Scorecard

Arbroath XI v Forfarshire Cricket Club Forthill XI on Sun 10 Jun 2007 at 1pm
Forfarshire Cricket Club Won 8 wickets

Match report Forthill XI travelled to Arbroath to meet their local rivals in the latest round of Strathmore First Division fixtures.

The meeting time at the club coincided with the departure of the charabanc to Elie and a number of team members were tempted to join the beer swilling bucket and spade brigade heading for the beach as opposed to heading for the real cricket at Arbroath.

One third team youngster found it strange that Ted had his full kit bag with him for the trip to Elie, given that very little kit is required for beach cricket. It was quickly pointed out to him that on this particular day of the year Ted’s kit consists of 24 cans of lager and a bottle of rum and therefore the full kit bag is still required.

It was once again noticeable that the team gathered minus the skipper who cited the reason of being “at church” for not meeting at the appointed time. The fact he went direct to the ground himself and turned up in matching shirt, jacket and tie combo lead to speculation that he had spent the night on the drink again and was shacked up in a single berth caravan on the Arbroath seafront having attended the local nightclub. When quizzed on the subject, the skipper’s son would only say that he received a phone call from his Dad at 4.15am to ask him if he knew how to work a pedal powered boat. So again in this week’s Guide and Gazette we can anticipate further “Simalo” headlines.

The captain did manage to go out to toss up with opposing captain Bridges and we found ourselves bowling first on a green looking pitch.

Asif and Mo opened up and wickets tumbled at a regular rate. The Arbroath approach seemed to be that they would treat this as 20/20 fixture as a shot a ball was played by most of their batsmen. The result was the scoreboard was turning over quickly in terms of both runs and wickets and only their opener dug in for the long haul. Kevin was brought on first change and bowled another great spell of accurate bowling which augurs well for the future. Finbar and Steve were also brought into the attack and wickets continued to fall at regular intervals. Kean was welcomed back into the fold and came on to clean up the tail in fine style and the Arbroath innings closed on 113 all out.

Mention has to be made of a fine wicket keeping display from young David.

Special mention must also be made of veteran Arbroath slogger Steve Plomer who came to the crease as last man and played some lovely technically correct shots. To great cries of disbelief from the bar area and from certain fielders, Simmy actually felt it necessary to put a fielder back on the extra cover boundary for Plomer. Steve later announced his retirement stating that this was the high point of his batting career and could never be bettered.

As is customary at Arbroath, a magnificent tea was enjoyed by all. To match this effort in the return fixture we have decided to impose a tea for eight rule(as opposed to the usual tea for two) and everyone has to bring their Gran to help pour the tea!

Arbroath surely deserves the title of best teas in Scotland?

Steven and Gavin opened the batting and we quickly raced to 50. To be fair to Arbroath many of the runs came through the third man area and indeed Steven scored all of his runs in this fashion. His team mates have now renamed him “BP” in view of the fact that all of his runs are scored Behind Point.

Gavin played some lovely shots before falling first when a big not out seemed likely and BP soon followed. This brought Clark and Steve to the crease and they hit their way to the total without too many dramas and a fine 25 points was secured. This cements our position in mid table and further performances like this will no doubt see further victories in the coming weeks.

During the day, the team discussed the need for newer more up to date team uniforms and as a result orders are now being taken as follows.

White team beanie hats - £10. Useful for winter conditions (or even summer conditions)

Team scooters - £20. Handy for moving between the wickets and scooter rallies on wet days.

Team t shirts - £10 . Milf t’s for the under 15’s ( in cotton) , Gilf t’s for the 25- 40’s ( in cotton) and GGilf t’s ( in crimplene) for the over 40’s.

For the uninitiated, GILF stands for “God I Love Forthill”….!!!!!!

Especially useful for visits to Arbroath…..

Kean new mix CD’s - £10. Featuring train noises, space invader noises, shrieking and wailing are also now available. Play loud to frighten away intruders.

Next week sees the return fixture with Arbroath.

All players are reminded to bring tea for eight and their Granny.





Forfarshire Cricket Club Forthill XI Batting
136 for 2
Player Name RunsCatchesStumpingsRun outs
Gavin Martin Caught  28 1
Steven Sim Bowled  21
Clark McConnachie Not Out  35
Steven Murphy Not Out  40
John Findlay   1
Asif Naseer  
David Sim  
David Salisbury   2
Kean Martin   1
Mo Chatterji  
Kevin Karan Singh  

Arbroath XI Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
S Gibson5.002600.005.20
S Christie2.001800.009.00
S Schofield6.0026126.004.33
C Ramsay7.0132132.004.57
I Reid3.202800.008.40

Arbroath XI Batting
132 for 10
Player name Runs
D Bridges Caught  3
M Edwards Caught  35
M Petrie Bowled  22
A Spink Caught  19
D Heather Caught  0
C Ramsay Caught  0
S Christie Bowled  0
S Gibson Bowled  6
S Schofield Bowled  12
I Reid Bowled  2
S Plomer Not Out  11

Forfarshire Cricket Club Forthill XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Asif Naseer10.0334311.333.40
Mo Chatterji6.0027213.504.50
Kevin Karan Singh5.011326.502.60
John Findlay5.002200.004.40
Steven Murphy7.0116116.002.29
Kean Martin3.001326.504.33