Racing, More Rain and the Boys are Coming!!!!

Well cricket wise its been a fairly quiet week as the 1st team are playing away against Niall O’Briens Northampton. Unfortunately NOB isnt playing but I spoke to him on wednesday and hes confident of getting back in the team. Also plans are in the making for a few beers when he comes down here, oh no!!!

So not much has changed, its still raining!! We had 18mm of rain overnight on tuesday so in his wisdom the boss gave us that day off and we went to Worcester Races. Worcester race course is right by the River Severn and like our ground is also on a flood plain. So like us it has suffered from the recent flood. The rain didn’t stop until 1.45 so I was thinking it would be cancelled but there was no news of cancellation on the news.

I got onto my tipster, Derek ‘Del Boy’ McGeehan and he text me a couple of horses names. Then it all went wrong!! We thought it was a 2.30 pm start but it was 2pm!! As we walked up to the course we see the horses go round the corner. Oh no!! Please dont let Dels tip win!! Then my phone beeped, text message, ‘I do my best’ from Del. So I was thinking it was 2nd as he told me to go each way, thats not too bad. Then he rang, it won!! 6-1!! Of course he gave me an earfull!! Sorry Del, amatuer mistake!

Anyway despite this disappointment I battled on. Picked a winner in the 2nd race so started off well, but I was always thinking it could’ve been better! Then it went downhill, as gambling always does! I was chasing my money in the last race but luckily we got a massive hailstorm and the course was waterlogged and unsafe for racing. Got my money back from the bookie, that was my biggest win of the day!!

Back to work on thursday thinking there would be water under the covers and massive pools of water on the outfield as word had got back to us that there was so much rain that it nearly ran into the marquee from the pitch. Luckily it wasn’t that bad and the field was wet but had drained reasonably well and luckily nothing got under the covers. So the whole day was spent ‘blotting’ and ‘water hogging’ until we could get the roller out to the middle.

The forecast is ok for the next couple of days, its to get warmer and maybe some isolated showers. Lets hope they miss us as any more heavy rain and the FPT game against Glamorgan on monday will be in doubt.

Also 8 of the lads from Clontarf Hockey Club are on their way over for the Bank Holiday weekend. I’m really looking forward to that. So tonight will be a night to avoid Worcester Town centre as the ‘Worcester 8′ get the grand tour of the local public houses!! I’ll let you know how it went, if I can remember!!!!

Lastly I have my photo page working now, thanks Wally, and will put some up over the next week so keep an eye out for that.

Enjoy your Bank Holiday, and lets hope for dry and sunny weather on both sides of the pond so we can all watch some cricket!

An Eye-Opener of Things To Come…..

Well its saturday night and I am sitting in waiting for the highlight of my night, Match of the Day!!!

Its a sign of the way things will be for me over the summer. We’ve just finished a 4 day Championship match which ended in a draw with nearly half of the game lost to the weather. We had sun on wednesday, rain and then hail the size of golfballs on thursday hence only 8 overs play, then on friday we lost time to bad light!!!! At last today we had good weather with uninterrupted play but with so much time lost it ended in a tame draw. Thats County Cricket!!

So after all that I could do with a rest and a few beers BUT theres a Friends Provident game tomorrow against Somerset. So that meant plenty to do after the end of play today. We had to take down the white sightscreens, get the black screens up, cut the outfield, sort out the one-day markings, move the boundary rope and then we could out the covers on!! Its around then when you start thinking about going home, and bed!!

One eye-opener over the week was our loyal members! I must say I was very surprised on wednesday when around 1300 people turned up to see the first days play, mostly members. You know they are members as they wear their cards around their neck, it gives them access to the members stand and members bar. So I then discovered that they all know who I am. I had the misfortune of being announced as a new member of the groundstaff in the Newsletter, and it had a picture so there was no hiding!!

They seem to be great supporters but they are not shy when it comes to expressing their opinion, even worse than the alicadoos in the ‘Tarf!!! There was a certain amount of frustration for them with the weather. At one point it was the groundstaffs fault for no play because we were not taking the covers off to play despite there being large black clouds looming! The rules have changed and the umpires have total control over the ground during the match. They do take advice from us but its them that have the final say. But this didn’t stop some of them taking out their frustration on us. You just have to smile and be nice.

No doubt tomorrow will be much the same with rain forecast and there is more pressure to get the players back out on the ground to play as we expect a decent crowd of 3000 - 4000 in tomorrow. No play, no gate money!!!

On a more social note, some of the ‘Tarf hockey lads are over next weekend so I’m really looking forward to that thought I’m not too sure if Worcester is ready for the mayhem!!!

The Season Begins At New Road!!

So to the delight of everyone at Worcestershire County Cricket Club the competitive season is about to begin! Its a baptism of fire for me as we play Leicestershire CCC tomorrow in the 4 Day County Championship and then straight into a Friends Provident Trophy match on Sunday against Somerset CCC.

Because of last summers floods here, this will be the first competitive fixture at New Road since the England Lions played the West Indies on June 21st last year!! Needless to say everyone at the Club is ready for cricket to return. The supporters too are keen to see cricket and cheer their team on! They are very proud of their ground here, especially as it was voted number 9 in the worlds most picturesque grounds and the only English ground in the top 10.

Of course its been all go for the last few days. Finally today we had some dry weather to assist us with our final preparations. There has been some sort of rain just about every day since I’ve arrived and apparently I brought it from Ireland so i’ve been labelled with the unlucky ‘rain cloud’ tag!!

So today all the last few touches were being done on and around the ground. It was a very busy place today. Whilst we were having to contend with getting the ground in shape for tomorrow there are also other wickets to get ready for our upcoming Friends Provident matches. Plus the squad were in today for practice, they rotated between the net area out the back and the main pitch so of course they were in the way!!! There were also TV cameras from Sky Sports News around as well as newspapers looking at the condition of the ground and seeing if we will be ready.

Surprise suprise there is some rain forecast tonight so all the covers are on, about 300 foot wide is covered sideways along with the run-ups. We are all just hoping for no rain as its a lot of hard work and effort to clear those sheets of the water!!

We’ve done everything to the best of our ability to have the ground in great condition, and I must say when I left tonight it was looking a picture. The wicket looks good and we are eagerly awaiting to see how it plays.

All we ask is for 5 good days weather and 2 Worcestershire wins. Anyone giving odds on that double????

My mind this week is also on Clontarf CC and their upcoming Ireland vs Nottinghamshire CCC Friends Provident Trophy match. I have been on the phone to Podge Hughes quite a bit in the last week, by all accounts things are shaping up well. I just hope it does’nt rain because I have terrible visions of Podge trying to drive the Blotter!!! A lot of me wishes I was there helping with the preparations. I will miss the buzz and great atmospere that is around the Club the week before these matches, especially with the Sky Sports cameras there.

I hope with all my heart that the day goes excellently for all involved, and I am sure at some stage during our game here I will get to the TV to see some of the action from Castle Avenue.

New Job, Same Wet Pre-Season!!

Well some things never change!! The weather! We are getting typical English April showers most days, and with the water table being so high its tough to get any work done, just like home!

At the moment we seem to be spending more time ‘Water Hogging’ and ‘Blotting’ the covers to get the water off. Even with 5 on the groundstaff it seems to take most of the morning. We have a lot of covers! Along with covering most of the square and surrounds, we have grass nets off the main field that are covered as well so getting the water off them seems never-ending!! The afternoons have tended to be nice with some warmth in the sun, but the shorts have not been on yet!!!

We were to play our neighbours Herefordshire Minor County this morning in our last friendly before the Championship starts on wednesday. But there was heavy rain last night and even after 5 hours of non-stop work to dry the ground out it was decided that there would be no game. A sensible decision, despite it being a nice but cold day. The ground was very wet. So to all you club cricketers, games get cancelled in professional cricket despite all the covers and machinery!!!

One great tool we have here is a very accurate computer weather programme. If we know the day is going to be wet or showery, we get a readout from the programme regularly that tells us when the rain will hit us. Its a wonderful help as we have a lot of covers to put on and it gives us plenty of advance warning.

Theres no cricket on the ground until wednesday the 23rd as we play our first game away. Preparation has already started on the wicket for the 4 day game against Leicester, and today we started preparing for the Friends Provident 1 day game on the 27th. With all that time before the game we are getting the whole outfield verti-drained (spiked) on monday to help it dry out and we are reseeding the bottom third of the ground which was under the flood 4 weeks ago. With the ground being so big that area of the outfield will be outside the boundary rope for the first game. The rest of the outfield is in great condition so fingers crossed that the weather picks up and we’ll have a couple of good wickets for the first 2 games.

I hear the league is starting over in Leinster next week so good luck to all, and hopefully the ‘Tarf will get off to a winning start!!

I have pictures to put up but my camera is getting fixed so watch this space!

My Second Week

Hello again!! I’m nearing the end of my second week here and its starting to get busy! I’m loving it!! I’m settling in really well and enjoying it loads, it feels like I’ve been here a lot longer than a couple of weeks. Pre season friendlies have started and I’m getting into the swing of things over here.

 Its been a bit of a funny week, and a good eye opener to the way county cricket works. The recent flood waters have only been off the ground 13 days now and there was immediate pressure to get the ground ready for the first friendly game vs Warwickshire. It had been nearly 300 days since cricket was last played here because of the terrible floods the region had suffered last year. The Club were very keen for the first fixture to be played so as they could prove the ground had recovered, and to reassure the members that cricket is back at New Road!!! 

Obviously the water table is very high but the outfield is no softer than Clontarf would be at this time of year. The problem is the outfield is very bare in places due to the silt deposited during the recent flood. That silt leads to no grass in areas even though the outfield was reseeded 3 weeks ago. The square is in good condition so we started to prepare a wicket for the Warwickshire game. Due to the wet ground it was only 7 days before the match that we started preparing, which at this time of year is not ideal. We were never overly worried about the wicket, we knew it would be slow but not bad. The main problem was the outfield and run-ups. With the silt lying on top it makes the ground very slippy.

So match day arrived. It rained that morning at 6am so we all presumed no game would be played. We never thought Warwickshire would risk any injuries on the wet outfield. Then it got bizarre!! The Warwickshire captain, Darren Maddy, was not worried about the run ups or outfield, he was more worried about the wicket, the driest part of the ground!! I then heard something I never heard before…….he wanted to bowl on the wicket to see what the ball would do!!! Needless to say our captain, Vikram Solanki, said no. If we play, we play!! After another chat it was agreed play would start at 12pm, 1 hour late. If it was an official game there is no way they would’ve played because of the wetness of the outfield. But they played and we got well beaten. The wicket was slow but there were no demons in it and the players seemed happy to get out to play a game.

Later that day we heard that Leicester were on the phone, their ground is wet and can we reverse thursdays friendly fixture to New Road. The original fixture was a 2 day game in Leicester, so the new plan was to play the first day at New Road, we bat all day, and play the second day in Leicester on friday, and they bat all day. I must admit I raised an eyebrow when I heard this arrangement and thought it was an April Fools joke!! Anyway it all went ahead and we played the first day today. Looking at our ground I’d be surprised if anywhere else in the country is as wet as New Road so I wonder what repots we will get back from Leicester tomorrow.

So a quiet few days ahead, theres no game here until saturday week. I’ve even got a day off coming up!! I think it could be time to explore some of the local public houses!!!

 I hope all is well back home and you are all gearing up for the upcoming cricket season!! I have taken some pictures and will get them up over the weekend.

Bye for now.

My First Few Days…..

Hi all!! Well I’ve been here 5 days now and have settled in very well. Have some lovely housemates who seem like great craic and have made me feel very welcome. Its a newly renovated house so we are all new in the house and all getting to know each other. I am living in the middle of the town and am about a 10 minutes walk from the cricket ground.

 Worcester is a beautiful place. Its a cathedral town and I had the pleasure of being woken up by the bells ringing on sunday morning, it was lovely!! The town is a mix of old and new, with some lovely old buildings, and good news for any visitors - loads of pubs and restaurants, though you may be more interested in the pubs!!

Started work on tuesday, there is a total of 5 on the groundstaff. Contrary to popular belief the ground ISN’T under water all the time!!! The floods have subsided though the ground is a bit soft and wet. We have a friendly against Warwickshire next tuesday but the forecast is poor over the weekend and with the water table being so high we’ll just have to see how quickly the ground dries, just like home!

Well although I’m settling in well I do miss all at the ‘tarf!! I’m totally hoping for some positive hockey results with the ladies this weekend, and I’ll have my own celebration over here if we win!!

Bye for now, I’ll take some pics over the next week and get them up on the website.