Strathmore Cricket Union Handbook 2001

18 2001 - ADALNACRAIGODYSSEY 1901 Internationally, the Boer War was in the middle of its three year duration. Nationally, Queen Victoria’s 40 years of mourning for Prince Albert ended when she died, aged 82, having reigned for 64 years. And locally, the RRS Discovery slipped unknowingly into the Tay from her building berth at Victoria Dock, just about where the new City Quay development is now. That was in the March and a couple of months later, a mile up the road at what would then have been on the outskirts of Dundee, there was a gala opening of the Recreation Ground, built for the High School of Dundee on Arbroath Road. There, on the following Saturday, May 18th 1901, Dundee High School Former Pupils’ Cricket Club played its first-ever match, against Clinton Bank, a team whose own ground couldn’t have been closer, the adjacent Baxter Park. Clinton Bank 73, DHSFP 45; the birth of a Cricket Club. Fifty years later, DHSFP were admitted into the Strathmore Union on an 18 - 3 vote at the AGM held in Jarman’s Hotel, Forfar. We made an early impact in finishing 3rd but it was to be 28 more years till that position was bettered. Another fifty years on, we’re off, or at least the 1st XI is, off to the SNCL to meet up again with Strathmore and Arbroath’s 1st XI’s just like the good old days of the Strathmore Union. It is a wonderful coincidence then that High School FP’s have reached their zenith in their 100th year and how we’re going to celebrate! Celebration on the field will be finishing 8th in the 2nd Division of the SNCL. Negative ambition? No, pragmatic realism for it is going to be mighty tough to survive in a company including the likes of Perthshire, Freuchie, Falkland and Dunfermline