The sub ctte will be asking clubs and leagues to nominate players. Please contact for further information D Cook d.r.cook12@btinternet.com W Tansell - bill@tansells.freeserve.co.uk PWilliams Philip@williams208.orangehome.co.uk Conference Awards Midlands Club Cricket Conference Newsletter August 2014 Tour to South Africa Feb and March 2016 The Midland Club Cricket Conference is pleased to announce that planning for its next tour to Cape Town in South Africa February 26 th to March 18 th 2016 is well advanced. It is being organised by well-known Midland cricketer and now umpire David R. Cook and President Elect of the MCCC for 2015. David has vast experience in touring South Africa and has many contacts in Cape Town who are planning the fixtures, local travel and sightseeing trips. Twelve matches are planned against clubs such as Western Province, Bellville, Paarl, Grout Drakenstein and Scorpions in Stellenbosch. It is hoped that the tour party will stay in the City Lodge Hotel on the Victoria and Albert Waterfront and will have several free days for sightseeing to the Cape of Good Hope and wineries. Already Conference has two volunteer umpires and seeks volunteer scorers. A special sponsorship sub ctte is looking to raise funds to reduce the costs for players. An extensive and attractive Tour Brochure is being put together to accompany the players on the tour and present to our hosts. A Selection Sub Ctte will be formed to invite players from the Birmingham Premier League and County leagues from across the Midlands. Now is the time to start thinking about Conference Awards. Get talking in committee and in the bar about who you would like to nominate from your club. And this year you can make your nominations on line at www.mccc.co.uk On the field of play. Who s been having a great season with the bat or with the ball or both at YOUR club? Conference would like to honour those players who have done well. We really do want to hear from you. From the biggest club to the most junior of clubs there has to be someone in your club who has had a great season. Our awards are for all cricketers, in all clubs, in all leagues or even if you just play friendlies. Let s hear about them. Tell us how many runs they have scored, wickets they have taken, victims snaffled behind the stumps. Go on get thinking and get nominating. The Awards are: Conference Cricketer of the Year Conference Players of the Year (up to 5 awards). Esmond Lewis Wicketkeeper of the Year. Nominations for these go to the cricket sub ctte chairman Alan Neal 0121 744 6656 or email me at Philip@williams208.orangehome.co.uk
Young Players. There are four awards here: Alec Hastilow Trophy for the under 16 player of the year Halesowen trophy for the club member who has done a lot for youth cricket at your club. Under 21 player of the year. Young Clubman of the Year for a young member up to the age of 23 who has been working behind the scenes. These nominations go to the Youth Sub Ctte Alan Neal 0121 744 6656 or you can send them to me and I will forward them on. Behind the Scenes. Cricket clubs are totally dependent on the voluntary work of hundreds of club members across Conference. Surely there is someone at your club who should be acknowledged for all their hard work and dedication? W. F. Jones for consistent Achievement for that club member who has put in a lot of effort over the years in many different roles. Leslie Jones Secretarial Award for club secretaries and fixture secretaries. Tiny Wildsmith Club person of the Year for that unsung hero/heroine behind the scenes. Norman Sharp Award for that special person who has put in many many years of voluntary work for you all. Club persons of the Year Administration for those who had have created or led a special project over the last few years. Groundsman of the Year. There are loads of volunteer groundsmen in clubs. Who has a member whose prepared your pitches for you for a good number of years? These nominations come to me Phil Williams Flat 28 Blythe Court, 4 Grange Road Solihull B91 1BL 0121 439 7728 or the email address above. Come on. Get your thinking caps on and get those nominations coming in. Deadline October 3 rd 2014 Subscriptions Mike Smith our treasurer writes: Subscriptions. Outstanding subscriptions remain a perennial problem. At 31 st August, approximately 40% of our membership had still to pay their subscription for 2014. This figure includes over 50 clubs who owe for a prior season and whose membership of Conference may be terminated unless payment is received. Where applicable, reminders are enclosed with this Newsletter. It would appear that problems in collection often arise because we have either not been advised of changes to the club secretary or the subscription notice has not been forwarded to the club treasurer. The website (mccc.co.uk) should help in this regard as it incorporates a member portal which individual clubs can use to update club details on a regular basis. Emergency Fund The Emergency Fund is available to clubs that require urgent finance to cover a cost that has arisen through theft, fire, mechanical breakdown, health and safety or meeting League requirements. Funds are available as an interest free loan repayable by monthly standing order over a maximum period of three years. All loans must be covered by a
personal guarantee from club officials.for further details please contact Mike Smith; 0121-246-1988 (H) or email (mjdsmith@blueyonder.co.uk). Dates for your Diary: MCCC Annual Dinner and Awards Presentation. Friday March 6th 2014 Tally Ho Conference Centre, Pershore Road, Birmingham Guest Speaker: Darren Maddy MCCC Annual General Meeting Monday January 19 th 2014 Olton & WW CC, Grange Road, Solihull B91 1DA 7.45 Under 16 finals The heavy rain on August Bank Holiday Monday meant the postponement of the u16 finals at Harborne. Corley, Wombourne, Bablake and Ombersley had made their way to the finals day. Corley had beaten Halesowen in the previous round, Wombourne had progressed because their possible opponents had not played. In the bottom half of the draw Bablake had beaten Berkswell and Ombersley had beaten Worcester Nomads. Scoring at Rugby. Phil Williams, Olton and WW CCs scorer and our assistant secretary, was invited by the ICC to score at an u15 ICC tournament held at Rugby School recently. There were five countries represented, The Netherlands, Scotland, Ireland, Guernsey and Jersey who all played each other over a period of six days. Phil was able to score two matches, Ireland v The Netherlands and Scotland v The Netherlands. The 50 over matches were played to full ICC rules. It was the first time he had scored at a match with a third umpire and a match referee. Duckworth Lewis was used in rain affected matches, plus an extra hours play was added on to the end of the day once an hour had been lost. Phil was amazed at the ability of David Hall from Norton Lindsey CC with whom he scored, who not only scored on a paper scoresheet, but also operated the electronic scoreboard and the live ball by ball feed to CricInfo. The tournament was played on two adjacent grounds, and the main one would be the ground on which Warwickshire would be playing their Royal London match on Sunday Aug 10 th. Phil found it a very enjoyable but also exhausting couple of days because of the many extra statistics that were required in comparison with a normal club match. The Netherlands lost both games so the match between Scotland and Ireland would probably settle the tournament. Representative matches. Conference has played some excellent fixtures this season beginning with their usual warm up match v Solihull School under their new Director of Cricket Darren Maddy. Conference proved far too strong but the match gave both teams a chance to make sure they had their entire organisation working properly. The next match was against Worcestershire u19 at Stourbridge. An opening stand for Conference of 190 by Quami (Halesowen)and Lee Thomason making 87 and 94 respectively saw Conference off to a great start to finish up on 248-4 after their 50 overs. Worcestershire u19 batted strongly all the way down with six good contributions Milton (50) and Jaswal (49*) scoring the winning runs in an exciting finish off the penultimate ball of the match. Conference then travelled to Oxford University and the Parks. After the loss of three early wickets, a stand of 179 by Attiq Chisti (124) (Penkridge) and Khalid (58) (Bulwell) rescued Conference. Quickfire runs at the innings close saw Conference finish on 268. The University started steadily but despite the top five making runs, it was not at the required run rate and the students finished on 237 with Attiq and J Ross (Leek) both taking 3-45.
Next stop was to the lighter shade of blue and Cambridge but sadly no repeat performance. Put in on a helpful pitch Conference made 213 with Ishtiaq Mohammed (Whitchurch)making a valiant 80. This may have been enough but Conference s bowlers were unable to make the best use of the pitch and the University won by five wickets. Conference was pleased to play British Police for the first time in many years. The match was played at Penkridge at the start of the Police s week-long tour. The Police side used the pitch well and dismissed Conference for 162 with R Markham (Wombourne) top scoring with 41. The Police then scored the runs with ease in 36 overs. Conference had picked a young team for this match and would be hoping that many of them would make more significant contributions in future. Conference then welcomed the CCC from London to Kidderminster. The CCC smarting from defeat on their home patch last year brought a very strong side and the fifth wicket pair of Khan(115*) and Yarnley(50*) added 145 to close the innings at 313. Williams (56) (Wombourne), Chisti (55) and Thomas (41) all made useful runs but no-one played a big innings and Conference was all out for 247. Conference then travelled to Uxbridge to play the RAF. Pemberton (Kings Heath) made 92 supported by Cotterell (46) (Milford Hall) and Khalid (42) (Bulwell) to close on 319 for 7. Devastating bowling by Murad reduced the RAF to 26-5 from which there was no comeback finishing all out for 117 and Murad (Penkridge) having taken 5-21 off a mere four overs. The final match of the season was against the MCC at Walsall CC. A very strong MCC side scored 327-2 with South African S Lambert with six first class hundreds to his name scoring 164. Ishtiaq, Andy Lloyd and Cameron Fox made a big effort getting Conference to 176-3 but MCC s spinners pegged Conference back to win by 46 runs. The Worcester Evening League Bill Tansell, league secretary reports. The Worcester evening league has completed their season. The winners of the division were Worcester with Dominies runners up. The 3 knock out trophy finals were completed in fine weather, results were- Dowdeswell K.O. winners were Kempsey who beat Martley, Tansell K.O. winners were City Police who beat Dominies, Thompson K.O. winners were Worcester who beat Dominies. Town Village Green Law (Below is an observation from Malcolm Buck to the National Cricket Conference on the above law.) I intended publishing in the Autumn 2014 Legal Update to be presented to the League Cricket Conference Meeting some worrying developments on Town Village Green Law where a number of grounds which were to be protected using this mechanism, cannot be registered as Town Village Green. (For example the Application at Whitby- The Barkas Case has been lost by those seeking to protect it as Town Village Green and a case was decided last week in Essex which will have even greater ramifications). It makes the Community Right to Bid Provisions in the Localism Act 2011 even more important. It is vital that there is the widest possible dissemination of the legislation which my Legal Update will explain to delegates at the LCC Meeting on 27 th September. What I would like to see is Cricket taking a central role in working with Communities up and down the country using the Provisions in the Localism Act to try to safeguard playing fields and collating for ECB actual figures of applications made and the outcome. The Community Right to Bid does NOT stop the loss of land for development, but can delay and allow the Community to try to acquire land. The National Planning Policy Framework is being currently considered by a Select Committee of MPs on Communities and Local Government and their report is expected shortly. It will however reveal an increase in planning approvals arising from the Framework and that sports grounds have been lost in the interim.