All roads lead to Hucknall
by Paul Barker, 11th September 2007

The annual Champion of Champions match between the winners of the South Nottinghamshire Cricket League and the Bassetlaw Cricket League will take place this Saturday 15^th September at the Hucknall Cricket Club. The ground is situated on Hayden Lane and is called the New Gatehouse Ground and for those who rely on the satellite navigation process the postcode is NG15 8BS.

The protagonists will be Plumtree from the South Nottinghamshire League and Cuckney the champions of the Bassetlaw League. The match will take place at 12.30 p.m. and this popular end of season fixture always draws a good crowd.

Both teams of course will be plying their trade in the Nottinghamshire Premier League in 2008 and both have thoroughly deserved the distinction having won their respective leagues quite clearly. Plumtree almost made it a few seasons ago but were dashed at the last minute so they will be desperate to cause a good impression having worked so hard to achieve their goal.

Cuckney are a success story in every sense of the word. There ground bears not the slightest resemblance to what it looked like ten years ago and there is tremendous credit to all those who have made this transformation possible. The ground now is something to behold with a new all purpose pavilion, an indoor cricket centre, an electric scoreboard which can be operated even if the scorers sit on the other side of the ground. Yes it is that good and don’t forget 660 runs were scored in 100 overs there in a recent match which is a clear testimony to how good the wicket is.

Even though massive improvements have been made it has still not been a walk in the park for them. They lost virtually a whole team around five years ago when everyone walked out, and all the pundits were saying that the success story was all over. They carefully rebuilt and in particular hired a brilliant Australian Dave Newman for one season and the critics who had tipped them as certain relegation targets had to eat their words as they finished halfway up the league.

From then on it has been success all the way with some extremely shrewd signings plus a fantastic youth policy which has brought through some brilliant fledgling players. Richard Stroh was brought over from South Africa primarily as an opening bowler, but his batting has improved beyond all recognition with several centuries and one double one included.

The appointment of Will Butler as skipper was a master-stroke and they also added Kunil Jogea from Barrow Town in Leicester, Steve Randall from Welbeck, wicket-keeper Elliott Hind from Farnsfield and added to their own young talent Tom Ullyott, Daniel Brown and Karl Musgrove they have knitted into a very powerful side who failed by one point to overtake Killamarsh in 2006 but have made no mistake this time around.

Plumtree made all the headlines in the run up to this season by signing Naved Latif a Pakistani who has played one test against the West Indies and eleven one day internationals for his country. He also possesses a first class average of 35.28 with the bat and has taken many wickets for his club side as well. When one possesses a player of this quality it would be a major surprise if you didn’t do well.

Former Arnold player Darren Wright skippered the side who had finished third in 2006 and his astute leadership saw them win the championship with two weeks remaining of this season. In addition runs were also plentiful from Rob Tapp and opener Steve James. There varied bowling attack which included arguably the best spin combination in the league in Australian Dallas Coull and Taufseer Jaffari literally terrorised many sides and long time opening bowler Scott Bailey made full use of the new ball everytime it was placed in his hand.

Justin Stockdale kept wicket neatly and the whole side deserved their success for the way they performed right through the campaign. The achievement of lifting the South Nottinghamshire championship will at last put to bed the crazy stories that some people who should have known better at the time spread about the club back in 2004 when Plumtree suffered from an acute sense of nervousness and blew there chance when looking well set for the title.

It was suggested that the Plumtree Club didn’t want to win promotion to the Premier League and as a club spokesman told me, nothing could have been further from the truth. He went on to add that the club were shattered for months afterwards as Gedling overtook them on the last match of the season and they were totally devastated.

Then when someone makes a public statement that we didn’t want promotion, it seemed like a double punishment and wherever this daft idea came from we didn’t know, but it really did hurt, said the spokesman. Now they have proved that this ridiculous theory was so very wrong and they deserve their celebrations for winning this year’s title.

So a terrific match is in prospect for this Saturday and for those who enjoy this wonderful game called cricket, a trip to Hucknall is well worth the time and effort. Don’t forget you won’t get many more chances to see a match this season before the long winter awaits us.

Selected Teams:-

Cuckney: Richard Stroh, Kunil Jogea, Steve Bentley, Daniel Brown, Tom Ullyott, Elliot Hind, Richard Bostock, Will Ullyot, Cliff Adwick, Karl Musgrove, Andy Stephenson.

Plumtree: Darren Wright, Dallas Coull, Mahmood Ali, Tauseer Jafferi, Nigel Finney, Michael Tew, Alex Sheriston, Paul White, Mark Oldham, Kwesi Spencer, Dave Sumner.