As the Latin phrase goes, “Ex nihilo nihil fit” - which is very appropriate as we reflect on where we are at the halfway point of the year and the season.

Checking in on where we are at this halfway point, I’ll break it down into the specific areas of the club and we can take a look at what has been achieved, what’s still left to do and also what we learnt.

Cricket
We had a very strong off-season with some well attended and productive net sessions which has reflected in some very solid performances on the pitch. The 1st XI are building up a good head of steam and have won nine of the sixteen games they played this year, suffering only three league defeats and a T20 defeat along the way. They are unbeaten in the last five matches, having won the last four games on the bounce. This sees them tucked in nicely in the chasing pack in fifth place, just thirty five points off Bollington in second place. At the start of the year, we sat down and looked at objectives for not just this year but for the next five years and for this year one of the targets was to progress to the knockout stages of the Joseph Holt T20 Competition from a group which contained Premier League Neston, Oxton from Division One and our neighbours from Division Two; Irby. Whilst we didn’t quite achieve this, when you look a lot closer, this was only as a result of losing off the penultimate ball of the match to Neston. Great credit should go to Andy Roberts and his entire 1st XI squad for not only their performances with bat and ball in hand, but for the tremendous spirit and attitude that has been shown. But, let’s do a reality check – we are only at the halfway point and the guys all know that a lot of hard work has still to be done.

Looking at the other sides, the 2nd XI have had a tremendous season to date having won nine of the twelve matches they have played and have won their last eight matches on the bounce. Matt Owen has a very strong squad at his disposal and has some very tricky selection decisions each week. The result of this being that we are seeing some very experienced players playing in the 3rd XI which is helping not only raise the standards there, but also help with the younger players coming through. Charlie Ward Junior has built a tremendous spirit in the 3rd XI which has seen them record victories against teams pushing at the top of the table and sees them positioned nicely in mid-table. Whilst the 4th XI aren’t enjoying the best of seasons results wise, there is plenty of optimism within the team and recent performances have shown some true grit and they have a great bunch of lads who will fight each week for the badge.

From a juniors perspective, two of my three girls have started playing cricket this year so I have witnessed first-hand what we have to offer and I have been extremely impressed. The structure and balance that Simon McGowan and his coaches have put together is already reaping the rewards and we are seeing some real talent developing and we need to do everything we can to provide the best possible platform for them to develop to the highest level they are capable of. We have also seen some tremendous developments in the area of girls cricket. This has been reflected in the Cheshire Cricket Board running a six week programme with Upton as one of four pilot clubs in the county and the response through our existing membership and local schools has been wonderful. Discussions are underway as to how we develop this further and we will continue to work closely with the team at Cheshire Cricket Board to continue this platform.

Grounds
The grounds team have, as always, worked tirelessly with many unseen hours being put in to produce the splendid facilities our players enjoy. We are starting to see the dividends of the work that was put in two winters ago with the squares, with the wickets certainly playing better than I’ve witnessed for a number of years. The hope is these will continue to improve as we continually develop our facilities. Earlier on in the year we had some repair works carried out to the drains over by the scoreboard and we are certainly seeing the benefits of that work now as that area is no longer 'boggy' and has ensured all of our ground is fit for play. You may also have noticed in the last few weeks our net facility has undergone some repairs and maintenance work and the feedback so far is that they are performing a lot better. This work has involved repair work to the surface to give a more even bounce and also replacing the old netting which had become in a poor state of repair over the years and was proving dangerous. Work will shortly be undertaken to improve the aesthetics of the surrounding areas but as you can imagine, maintaining six acres worth of grounds takes an inordinate amount of effort and the team are always on the lookout for additional volunteers. If you have any spare time to give, please contact John Lamb via email by clicking HERE.

Bar & House
As you enjoy the facilities in the clubhouse you will have noticed that we have changed things round a little and have a new range of beers on offer. This is as a result of a link up with a new brewery and so far, this relationship seems to be working well and the product we offer to you in general seems to be well received. As you enjoy your drinks, you may not even notice the hours of work that go in to keep the club held together, but if you ever get the opportunity on a Tuesday or Friday morning, pop down and see the army of volunteers who make all this happen. Whether that being to paint the tearoom, knock walls down, vacuum the carpet to putting pictures up, it all takes time and effort and I for one am indebted to them for the work they put in.

The other major piece of work will commence in the next few weeks and see new windows being fitted together with a new carpet and a couple of other changes. This is all thanks to some grant funding we have recieved, and will make a big difference to the look and feel of the club.

Finance
As I may well have said before, “balancing the books” is one heck of a task and my hat goes off to our esteemed treasurer; Richie Simcox for the work he does in achieving this and keeping us all in check. Whilst I won’t talk about specific numbers, one of the focusses has been to bring it what we class as ‘new’ money. By that I mean income that we haven’t previously enjoyed. There are different ways we have been approaching this such as:

• Bar income - that doesn’t necessarily mean increasing our prices, but more so about creating an environment that makes people want to stay and drink.
• Advertising/sponsorship – we have entered into a few relationships with new organisations that will not only see us benefit from additional income, but also offer our membership certain benefits. This is an area we will continue to work on and look to develop further relationships going forward.
• Cost control – as a Governing committee we need to constantly ask ourselves the question “do we really NEED to spend that?”, and we do have a very good process in place to ensure what we do spend is for the benefit of the club.

Social
On the back of a very enjoyable and successful ‘marquee weekend’ I’m sat here with a smile on my face knowing that over five hundred people have come through the door over the four events and have left with a good experience of Upton Cricket Club. One of the things that really encouraged me was the attendance by some of the junior parents at the events. One of my 'visions' was to enbody a "one club" philosophy and making it a place where everybody feels part of it - so thank you for attending and I look forward to welcoming more of you next year. There will be a separate review of the four events coming to the website soon so I won’t linger too long at that, but we’ve also had a really enjoyable “Big Night In” where the club was brimming as the members enjoyed a curry and a beer, plenty of laughs and a bit of bar olympics. What pleases me so much is that different people are approaching me with different ideas for things we can put on and taking on the responsibility to organise things.

Communication
I set out in January with the aim to improve our communications both internally and externally. Hopefully you are all enjoying the clubs website and can see we have made massive advancements in that area and have a mechanism to portray the club in a very positive light. When we sat down and looked at our objectives for the website, we initially aimed to have three news items per week to keep the site looking fresh. I’m pleased to say we have surpassed those expectations and in some cases have three news items going live per day! This is reflected in the viewing figures as we are regularly attracting over two hundred unique visitors per day to the site. If anybody has any ideas or would like to contribute to the site, please drop me an email by clicking HERE. In particular, I’m looking for people to take on responsibility for specific teams (both senior and juniors) as there are so many good features we are yet to exploit in these areas.

So, having written all of the above I sit here first of all knowing I’ll have forgotten something off the list, but also with a great sense of pride at what WE as a club have achieved in the first half of the year. The challenge now is to continue with this momentum and make the second half of the year even better!

And finally, I had the pleasure of having dinner with the former All Black rugby captain Sean Fitzpatrick a couple of weeks ago. For those that aren’t familiar with rugby, Sean is widely regard as one of the finest players to ever play for the All Blacks and accumulated 128 appearances, including 92 test matches with 51 of those being as captain and is truly an inspirational character. There are so many things I took away from the evening I spent with him. Firstly, my back hurts immensely from the number of times I’ve dropped his name, but more importantly is the fact that at the heart of what makes the All Blacks so successful is that they have created a culture, and they honour it. By no way am I comparing Upton Cricket Club to the mighty All Blacks but what we are doing, and will continue to do, is creating a culture that people want to be a part of and this will take us forward in the right direction.

Thanks
Jez Lamb
Chairman

P.S. For those not au-fait with their Latin, “Ex nihilo nihil fit” means “nothing comes from nothing”