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

130 moves to begin a National League, but, to the relief of most clubs, it was felt, it was not going to happen in the immediate future. The 1982 season began with Great Britain at war for the first time in a generation. The Argentinian military government had tried to divert world opinion from its dreadful civil rights record by appropriating the Falkland Islands from which they had to be removed. This was going on throughout the month of May and well into June before the Argentinians surrendered. There was also a football World Cup in Spain, for which Scotland had qualified (oh! blessed days!) so, once again, the local cricket season had to struggle to make itself heard. In the event, there was a considerable amount of discontent this season, and several ideas were put forward on the idea of League reconstruction with promotion and relegation. A proposal by Dundee High School FP was discussed at the AGM in November, but no decision was reached and clubs were asked to keep thinking about what they wanted to do. On the field, the 1st Division was won by Aberdeen Grammar School FP (for whom Jerry Moir topped both the Batting and the Bowling Averages) and in what seems to have been a decided transfer of power northwards, Mannofield XI won the Three Counties Cup beating Perthshire Cricket Association in the final. The 2nd Division saw joint champions in Strathmore XI and Arbroath United XI who both returned an average of 83.42. The Two Counties Cup final was an all Dundee affair, with Dundee High School FP XI getting the better of Forthill 2nd XI. Arbroath won the Under 18 League and also a new Six-A- Side tournament, sponsored initially by Bert McIntosh which, after a few years of spectacular success, petered out after the 1996 season. An unseemly dispute developed betweenMeigle and Arbroath United over a cancelled game at Meigle. Arbroath had phonedMeigle about conditions and to ask if it were worth their while travelling in view of the considerable amount of rain. They failed to get in touch with anyone at the club, and decided, reluctantly, that they would have to travel. They were already on their way when Meigle phoned to cancel the game. Sadly this was 1982 and well before the era of themobile phone. Effectively there was no way in which they could be contacted, and the result was that Arbroath arrived at a sodden Victory Park to discover that the game was off, something that they might have guessed. Apparently a few