Chairman’s Blog
2014 Awards
2014 Awards Leading Batsman Jasper Smallwood 442 runs at an average of 55.25 Leading Bowler Patch Mitchell 8 wickets at an average of 11.88 Young Straggler Bart Forster 181 runs at 45.25 (top score 74*); 7 for 182 at 26.00 and 1 catch Centurions Ralph Taylor 107* vs....
ECB in called into to rule on blue suede shoe crisis, and the Smallwood index
The annual season finale at Hollingbourne, perched in a bowl in the Downs gloriously looking south across the Weald, was locked in controversy, as senior staff at the ECB were called in to rule on Nige's unconventional choice of footwear. Apparently he had left the...
Groundhog day
The cricket ground at Otterden boasts a wonderfully bucolic setting, timeless against the garden wall of Otterden Place, and the surrounding park land. To keep the ground in such pristine glory there is one pre-requisite; keep the gate closed. Early arrivals were met...
Ring of steel
Straggler annals do not record sufficient detail to be able to identify when (or indeed if ever) the arc between gully and keeper has been responsible for 8 opposition wickets. Such was the vice like grip imposed behind the stumps at Benenden, that, even with a...
A Straggler first at Tenterden
In the late summer of 1946 the first match was played by the Club that, in the following winter, was founded as the Shepway Stragglers. Some 68 years later, at 6.35pm on Sunday 24th August in the fading evening light at Tenterden, Emma Park became the first lady to...
And some days the bear eats you
There are a number of sayings, which describe the vicissitudes and bipolar nature of life, the vagaries of fate, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune; among the most eloquent is "Some days you eat the bear, and some days the bear eats you". And at Nonington...