The annual dinner is at Redditch Golf Club on the 17th October at 7pm. Tickets are £18.50 and the menu is:-

Leak and potato soup

Chicken wrapped in bacon or mushroom and brie Wellington (vegetarian option)

Triple chocolate pudding

Coffee

There is a smart dress code at Redditch Golf Club with a strict policy of no jeans and jacket and ties must be worn, if not adhered to entry will be refused.

Please contact Mark Brind 07917037288 or email at mark.brind@faurecia.com Sunday the 12th October as I will be confirming numbers on the Monday.

We are planning to have an inter club match next Saturday afternoon. We aimed to play one this weekend but didn't have sufficient numbers. If you are interested in playing then contact Baz or Brindy.

Obviously, our pitch isn't available so the match will be played at Stoke Prior. They will sort out tea's and will have the bar open all afternoon so it should be a good day out.

After a couple of years off, we are planning to go on tour in the 2009 season. Brindy has kindly offered to organise the trip but needs people to commit to going. At the moment he thinks the cost should be in the region of £120 for 4 nights accomodation.

We havent yet finalised the destination yet so your thoughts would be welcomed. I have a poll running on the home page where you can register your opinion. The options are Newquay, Torquay or Somerset at the moment. If there is an outstanding location that doesn't feature on the list, i'm sure Brindy would be interested to hear any suggestions.

Poker league continues tonight with round 30. Big Ern will be looking to retain top spot by gathering more points than Jock. Badger needs a good result to make sure that he can stay clear of the relegation battle.

Play commences at 7pm.

I have posted some more pictures of the nets work on the gallery page.

Believe it or not the season is nearly over so it’ that time of year where we are arranging the annual Players meeting.

The meeting will be structured with a strict Agenda. Proposed Agenda below any items you would like to be added please forward to Dan Evans or Mark Brind prior to the meeting.

(i) Captains for next season

Saturday

(a) 1st XI Candidates Dave Sewell to confirm prior to meeting, no other candidates to date.

(b) 2nd XI Candidates Bryan Melliard, no other candidates to date. Mark Brind stepping down.

(c) 3rd XI Candidates Christopher Hancox, no other candidates to date.

(d) 4th XI Candidates Vacant, no other candidates to date. Simon Whyte stepping down.

Sunday

(e) 1st XI Candidates Johnno Gordon, no other candidates to date.

(f) 2nd XI Candidates Mark Shurmer, no other candidates to date.

(ii) Players chairman. Dan Evans will be stepping down candidates required

(iii) Coach for next season

Richard Hadley has agreed to continue coaching at the club. At last years meeting it was agreed to try just a coach on practice night with a view to move into a full time coach’s position which would involve coaching the 1st XI on Saturday and sitting on the selection committee. Richard has agreed to taking up this position. Presentation from Richard to follow:

(iv) Winter nets

(a) Winter nets to be held at the brand new four lane facility at Hagley Catholic School.

(b) Weekend stay at Lancashire CC training Saturday overnight stay in the executive boxes training Sunday approx £70 numbers required.

(v) Practice nights next season

Commitment to attend with new facilities should only not attend if raining as facilities are all weather

(v) Players availability

Is everyone going to be playing next season full season bit part players???? 4th Team was a struggle this year with such poor availability if players are not going to be available we will have to consider the 4th Teams future. In order to progress the younger players more support from Senior players required to support the 3rd Team.

(vi) Overseas player next season.

Some members would like a overseas.

(vii) Playing facilities, Pitch quality and clubhouse facilities discussion point.

(viii) 2009 Tour Mark Brind will organise if deposits and numbers are agreed in advance.

The agenda above are as follows some items are a carry over from the last players meeting others are what individuals have already asked to added to the agenda.

Items that are not on the agenda will not be discussed!!

This is every players opportunity to state what he wants in a structured way please use this in a positive way if you can not attend the meeting again please forward me you comments and I will feed them back in the meeting. I must stress this is a players meeting to discuss playing issues if you have any other issue that are not playing you must raise them with the other Committees.

ABCC will travel to Harvington tomorrow to play an end of season friendly. We are meeting at 12 o'clock, presumably for a 1 o'clock start.

This is just brilliant. I had totally forgotten about this. Just fast forward it to the last 15 seconds or so. Ooooooooooweeeeeeeeheeeeeehumhaaadahumdadahooo. Magic!!

The draw for September was made in the Oddfellows Arms last night. The winners were as follows:

1st Prize (£50): 37 - Johnno Gordon
2nd Prize (£10): 38 - Bryan Melliard

Skipper Baz has provided me with this years averages for the 3rd XI. If you wish to view them then select the appropriate links as i am too lazy to put one on here. It is under the MATCH heading somewhere.

If the other captains have calculated the averages or have the scorebooks and would like me to calculate the averages then let me know.

The September draw is behind schedule. Gimp is working on it but it should hopefully be made at some point this weekend. Sorry for the delay.

Work begins on Monday to turn our outfield into something fairly flat. It will be all go down there as the work on the new nets will be resuming on Monday as well.

Match Reports from now on are only available to people that I give permission to. If you wish to have permission then please fill out the permission request form using this link here. You will need to register a google account in order to receive permission as well as providing me with your email address.

If you aren't a member of the club or at least a friend or relative of someone at the club, then it is highly unlikely that you will receive permission to view that part of the site. Please feel free to browse the rest of the site though.

Tomorrows friendly match against Harvington has been postponed due to, surprise, surprise, the appalling weather. Oh poo.

It's no worse than it was before! Go to the gallery for more images.

The ABCC annual golf day took place yesterday at the Abbey Park Golf Course. The event was well supported by a range of club members and sponsors with around 25 people taking part.

The day started at 9 o'clock when we met for bacon sandwiches and coffee whilst we decided the teams and tee off times.

The golf was played in teams of 3 or 4 and scores were calculated using the stableford method. There were prizes for the best team score and runner up, best individual score and runner up. There were also prizes for nearest the pin, nearest the pin in 2 and longest drive.

The course was extremely wet and conditions were very tough, on what is a fairly difficult course. It proved to be far too difficult for me anyway as I lost about 12 balls and went round in 125 shots. Even some of the more experienced players were finding it difficult to go round in a respectable number of shots.

After the golf was finished we sat down for a meal, which was provided by the Abbey Park Hotel and was very good, especially when compared to last year! And following the meal the prizes were given out as follows:

Team 1st Place: Junior Coaches (Mike J, Andy T, Simon W, Tim H)
Team 2nd Place: Chairmans III (John A, Dan E, Johnno G)

Individual 1st place: Brindy
Individual 2nd Place: Badger

Nearest the Pin: Johnno

Nearest the Pin in 2: Jock

Longest Drive: JA

A very good day was had by all who took part and i'm sure i speak for everyone when i say a huge thank you to Andy Thomas and anyone else involved in making the day a great success.

Here is a snap of the ground, taken yesterday, after work commenced on upgrading the nets.

I'll try to get some regular photo's to keep everyone up to date with the progress.

Click on the photo to view a larger image.

The annual golf day is taking place this Wednesday at the Abbey Hotel Golf Course. If you havent signed up yet then i'm not sure if there are any spaces left. Get in touch with either Andy Thomas or Brindy if you wish to play.

Work commenced this morning on the new 4 lane nets that we are having installed at the ground. The new nets are going where the previous nets were but will face the clubhouse rather than the chicken farm as they had done previously. The work is expected to take approximately 3 weeks.

Work on the outfield is also due to start soon.

2008 SUNDAY BATTING AVERAGES 2ND XI

QUALIFICATION 6 COMPLETED INNS

	Innings	NO	Runs	High Score	Average
P BOYCOTT	11	4	464	75	66.29
C HANCOX	8	0	165	52	20.63
T UNDERHILL	9	0	173	44	19.22
P BOWES	9	0	148	32	16.44
D THOMAS	11	1	134	58	13.4
D ROBINSON	7	0	73	19	10.43
J PRESCOTT	12	1	104	28	9.45
M LYTH	10	2	55	12	6.88

2008 SUNDAY BOWLING AVERAGES 2ND XI

QUALIFICATION 5 WICKETS

	Overs	Maidens	Runs	Wickets	Average
D TAYLOR	39	5	115	11	10.45
G HASLAM	47	7	131	8	16.38
D THOMAS	59	13	243	10	24.3
T UNDERHILL	40	7	127	5	25.4
M SHURMER	72	3	373	11	33.91
M LYTH	50	0	280	7	40

A reasonable effort by all our bowlers this year the clear standout being Dan Taylor who bowled his spin very well. A great bowler to watch as well with his superb action. He can only get better as well with a bowler as good as Lyth to learn from!!



A big thank you to all who have made themselves available for the 2nds this year I think you will have enjoyed most of the matches?
Good to see a proper batsman once again at the top of the averages, it would have been awful if Baz had won the award!!!

Boycs

Due to the current 'situation' involving comments on match reports, i have removed the comments function from some parts of the site. Sorry.

I have now also removed the 2008 season match reports until further notice.

Bank narrowly escaped relegation as the wet weather forced every game to be abandoned. Droitwich and Oldswinford both finished on 185 points but Droitwich have been relegated (not sure what the deciding measure was).

Eastnor finished as Champions and have been promoted into the Birmingham League. Well done to them and we wish them good luck next season. Colwall, champions of division 2, along with Coombs Wood and probably Malvern (if Kington aren't relegated from the Birmingham League) will be promoted into division 1 for next season, i think.

The 2nd XI, who had a very strong season, finished as runners-up to Droitwich who have won their 3rd consecutive title. Replacing the relegated Alvechurch and Pershore will be Stourbridge and Hagley.

The thirds had a good season but narrowly missed out on promotion to division 6 after they finished in 4th place.

The 4th's never quite got going this season and finished bottom of division 8 and will play in division 9 next season.

Hopefully with players returning next season, better training facilities and maybe a better turnout at senior practice nights next season we will be able to push each team forward next year.

Bank go into the final day requiring 15 points for survival. I have just noticed that we have been deducted another point, presumably for slow over rate or something.

If no play is possible in any matches tomorrow then the Bank will cling on to their Division 1 status for another season.

Bank travel to Nomads, whilst the other candidates for relegation all play each other. Redditch host Droitwich and Oldswinford travel to Netherton who are already relegated.

This is quite possibly my favourite photo ever. Thank you Rebecca for sending it to me. I cant work out what looks more camp. You wearing that helmet in that yellow go-cart or you standing in your Y-fronts offering the rest of the team a spray of Soft & Gentle. It's a close one.