2008 End of Season Report
By Stephen Carmody
In a season of ups and downs, the second eleven can feel happy with their efforts for the year especially in achieving a league position of 3rd. Although this decision is still pending it looks like this will be good enough to achieve promotion into division G, and hopefully the start of propelling the team to where they belong.
Looking on the season as a whole the one thing that can be said would be that the season was good but could have been better. A positive is that the team competing in every game and never gave up. This was shown by the fact that every game in which we were beaten we could just have easily won. The game that stands out as showing the fighting spirit but not quite getting there was Bramcote at home. Despite only defending 95 the bowlers pulled their socks up bowled tight with bramcote just achieving the victory in the second to last over.
In this season we established a strong bowling unit that can continue to improve and find that consistancy in the coming yesterday to make us a real force. Greg Bloor and Stu Morley became a very solid opening partnership with Greg bowling tightly without the wickets that his bowling deserved. Stu was consistent over the season taking wicket regularly and finishing as top wicket taker with 24 wicket. These two were backed up well by the other seamers in Mike Phillips, Chris Handley and Mike Prosser. We were also able to use a spin option that to the acquisition of James Woodward who was consistent all year with both bat and ball and an excellent addition in the field. We also saw the abilities of Chris Blake as an off spinner although we are hoping that we will get chance to see this a lot more next season.
The batting was also more consistent this season. Mike Phillips leading the way again with over 400 runs plating some vital knocks and scoring over 50 on 3 occasions. There were also fifties in the season for Steve Carmody, John Stocks and Ady Anderson. The highlight of the year was Stu Robinson's 132 against Cotgrave as the team amassed 327. There were also important innings played by Stu Morley and Darren Clarke although both will probably be looking for a little heavier scoring next season.
The biggest improvement from the previous seasons was the fielding. With the side looking a little younger and more agile then in previous years. This was shown with some excellent out fielding and a large number of catches being taken compared to previous years. Finally, it was also good to see a few youngsters in the team with Johnnie Piggott keeping wicket on many occasions and Rob Sowter bowling excellently away at Newstead, both still studying for their GCSE's. Let's look to get more young lads in next season and help the club to grow.
All these leaves for me to say is a huge thank you to all those that have palyed this year and supported my captaincy, I look forward to doing it again next season and helping the club progress further towards it's long term goals.
Steve Carmody (2nd XI captain)