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

144 Marital harmony was, after all, important! This was one of the points made during the debate several times - sometimes with salacious undertones and knowing winks. League reconstruction was something else that would not go away and it re-appeared in full force in 1988 with ideas about some sort of North- Eastern League being talked about. The National League was no closer, but it also received a great deal of airing in the press. It was true that, in spite of the Scottish Cup, it was still difficult to say who was the champion of Scotland in any one season, for there were at least four strong Leagues – the Counties now containing teams with absurd names like Strathmore County and now Arbroath County (for their 1st XI would defect in 1989) as well as the archaic and confusing one of Forfarshire, the East of Scotland League centred on Edinburgh, the Western Union centred on Glasgow with its reluctance to move with the times and admit other teams, and the Strathmore Union. There were other Leagues as well, and although there was a general agreement that there “should be” a Scottish League, the logistic problems were immense. But the Strathmore Union had a good season in 1988, in spite of the perennial problem of bad weather, and the Secretary was pleased to report that the five competitions had all been won by different clubs – a good sign of “diversity” and “competition”. The sun had failed to shine on Brechin for a few years, but in 1988, they won the Three Counties Cup for the first time since 1962. They owed their success, to a large extent, to their Australian professional Mark Kelaher who hit 86 in the semi-final against Meigle, then he and Nisa Patel, an overseas amateur, batted Dundee High School FP out of the Final at Lochside by reaching 150 for 2. This success was much celebrated in Brechin, but they were disappointed to lose the 1st Division to Arbroath who thus left the Strathmore Union on a high note. They did, of course, enter their 2nd XI in the 1st Division and a 3rd XI in the 2nd Division, but it was still sad to see such a great team and founder members of the Union 60 years previously (with so much of the spadework done by the legendary RW Sievwright) leave the Union. Kinloch won the 2nd XI Championship and their runners-up Lawside took the Two Counties Cup while Forthill XI won the Six-A-Side Tournament, a competition that was begin to struggle through, among other things, lack of sponsorship. Individual awards were won by Colin McLean of Dundee High