spot when we lost our last game to Radcliffe with 2 balls remaining! It just shows how far we’ve come in such a short space of time and it also gives an indication of what we could achieve in the next few years.

We’d decided, as a committee, to invest in an Overseas Coach and were lucky enough to enlist the services of Samrat Sharma. Sami had played for Ellerslie for a few years and was well known to some of the lads. He was also a proven run scorer, so would definitely strengthen our batting. Other good news was the return of Alex Kelly for half the season, which would really help the seam bowling attack.

Our season got underway (without Sami or Alex!) against 2007 Div A Runners up Calverton. All the lads were really up for the game and we, at least, looked the part as our new club playing kit had arrived. It’s amazing the difference it made to look like a cricket team that meant business, not only in how we were dressed, but also how we prepared for the game. Our warm-ups were sharp and enthusiastic. A real contrast to Calvo, who looked very disinterested. Perhaps we were being underestimated? This proved to be the case as “The Trees” skittled Calvo for 65, with Macca and Sean bowling beautifully to share the wickets. Blakey & Gelly knocked the runs off without a problem and we were in the Cheggo before 7pm!

A great start, which got better in the next 3 weeks with wins against Southwell (away), Keyworth (Home) and Newstead (home). There were contributions across the team, with Sami getting runs on his debut at Southwell and again against Keyworth. Smudge and Norts put on a great stand against Newstead after we were in early trouble, with Norts treating their overseas spinner with disdain! AK took 3-4 on his debut against Newstead too and we were suddenly top of the league! The Cheggo resounded to the strains of “Premier League, you’re having a laugh” and all was well with the world.

However, as we all know, Cricket is a great leveller. We proved this by putting in a poor performance away to the eventual Div A champions, Attenborough. Losing the toss on a track that was wet at one end and dry at the other wasn’t a good start and our innings never got going. Blakey hung around, but in the end 113 wasn’t enough and Attenborough knocked them off comfortably. This was always going to be the challenge for us in Div A. How would we respond to defeat?

The answer, on the field, was in the best possible way. In our next game, against the then league leaders Long Eaton, Macca & Sean again skittled a strong team, this time for 57! Sami wasted no time in knocking the runs off and we were done for 5:30pm and top of the league again!

The season got better with a win against the odds at Unity Casuals, with “The Trees” turning around a scoreboard that read “Unity 73-0 after 7 overs” to dismiss them for 185, courtesy of the spin twins. A great batting effort was finished off by Macca and Tom Morley and we won by 3 wickets.

We finished the first half of the season in top spot, following an emphatic win against Radcliffe and had won 7, lost 1, in the 8 completed games we’d had. A great start, but it was to become a season of 2 halves.

It’s fair to say we’d gone from having low expectations to high in the space of 9 games. It’s also fair to say we lost focus on the things we’d done to get ourselves in the position we were in, namely keeping the intensity in our play and pre-match warm ups. The teams in Div A have strength in depth and each one must be taken seriously. Too often in the second half of the season we were losing to teams that we should have beaten, but we lacked discipline both before and during the game. The old Achilles heel of batting strength hit us hard and, taking Sami out for a moment, I’m sure all the batsmen would admit the expected to do better and should have done with their ability.

We should also be mindful of the effect holidays had on our ability to compete. On 2 occasions the first team were left with 10 players, which simply cannot happen in the future. The steps we’ve taken to increase our playing membership should ensure this, but we got too close to cancelling fixtures for comfort, so let’s learn from our mistakes.

Despite all these circumstances we had some good performance in the second half, with wins against Calverton and Unity. Our final game against Radcliffe could have gone either way, but a combination of holiday absentees and the team just running out of steam at the end of a long season meant we narrowly lost and finished 4th in the table. Other highlights from the season included a maiden 1st team 50 for Tom Morley, which was a reward for his attitude towards playing for the 1st team, and Glenn Morley winning the Div A wicket-keeping award with 18 dismissals.

I’d like to put that 4th place finish into perspective. 2 years ago we were playing out of porta-cabins at the Chateau, we’d missed out on promotion to Div A by less than a point and senior players were seriously thinking about leaving the club. Since then we’ve moved to the best facility in Notts, we’ve got the club in fantastic shape financially, we’ve engaged an overseas coach for the first time, we’ve won promotion and we could (with a few more things going our way) have won promotion to the Premier League. Now, that last point may well have been a bad thing in the long term, but it proves what we have and can achieve.

We have the platform for real, long term, success at G&S CC. The first team need to lead the club and should look to play in the highest standard possible. This will drive our other teams and our Academy onto bigger and better things. I genuinely believe we can be one of the biggest, if not the biggest, club in Nottinghamshire in the next 5-10 years.

It’s to our established 1st team players and our younger 2nd/3rd team players that we should look to take our club forward on the pitch. I want to see all of them showing a desire to represent the 1st team and play at the highest standard they can. This starts with commitment to practice, to warming up, to mental preparation and to forging a team spirit like the one that has been the driving force behind G&S CC in recent years.

On a personal note, it’s this focus on youth in the 1st team that has driven my decision to step down as 1st team Skipper. I genuinely believe youth is the way forward and I know my successor, Alex Norton, will lead the team to bigger and better things. Al has my full support and also a commitment from me that I’ll challenge for a 1st team place for as long as I can, on merit. You can’t get rid of me that easily!

Finally, I’d like to say a big thank you to all the lads who played under me in the 1st team over the past few years. It’s been my pleasure to captain you all and thank you the effort, the commitment, the wins and the laughs.

Cheers

Gerry

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