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

117 2nd Division Championship and the Two Counties Cup as well. Mannofield XI spoiled the set, however, by winning the Three Counties Cup. For Brechin professional Arvind Panchasara again proved his value, never more so than in their game at Lochside when Strathmore put on 192 for 3, and Brechin replied with 193 for 0, Panchasara 128 not out and Jackie Knight 54 not out. In the game on 31st August which actually won the Championship for Brechin, against Blairgowrie at Guthrie Park, Panchasara scored another century and The Brechin Advertiser tells us that the cars at the top end of the ground on the boundary took the wise precaution of moving back to the fence while their owners stood in front of them to protect their windscreens! The year was also noted by the presentation of an inscribed silver tankard to George Myles of Strathmore who had now taken 1,000 wickets in Union cricket. Neither Brechin nor Strathmore made much progress in the Scottish Cup, although Brechin did beat Huntly before succumbing to Perthshire, and the Representative games ended unsatisfactorily with the Union side defeated by the Scottish Counties at Brechin, and the game at Nairn against the North of Scotland ended in a draw with the Strathmore Union hanging on at the end. But in that fixture, the Secretary adds acidly at the AGM that “the Union’s original selection showed little resemblance to the team which actually played” and with his teeth still gritted, one imagines, he thanked “the clubs and players for their help in the arranging and playing of the representative matches.” 1976 was a long, hot, dry summer, possibly even better than 2018 was to become. Only rarely does the threat of even a hosepipe ban come into force in Great Britain, and certainly not in Scotland, but this was one such summer. A glance at the 5th Test match, played in late summer, will make the Oval look more like the Sahara Desert than a cricket ground. In the local area, while the weather was by no means so extreme, - and the month of May was a great deal worse than the average, in fact - the lovely weather meant loads of cricket. Brechin had a good run in the Scottish Cup, beating teams like Clydesdale and Royal High School FP before losing out in the final at Hamilton Crescent to Perthshire. Fielding errors allowed Perthshire to reach 156, but even so Brechin felt that they had a chance. The early fall of Arvind Panchasara, however, triggered a dismal procession and Brechin lost by almost 100 runs.