Academcials Season Review by Colin McPherson
During the 2015 season we had the unusual situation of picking 33 different players on a Saturday and Sunday, and people still not getting a game, which happened on several occasions. This was clearly good for the club and reflected a club growing in strength, however not so good for the players not getting a game.
The solution, or at least a suggested solution, came on a wintry Tuesday night from Ian Cox i.e. "why don't we have another Sunday team" - but please note very carefully, not a fourth team. The suggestion was met by an interesting combination of scepticism and enthusiasm. Thankfully the enthusiasts outnumbered the sceptics and the Academicals were born with the remit of playing and giving experience to as many of our juniors as possible. Ian has had a few good ideas lately!
Somehow the two oldest players ended up as captain and vice captain, either due to their youthfulness at heart and evergreen skills or alternatively their organisational skills and preparedness to chase around getting players - you can pick.
And so the season began with enthusiasm and a bit of trepidation. Disaster - we couldn't get a team out for the first game due to a bizarre combination of holidays and other commitments. Cue much shaking of heads. The second game was rained off. Third game lost by 9 wickets. Fourth game lost by 54 runs. And then, despite our best attempts to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory against Swalwell (a bit of a recurring theme) we won by two wickets.
After Swalwell the sun came out, metaphorically if not literally, and we won seven games out of eleven in the league and reached the final of the league cup only to be defeated by an extraordinarily strong team who apparently flew players in for the final, but we had a great day at South Shields - not an expression you use every day. On top of that we finished a very creditable fifth in the league out of sixteen teams and won more games than we lost.
We achieved our objectives and more, and always played many more juniors than senior players - I suspect that not many teams had a consistent gap of 47 years between the oldest and youngest players. Our bowling was invariably better than our batting and most of the games we won were low scoring - but we still won.
The highlight was getting to the finals day and the reaction from all of the team after our bowl out win at Whiteleas was amazing. We won't mention the derby game and the captain's crazed rant.
Well done everybody - I don't think I have ever played in a more enthusiastic team - it was a genuine pleasure to be part of it.