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

234 CHAPTER FOURTEEN A FEW RECORDS AND STATISTICS FOR THOSE WHO LIKE SUCH THINGS Cricket is a game which seems almost to have been designed to appeal to people who like to keep records, make comparisons and just revel in the sheer weight of numbers which the sport produces. The Strathmore Union has provided plenty of opportunity over the years for those of a statistical bent to indulge themselves fully. The tables and lists which appear in this chapter were largely the product of Gavin McKiddie who initially compiled the bulk of the material, updated and enlarged by Richard Miller, mainly to allow him to fill what would otherwise have been blank pages in the Union Handbooks between 1985 and 2011. The Union has been magnificently served since 1975 by Ian Chisholm who has undertaken the task of collecting, collating and analysing all of the match returns for all of the divisions of the Union. Every year, he produces a comprehensive set of League Tables, Averages, Best Performances and more and it is these statistics which determine the Union’s prizewinners each season. There can be no higher praise offered to Ian than to say that without his efforts over the past 44 seasons, the Union would have found it impossible to prosper as it has. For the first 70 or so years of its existence, the Union had a very stable and unchanging structure. There were two divisions, with varying numbers of teams in each, there were also mid-week cup competitions for both divisions and, for a while, a six-a-side tournament day which served largely as a mid-summer get-together. The last 20 seasons, however, have seen many restructurings, including amerger with the Perthshire Cricket League, which have resulted in the number of divisions fluctuating and the make- up of those divisions changing on an almost annual basis. There have also been restrictions introduced on the number of overs which bowlers can bowl. This makes consistent record-keeping problematical so the tables which follow adopt a pragmatic approach. For the whole of its history, the Union has had a First Tier (currently called the North East Championship), and a Second Tier (currently the First Division). Since 1999, there have been up to two additional Tiers, a Third Tier which was initially called the Second Division and a Fourth Tier initially called the ThirdDivision. At present, there are only three tierswith the Third