EGHAM CC COLTS SECTION REPORT 2016
In what has been my 5th year as Manager, I must report a very difficult year for the colts section. Participation numbers are down in the local area to an alarming level and although the patient is alive, its health is in severe danger.
I shall talk about each age group from oldest to youngest individually. Firstly, our Under 17’s were managed by Neil Herbert and although he had an unpresented number of players registered (17), with so many away at school or doing exams, only 2 games were played. Still they all played many senior games so they had lots of games elsewhere.
At the beginning of the season we had only 7 players in the Under 15’s and no Manager. Up stepped David Hawes to help out and he ran the side admirably. I quickly realised our plight and emailed every club in the area to ask if they had the same problem. Apart from Valley End, no side had 11. This is a very worrying trend, if young players are not playing with their friends it is very unlikely that they will play with adults on a weekend. Our numbers never really rose and it is to David’s credit that he managed to get 3 games played with the help of our Under 13’s. Dave Morris, Paul Suckling and Andrew Robinson all helped out with the coaching of this age group on Monday evenings.
If our numbers were low at 15’s, our Under 13’s were even lower with only 5. Ed Comber and Mark Gascoigne coached them very well on Monday’s and although we failed to play any West Surrey games, they did play 2 games in the Ray Denne Trophy. There is hope that they may fulfil more fixtures next year as there will be more Under 12’s and our 11’s will be stronger too.
I think the club needs to realise that they have relied on colts to supplement their sides for the last 5 years due to not only reasonable numbers but good quality colts being available. This is due to the standard of coaching given (which I shall develop on later). Unfortunately, we will have much, much lower numbers over the next 4 years and the club will need to recruit more seniors to ensure 44 players turn out on Saturdays.
We simply have to preserve our Under 11’s who are managed extremely well by Jamie Hamilton and have good numbers. They were predominately Under 10’s but fulfilled all their fixtures and won more than they lost. If Jamie can keep them together, just like I have with the present day Under 16’s & 17’s then they are the main future of the club. They look very keen and highly talented and thanks needs to be given to not only Jamie but also Elliot Hook for everything they have achieved thus far.
Our Under 9’s were superbly coached by Phil Robson who having qualified showed all his skills in developing the youngsters he had. He was ably assisted as always by Bradley Staightand Dan Telford and Jonny Hill. Even here our numbers were hugely down and this can be attributed to perhaps Englefield Green getting their colts off the ground but could also point to a more alarming trend in cricket. The next 3 years shall determine if 2016 was just a blip.
The vast majority of Monday’s took place and I would like to thank every single coach for all their endeavours. Added to this, I would like to give huge thanks to my Secretary Carole Wright who not only organises everything so efficiently, but has also now become the clubs 2nd Welfare Officer. I would also like to thank Allison Arraiol for all her continued work as our long-standing Welfare Officer.
Pleasingly, participation numbers in the Jim Warden and Ray Denne Cups were up, with 11 and 10 in each and virtually all the games took place. For the 1st time ever, due to West Surrey commitments, both finals were played on the same Sunday. With the Ray Denne final taking place in the morning, East Molesey U13’s comfortably defeated Ashford and it was pleasing to see Garry Denne present the trophy to the winning captain. In the afternoon, the Jim Warden final was played to a very high standard and Valley End U11’s defeated Chobham & Pyrford U10’s. Everyone agreed that having the finals on the same day works well and we shall probably continue this in the future.
Many colts again represented the senior sides with Dan Telford, Ryan Suckling and once back from school Matt Cooper regularly opening the bowling for the 2nd XI. The only batsman who made any regular appearances for the 2nd XI was Connor Hawes and because of this and his 2 50’s for the Under 15’s he was awarded the Ray Denne achievement award. Due to his superb bowling this year and his help in coaching, I was more than pleased to award Dan Telford with the Geoff and Mary Bell award and I would like to congratulate both on their achievements.
Sadly, there were no other batsmen who managed to hold down a regular 2nd team place and this is partly due to players missing games due to exams but mainly due to the extremely poor pitch facilities at Royal Holloway. Now many of you 30 or 40 somethings were probably pleased to be playing there after a year of public parks, dog walkers, poor showers and dodgy wickets. Well our colts were all to a player very unhappy with the pitch.
If you deal with the playing surface, the covers are barely fit for purposeand the pitch is so low and slow that I for example prior to my back injury was regularly batting 2 to 3 yards out of my crease. When a youngster did get the ball off the square (square cuts tended to go straight to mid off), the length of the grass in the outfield meant that 2’s were exceptionally rare. You simply had to hit the ball in the air and bearing in mind we have coached our batters to play proper shots, this invariably caused their downfall. The only 3rd & 4th XI home batting performances of any note were achieved by players who favour their bottom hand.
Just remember that in 2015, our young batsmen all scored sizeable runs on the public parks because they worked on the fact that they could take their chances on receiving a grubber but still got full value for their shots with the decent outfields. Now if you think this is a whinge, then let me tell you that when you add the fact that the standard of 3rd XI cricket this year was appalling, hardly anyone enjoyed it.If the youngsters don’t enjoy the facilities then they shall find other things to do, I can’t maintain their enthusiasm for ever and believe me at least 6 colts came to me to complain. My suggestion is to deep end them in the 2nd XI, but the worry then is, are the dropped seniors prepared to play at Royal Holloway for the 3rd XI?
Congratulations must be given to Andrew Robinson for getting Sunday cricket back off the ground. This relies on several colts playing which they are more than pleased to do bearing in mind they play at the club.
I hope 2017 will be back to more successful times, unfortunately due to work commitments, I shall be stepping down as Colts Manager. It has been an absolute pleasure in undertaking this role and I hope my successor can push on with this section and can enjoy it as much as I have.
Neil Herbert
Colts Manager