Gidea Park & Romford Cricket Club

Park entertained an Old Players' XI in a 35 over game which went down to the last over of the day, the club winning by 4 wickets.

On a fine afternoon it was great to welcome as spectators many of the club's players from the 60s 70s, 80s and 90s including Tom Ford, Derek Churchill, Ron Elliott, Steve Foster, Terry Peters, Alan Collier, Brian Kemp, Dave Garner, Don Thompson, Alan Amas, Roy French, Barry Hyam, David Jackson, Frank Addison, Alan Goldsmith, Dave Goldsmith, Dave Lock, Brian Lee. It was great also to see a lot of friends of the club, and an excellent chance to reminisce on past times in the club's 150th anniversary year. 

The match itself was close. The Old Players batted first and Matt Burch opened proceedings with a quickfire 33, well backed up by former skipper Andy Churchill with 26, but the innings was struggling at 90 for 6 when James Evans was joined by Neil Rose. The pair put on 130 before being parted with former opening bowler Rose out for a well played 34. Evans dominated the bowling to smash 114 not out (12 fours, 7 sixes) in an entertaining knock before the innings closed on an impressive 251 for 8.

The club faced Australian Paul Lacy who flew in especially for the match; he was the club's first overseas player in 1986 as 19 year old on a cricket scholarship albeit he is not now the fiery fast bowler he was in those days! Josh Turner played an accomplished innings of 57 after the early loss of Chay Hedges, and was accompanied by Arun Kullar 32 as the two youngster displayed their promising abilities with the bat. Although wickets fell at regular intervals the match was pretty much under control by the club as Peter Maynard guided the club home with an excellent 95 not out and with four balls to spare.

The full scorecard is on the fixtures page of the website.

Thanks to everyone involved in the organisation of the day!