Chairman's Message

Firstly a warm welcome to visitors to the club.  We continue to field teams on both Saturdays and Sundays, playing mainly timed games, in the tradition of English village cricket.  We look forward to welcoming back our regular opposition, as well as a few new teams this year, and it is always a pleasure to see familiar faces.  We value your friendly competition and commit to ensuring that the great sporting traditions of our game are maintained.  

Secondly, welcome back to our playing members and occasional team mates.  We are fortunate to have a thriving club but we should not be complacent.  The strength of any sporting club is its ability to attract new talent, so please continue to bring new players along to the club.

This year sees some important changes in our ranks.  Danny Morgan steps down as club captain and we are very grateful for the leadership he has provided in recent seasons.  After his first century for the club in the final game of last season, in a memorable stand of over 200 with Karan Barot, I hope we will see plenty of Danny this season as he enters his 40th year.  For those at the AGM in November you will know that my preference is to have a club captain, but in the absence of any volunteers to take on this role we appointed club stalwart Colin Hewett as Saturday skipper and “spin king” Michael Ward as Sunday skipper.  I’m sure both will prove very capable in this important role and that they will receive the full support of the club members.

Sadly we have also said farewell to two members from last season.  Andrew Naudi has returned to Malta after four memorable seasons with the club.  Whilst we will undoubtedly miss his cricketing skills and joie de vivre, the departure of his outsized cricket bag from the home dressing room won’t be such a loss!  We will however look forward to keeping in contact with Andrew and hopefully 2010 will see us on tour in Malta.  We also said farewell to Matt Bazeley.  Whilst Matt had only played with us for two seasons he had proved himself a very capable batsman and a great team mate.  We wish him well on his travels overseas and a safe return to the UK, when we hope to see him back at Aldenham.

Finally, a big thank you to all those who provide support to the club.  In particular to David Whitehead and Pete Munroe for their hard work on our square, which is a great credit to Aldenham Cricket Club; to our vice presidents, who continue to make an important financial contribution to the club and to Aldenham Social Club, for providing an idyllic perfect setting for village cricket.  

Simon Letts