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

34 they still finished up bottom of the table. Their resignation was accepted with regret, reducing the League to eight teams, and it is interesting to note that no attempt was made to replace Downfield, the general feeling being that 8 teams (and therefore 14 games) were enough, for teams like Arbroath, Brechin and Strathmore relished their prestigious and long standing friendlies. Strathmore, for example, boasted about their friendly with Fifeshire in 1934 for the Fife men contained a man called Sydney Copley who had once, while acting as a substitute, caught Stan McCabe of Australia, even though The Forfar Dispatch gets it wrong by saying it was Don Bradman! The Union continued its representative fixtures. They lost to the Border League at Hawick, but also raised a side to play against Aberdeenshire in the Benefit Match for Alma Hunt, the professional at Mannofield. This game finished in an honourable draw and did a great deal to raise the profile of the Strathmore Union in Aberdeen. Aberdeenshire’s 2nd XI, calling themselves Mannofield XI now played in the Union and had finished sixth, a performance described by one of their supporters as “no guid enough tae win, but guid enough tae cause trouble”. That season, Willie Eddie of Brechin achieved the remarkable feat of topping both the Batting and the Bowling Averages. 1936 was a momentous year in world affairs. Britain had three Kings, Franklin D Roosevelt was re-elected President of the USA, a horrible Civil War broke out in Spain and the western democracies turned their backs on it, while in Germany at the Berlin Olympic Games, Herr Hitler was distinctly upset when the negro Jesse Owens proved that there was no superiority in his “master race”. He was equally unhappy when Jimmy Delaney scored twice for Scotland to beat Germany as the offensive swastika flew over Ibrox. Fred Perry won Wimbledon, the last British player to win there until Andy Murray came along. In the midst of all this, there was some cricket with Derbyshire winning the English County Championship for the first and only time, and Arbroath making it three in a row in the Strathmore Union and threatening to emulate Brechin’s five. Brechin won the 2nd XI Championship, and there were new and surprising winners of the Three Counties Cup in Blairgowrie. Their success was well deserved. The final was played at Forfar again in the middle of July, and Blairgowrie