Cutthorpe contest Champion of Champions Trophy
by Paul Barker, 19th September 2002

Bassetlaw Cricket League champions Cutthorpe will represent the league in the annual fixture against their counterparts from the South Notts league, Collingham this Saturday 21st September at the Mansfield Hosiery Mills Ground at Huthwaite Road, Sutton-in-Ashfield.

Cutthorpe who literally walked away with the title over the last few weeks of the season will certainly be a hard side to beat. They have an astute captain in Mark Barlow and a whole host of talented players with both bat and ball.

In 2001, Cutthorpe finished fifth in the final table but they recruited well in the close season bringing in Andy Pierrepont from Kiveton Park and Andy Thompson a good solid opening batsman with a dazzling array of strokes from Langley Mill. These two along with local youngster Matthew Cluer proved to be the final pieces of the jigsaw and whats more they fitted perfectly.

Chris Marples was also expected to be available more and was and the side fancied their chances of another good season right from the start. Mark Barlow actually thought that they would finish in the top three but wasn’t sure that they quite had the strength to lift the championship.

On this count he was wrong for once as they were only off the top of the league for two weeks in the entire season. They led from the front and asked the rest to catch them if they could, and quite frankly nobody really looked like doing so.

Saturday’s match brings down the curtain on a highly memorable season for the North Derbyshire club and the game which will be well worth seeing gets underway at 12.30 p.m. The match is of 45 overs duration with each bowler limited to a maximum nine overs each.

The Cutthorpe team will be Mark Barlow (Capt.), Andy Knowles, Andy Thompson, Nigel Kingham, John Combe, Chris Marples, Andy Pierrepont, Karl Fields, Tim Barlow (Wkt.) Matthew Cluer, Asadullah Butt.