Strathmore Cricket Union: the first 90 years a history 1928-2018
36 Arbroath who triumphed in the Union, winning 9 out of their 13 games played. Once again there was the problem of weather preventing the playing of some fixtures, but this year there was little doubt that Arbroath were the best team with both Sievwrights making an impact when necessary, and professional Blakey doing well also. The Championship was won on the first Saturday in September against Meigle in a low scoring game 73 – 63. Meigle were without Willie Tasker, but Arbroath still had Bob Sievwright, and that was crucial. The Batting award that year went to John Walker of Brechin and the Bowling one to Willie Tasker of Meigle. This year saw the (temporary) resignation of Kirriemuir from Division II. They had been struggling to find a team on several occasions and were also struggling financially to pay for their new clubhouse which JM Barrie, to a great fanfare of trumpets and general acclamation, had erected in 1929 and opened officially in 1930. The ageing and now ailing playwright, however, had failed to leave any money for its upkeep. He seemed to be of the opinion that the clubhouse, like Peter Pan, would never grow old! He died the following year, and a certain bitterness lingered in the town about him for many years after. This left the Second Division with only five teams, the 2nd XIs of Strathmore, Brechin, Montrose, Arbroath and Meigle, although a team did make an application to make up the numbers. This was a team called Brechin Wednesday. This was a team of Brechin shopkeepers who were all available to play on a Wednesday afternoon. (In football, Sheffield Wednesday had started in exactly the same way). There was an obvious snag here, as all their fixtures would have to be played on a Wednesday, and the other teams would not be able to produce players until about 6 p.m. It followed then that Brechin Wednesday could not comply with the “five hours cricket” rule, and their application had to be rejected. One feels that the Union might have missed a trick here. We are talking about the Second Division, and a little bending of the rules to allow a shortened evening match might have been no bad idea, but it was not to be. In football this was not unprecedented with teams like Forfar Half Holiday in existence for several decades. Clearly the Union felt itself to be so strong and so well established that they could afford to reject the application of a Wednesday team. It was a shame however that no attempts were made to create a Forfar or Arbroath equivalent, but then again Forfar’s half-day was Thursday.
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