Strathmore Cricket Union: the first 90 years a history 1928-2018

104 Scottish Cup this year were Blairgowrie but unfortunately for them, they were “shanghied in the first round in Glasgow” in the graphic words of the Secretary at the AGM. The Three Counties Cup was a disappointment for Strathmore however for they could only reach 50 in the final against Aberdeen Cricket Association at Guthrie Park, and lost by 4 wickets. The Secretary at the AGM is quite acidic about this competition, claiming that in the past 8 years that he has been associated with it, there have been problems, and he would like to call it the “Non-Co-operation Cup”, and without being any too specific, singling out the semi-final between Aberdeen CA and Perthshire XI which “caused all the problems”. The Two Counties Cup however was a masterpiece of organisation and well won by Meigle XI against Kirriemuir at Lochside. This season however, was a great one for Kirriemuir, for they won the 2nd XI Championship for the first time ever, using only 14 players in the process! They also won praise for the way that they played the game. Kirriemuir is a lovely ground on a fine day, and everyone enjoyed going there. The ghost of JM Barrie must have been pleased. The recurrent themes of the past decade or so appeared once more in the 1971 AGM. One was poor Umpiring with one or two singled out as undesirable although as the Secretary put it “The Umpire situation on the whole was reasonable if you got the decision. If you did not, the Umpire was not adequate”; another issue was of teams not being able to find 11 men for some games (and this included 1st XI games) and the predictable one about the delay in sending in Match Returns. Union Representative games do not seem to have figured highly in 1971, but there had been one trip to Huntly to play the North of Scotland which had turned out to be “ruinously expensive”. Norwood applied for membership in 1972 and this was agreed to, and clubs were reminded of the new rule issued by the MCC that for 1972 at least 20 Overs had to be bowled in the last hour, a clear indication that some clubs were deliberately slowing down their Over rate. It was also a step on the road to playing Overs rather than Time games. This was of course part of a general trend with limited-Overs cricket beginning inEnglandat least towinback the fans. “TheKopcomes tocricket” was the headline in The New Statesman in the context of a great game at