2005 Cricket Season - Annual Report (Appendix 2)

Last season I took over the running of the Primary League from Martin Cooper who had moved out of the Borough to take up another position. Unfortunately, he left no file and when I eventually did manage to contact him, he said that the Primary League folder, he kept on floppy disk, was "corrupted", he had no back-up on his hard-drive, and therefore I had to start pretty much from scratch.

We had thirteen Primary schools affiliated to the CSCA, but of these, two were only interested in 'Friendly Matches' - not in entering the League.  That left us with eleven teams in the competition - which was split into two divisions of five and six.

We were pleased to welcome Heavers Farm for the first time (at least since I returned to Croydon in 1983). The other teams were all regular or occasional previous participants. Altogether there were eight State and three Independent Schools participating.

After all the group games, Elmhurst had won League A with a 100% record. The runners-up spot was very tightly contested between Winterbourne and Trinity. The former clinched second spot purely on the basis of finishing their fixtures. Winterbourne did not really start playing until the second half term (their first game against Elmhurst was our penultimate game in the division).

If Winterbourne had completed their fixtures they would have taken second spot, even if they had lost those that were outstanding (with the 1 point for a loss rule). There is a clear message there.

League B had a few unpredictable results but it was eventually won by Park Hill with Woodcote as the runners-up.

In the semi-finals:

• Elmhurst beat Woodcote
• Trinity beat Park Hill

The Final was played at Addiscombe Cricket Club on Wednesday 6th July.

Having beaten Trinity by 101 runs in the group match, and having won the Final on the previous nine consecutive occasions, complacency seemed to affect the attitudes of the Elmhurst boys and Trinity deservedly won the 2005 Primary Schools' Competition by 21 runs.  Congratulations to them for winning the Foss Cup as Champions.

'The Thomas Trophy' 7 a side competition, for state schools only, created some confusion.  In previous years this has been the stepping stone for the winners to go on to play at the Oval against teams from other districts for the Connellan trophy.

The Croydon tournament was organized by Mr Tony Pratchett of Woodcote Primary School, and we as an Association were grateful to him for that, and to Whitgift School for providing the venue. Nine schools took part and the winners were Park Hill.

Unfortunately, Winterbourne, who had played in the competition and had been beaten, had innocently but individually applied to the Surrey Cricket Board to enter the Connellan Trophy, without realising the normal procedure.

At first, Surrey were reluctant to allow another Croydon Primary School (and from our procedures, the right one) into the Connellan Trophy competition, but fortunately they relented, after requests from Tony Pratchett, and accommodated both teams. We thank them for their eventual understanding.

The Primary U11 District team was run by the ubiquitous Mr Lomas, assisted by Mike Wadsley of Smitham Primary School who will be presenting results/achievements independently from this report.

Barry Dighton
14.03.06

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Tuesday, 6 January, 2009

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