Pre-Season Vibes

The new season is now less than a month away, kicking off on Saturday April 28th when the Stiffs welcome Farndon to the Field of Dreams. Here’s the latest pre-season news.

The Chairmen of most major sporting clubs get elected on the back of grand promises: in the case of Real Madrid or Barcelona it’s usually the promise to sign Christiano Ronaldo or Alex Ball. And it’s no different at KCC where yours truly rode into town last year on the back of a hair-brained idea to buy a bowling machine. However, unlike our Spanish friends, we managed to deliver on our promise and our three-legged friend is now a fixture of our practise night attack.

So what, you may be asking, is the grand plan for this year? Well, promotion to 1B brings a whole new set of ground criteria. Fortunately the League Inspectors are a lenient bunch, or visited at night, as the need for a flat outfield and a scorebox have been conveniently overlooked. But, we do need a second sightscreen. Last month we employed Heath Robinson & Co. architects to design a solution that would be easily dismantled and also be high enough to cope with Rocket’s arm coming out of Mrs Buttery’s window. Sadly the proposed winch and pulley system had to be rejected: firstly as the cost was more extravagant than a night out round Bridgford with Dessy, and secondly on safety grounds as Easyjet voiced concerns about blocking the flight path into East Midlands Airport.

So we’ve settled on an off-the-shelf model. Wensley-Dale has ordered a screen off t’interweb that’s light enough to push, narrow enough to go in the pound and high enough should Ernie be bowling up the hill. Unless you're one of those players conveniently in the shower when the sightscreen needs putting away, you'll know that it’s like reverse parking a juggernaut. Happily the bench in front of the pound is being removed so the new model will wheel in without touching the sides.

Now we’ve just got to find a way to pay for it. So this year’s fundraising will be an S.O.S appeal: Support Our Sightscreen. Proceeds from our social events will all go to this worthy cause. Laddy has been burning the midnight oil to put together an all-new programme of events. The first two of these are the re-vamped Curry Night on Friday April 27th and Quiz Night on Friday May 18th. Then on June 15th the KCC Golf open, this year at Stanton. Tickets for Indian Knights are going quicker than an Ian Graham off-drive so give the Ladster a shout to avoid disappointment. In between the bhajis and the balti course we plan to have our own version of the Milan fashion show, where our size 100’s will be modelling our new range of extra large playing and leisure kit: all coming soon to a Laddy’s Shop near you.

Meanwhile, KCC running costs are expanding quicker than Rob Baker’s waistline: the League have more stealth taxes than Gordon Brown, and our insurance premiums have soared since Bomber launched WW3 on the Nottingham Road roof slates. We toyed with idea of raising match taxes, but settled on introducing a £20 playing subscription which will include a free KCC playing shirt and cap.

Fortunately, one tax that we will avoid this year, is our regular donation to the League Committee’s beano for not having a scorer. We’re lucky to have secured the red-inking services of Shelley Beales to tot up the scores on the doors for the First Team. I’m told Shelley has been putting in more pre-season training than the playing squad, and I'm sure you’ll make her feel very welcome.

At the time of writing, the going at the Field of Dreams remains soft, heavy in places. As some of you will know, our Groundsman Mick White suffered a heart attack around Christmas time, but is now happily on the road to recovery. Until Mick is ready to resume full-time, we’ve been lucky to enlist the help of Barrie Rainsford, who is well qualified in pitch preparation. Bazzer is a batter on a Saturday so we should still be getting some ‘bat first Keyworth and score 300’ tracks.

Last year we struggled to give everyone in the club a game every week. In fact we had 37 players across the two teams. With this in mind Boss Hogg Leggy has been busy organising a set of Sunday friendly fixtures on the best grounds south of the River. So far we’ve got confirmed fixtures at Thrumpton, Plumtree, Woodhouse Eaves, Colston Bassett and, errr, Platt Lane!

Finally we will shortly be publishing the History of KCC - 1815 to the present day - in cyberspace. Barry Baker has done an amazing job collating the statistics and the outcome is more comprehensive than the Doomsday Book. I think we’re missing full details of the 6th wicket stand for KCC against Bunny in 1864, but that’s about it. Watch out for a link on the website, and all the past score books and documents are now held in Keyworth Library.

That’s it for now. See you at the Curry Night.

Cheers, Drurs