I had this month’s message all planned out, that was until the curve ball the weathermen threw us last Sunday for the Cheshire County League T20 Finals Day! Looking back on that day, I have to say that as Chairman of the club it was one of the proudest days in my relatively short tenure and demonstrated all that is good about this great club of ours. Having had to decline hosting the event in 2014 as the tearoom was in the throes of being constructed, it was great to be offered the chance again in 2015 and show the viewing public just what we can do. It wasn’t just about what went on during the course of the day, but the tremendous amount of work that went on in the lead up to the day was phenomenal. From the ‘grounds’ team who put in a ridiculous amount of hours to get the grounds looking great, the ‘house’ team who did superb work to get the clubhouse and surrounding areas looking impeccable, the efforts behind the scenes to get so many tombola prizes was simply amazing, together with the BBQ team ensuring they were fully prepared meant everything was in place for a fantastic day. However an area that is easily overlooked is the coordination of all of this, together with ensuring there are enough volunteers to ‘man’ the day – without this we wouldn’t have been able to do what we did.

Both on the day and during this week I have received numerous messages of ‘thanks’ and so many comments from both the league and other clubs about how brilliant it was to see what we did to ensure two semi-finals and a final were possible under such dreadful weather conditions. Some of the messages I received are:

“Many thanks to all at Upton for staging the finals under such dreadful conditions today. We can always rely on Upton to out on a good show - well done indeed.” David Humpage – Chairman, Cheshire County Cricket League

“…the fact you managed to put on three games of cricket in such atrocious conditions was a minor miracle and testament to the army of players and supporters who helped you on the day.” John Legry – President, Chester BH

“Given the awful weather it was amazing that we were able to play any cricket at all! Without your band of uncomplaining and merry workers we most certainly would not have got anything underway. In addition to the groundwork your efforts on the catering front, the provision of a BBQ and some side attractions were much appreciated. Your attention to detail was impressive.” – Geoff Wellstead – League Secretary, Cheshire County League

“As the League’s T20 Competition organiser, I must add my personal thanks to you – and your staff- for doing such a superb job for us at Upton on Sunday on the occasion. I was there most of the day as you know and was full of admiration for the efforts of yourself and your helpers. Despite the absolutely wretched weather. Upton never let us down on the big occasion and they did an equally fine job last time they hosted in 2009 . You did very well on the day, plaudits to you. Good to see some lateral thinking coming off.” Mike Talbot-Butler - Competition Secretary, Cheshire County League

I won’t name names of those who helped with all the preparations and volunteered on the day, but you know who you are and can look at yourself in the mirror knowing you’ve put in a good shift and done your club proud – thank you so much.

Now onto cricketing matters! Well, July – what a month….

We’ve seen some fantastic results with the 1st XI in touching distance of the top two and narrowly losing against New Brighton (who are top of the Liverpool & District Competition Premier League) in the Cheshire Cup. The 2nd XI are still challenging hard at the right end of the table, and the 3rd and 4th XI’s are battling hard in their respective leagues. There’s been some great individual performances too with tons for Ben Cant, Matt Owen and Tom Woods, plus 5 wicket hauls for Liam Sundve and Matt Ingram. On the junior front, the Cheshire Cricket Board Monday nights girls cricket programme has now finished, and what a great success that was. There was regularly between twenty and thirty girls down taking part and we are hoping to develop this even further. We’ve also seen the Under 9’s narrowly miss out on the league title as a result of an abandoned game earlier in the season. Another area of where we can take great encouragement is with five of our juniors taking part in the "The ECB Cricket Activators Course". The aim of this course is to provide young people with the skills and knowledge to volunteer in a wide variety of roles and projects within their clubs, certainly something we as a club will see the benefits of in the coming months and years.

A couple of snippets from ‘off the pitch’ following on from last month’s update where I referenced some updates to the clubhouse. You will hopefully have now noticed that we have new windows and carpet fitted - thanks to Heswall Glass and Simon Barnes Carpets & Flooring, these look great. Further work is still to be done to update the look and feel of the bar area but these will be done at the end of the season as they would cause too much disruption as the club is so busy during the week.

Looking at things more generally, if I said the word “flourish” to you, it may draw up various connotations - or you may just be left scratching your head thinking ‘what the heck is he on about’!! Well I want to take a moment to reflect on this in the context of what we do as a club. The dictionary definition of the word flourish is “to grow or develop in a healthy or vigorous way, especially as the result of a particularly congenial environment”, which is exactly what we are trying to do as a club. If we think of it like scattering seeds on the ground, a farmer will scatter the seeds and it will sprout.

Breaking this down, the word "scatter" means to deliberately drop in carefully, which is what we look to do with the plans we put in place within the club. The word "sprout" is used to demonstrate where you can see the seeds you have scattered just starting to poke through. The seed will only sprout if it is put in a congenial place - that congenial place is the foundations of what we lay as a club. At the point the harvest become ripes, the sickle goes in and the we pick the fruits of our labour.

This isn’t a one-off activity, this a continual cycle. As a club, we must
• always be looking to the future - the harvest
• develop the present – the growth
• honour the past – the roots

This isn’t just about what we do today, we have been doing this for 115 years as a club and will continue to do so for years to come. Certainly the things we are doing at the moment, are all being done with a view to cultivating a good future for Upton Cricket Club to ‘flourish’ and those rewards are shining through as referenced earlier in this message.

Please continue with the good work you all do as members of this club and we will all flourish together.

Cheers

Jez Lamb
Chairman