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

174 to their clubhouse and ground, plus the fact that they lacked a dynamic leader, or more particularly a group of dynamic and committed people, who might just have saved them meant that they had to put themselves into “abeyance”, something that was meant to be temporary, but in fact was a euphemism for closing down. And yet it seemed not all that long ago (1972) that the North Inch was staging games like Scotland v Australia, or hosting limited Overs games against English Counties, including the famous occasion when Dickie Bird took the players off for TWO tea intervals! This was sad, but Perthshire had never really survived the passing of the Scottish Counties and the amalgamation into the National Leagues. Their demise was a savage blow to the credibility of the game in the 21st Century for no club had done more than Perthshire in terms of achievement and the producing of players for the Scotland side than Perthshire. There were still those who recalled the huge crowds which attended, in particular, their games against Forfarshire which could on occasion attract attendances of five figures! It was a “devilish change indeed”. Yet they still competed in the Strathmore and Perthshire Cricket Union in 2008, reaching 5th place in the Premier Division and Perth were fourth in the Second Division. The winners of the four Divisions this year were Mannofield, Breadalbane, Montrose and Kinross who had recently joined the SPCU and made an impressive start by wining Division Three. Forthill and Forthill XI won both the Three and Two Counties Cups, and although this year there was no Under 17 tournament this year, Arbroath, a team that always impressed at this level, won both the Under 15 and Under 13 competitions. 2009 saw the death of a great Meigle stalwart in Mike Walton, a man who in 1979 achieved the rare feat of topping both the Batting and the Bowling Averages of the Strathmore Union. This put him in the same bracket as Willie Eddie of Brechin in 1935, Frank Findlay of Gordonians in the unusual circumstances of 1940 and Jerry Moir of Aberdeen Grammar School FP in 1982. Another man who passed away was a remarkable and colourful character from Brechin called Allan Daniel who loved being called “Eck”! This year saw 28 teams in membership of the Strathmore Union. It was beginning to be even more difficult to keep track of all the comings and goings, but this year every Division had 9 teams, other than the First which had 10! The weather was far from kind because Mannofield who repeated