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

162 of 8 teams, a First Division of 8 teams and a Second Division of 10 teams. There was a clear danger here of teams not having enough fixtures in the smaller Divisions, so a sort of League Cup or Supplementary Premier Trophy and Sports Shield was introduced. It was all change then in the Strathmore Union (as well as in the nascent SNCL) but one thing that didn’t change was the weather. 1999 was a dreadful summer (after several years of summers which had not been quite so bad) and poor Brechin played only 7 League fixtures when they should have played 14. Inverurie won the first ever Premier Division, but they played only 9 games. They were nevertheless worthy champions winning 6 of them and with three of their batsmen – Johnston, Woods and Bannerjee – appearing in the top five of the Averages, it was not difficult to see where their strength lay. At the other end of the table, poor Aberdeen Grammar School FP won not a single game of the 8 that they played. Without in any way taking anything from the achievement of Inverurie, a real growth area in cricket, it would have to admit that the weather badly distorted the season. Arbroath XI won the First Division and their 2nd XI won the Second Division. Further proof of the strength in depth was given when their Under 17s and their Under 15s won their respective competitions, although Brechin won the Under 13s League. The supplementary League Cups, played on a geographical basis to reduce travelling were won by Gordonians and Mannofield, while Aberdeen Cricket Association won the Three Counties Cup and Kinloch the Two Counties. Brechin celebrated their 150th anniversary with the publication of an excellent short history, their fourth contribution to the canon of Scottish Cricket literature but would soon be experiencing severe difficulties. They were relegated after the 2001 season and were down to a single team by 2003. By 2018, however, the bicentenary of cricket being played in the City, a revival of interest in cricket in Brechin was well underway. It was a time of change, but then again everything in life changes. We were now very much in the age of the computer, and the mobile phone was fast developing as well. The arrival of the 21st century was going to bring with it a “Millenium Bug” to destroy all computers, as the purveyors of bad news excitedly told the gullible. That didn’t happen. But how was the Strathmore Union going to cope with the demands of the 21st century?