At the beginning of the season I felt that, with a stronger looking side, we could improve on our 4^th position of last season and go on to secure promotion. As things turned out, we ended up fighting off relegation in the last game of the season!

Despite our lowly league position, there are a few positives to take with us into next year’s promotion bid. On the batting front, Steven Joyce showed the ability to build a long innings. Joe Humby scored his first league 50. The return of Paul Goodman, who also hit one league 50 undoubtedly strengthened our batting. Bob Joyce, when asked to play instead of umpire, hit some useful runs, including a match-winning 85 in the final game against promoted Emsworth.

In the bowling department, Steve Roberts again bowled consistently well all year. Colin Gooch was also a handful for most opposition opening batsmen. Mat Journeaux showed the sort of form, which suggests that he will be an important member of the side next season and Joe Humby showed the ability to take some important wickets.

All in all, however, this season will be most memorable for our inconsistency in all aspects of the game.

In contrast to last year, no one batsman had a run of good scores, and the fact that only 6 league fifties were posted speaks volumes about why we were unable to score match-winning totals on enough occasions. As in the past, we also did not come to terms with batting away from home.

Although we often bowled very well at the start of an innings, our change bowling was erratic, and many almost-good overs were spoiled by one rank bad ball, which was invariably dispatched to the boundary.

From a personal point of view, after two years of doing the job, I have decided to step down. I believe my successor will take on a side, which has underachieved this year, but will learn from mistakes and be a strong contender for promotion next season. I wish him all the best. I would like to thank in particular Andy Oliphant and Paul Goodman for their continued support over the past season.

On a final note, I would say that the current expectation of our club captains to deal with all the background chores which surround a game is not a fair one. I fully agree with the proposal that each side has a team manager who can free up the captain for concentrating his efforts on leading his side to victory on the pitch. I hope that this positive step forward will be passed at the AGM.

Greg Horton