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

66 but will also recall the flags, bunting and celebration which included every child in the land being given a cup and (luxury of luxuries in those days when sweets had only recently gone “off the ration”) a bar of chocolate! Many other good things happened that year as well – Mount Everest was climbed, Celtic won the all-British Coronation Cup, Stanley Matthews won his English Cup medal and the Korean War came to an end, and in the cricketing world, England won back the Ashes for the first time since well before the War. There was the general feeling that good times were now beginning to happen. All this was true, but it spelt a few danger signals for local cricket, signals that were not spotted at the time. The main problem was that the new prosperity opened up a few horizons for the average working household, and it could no longer be assumed that a family would automatically turn up to watch the cricket on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Houses were being built with gardens, for example, in housing schemes, and they needed tending. Motor cars were beginning to become more prevalent. This meant that the days of teams travelling by train to fulfil fixtures were now on the way out (as indeed were so many local stations) and cars became the normal mode of transport. But it also meant that the motor car could allow families to go on holiday, or excursions on a Saturday with greater frequency. All of this was bad news for local cricket. In addition, social barriers were beginning to fall down, and people who paid their money to attend a cricket match (never a huge or unaffordable entry charge, it has to be said) began to resent the ever-present snobbery as depicted in the omnipresent “Members Only” signs in pavilions, and people were now beginning to question the distinction between Amateurs and Professionals, in particular why the Professional who earned his living playing the game, was called simply “Smith” or “Brown” rather than “Jim” or “George”. But for the moment, things remained serene in the Strathmore Union, the Championship this year of 1953 being won by Perthshire XI. PW Dalgarno was the top of the Batting Averages that season, and Paddy Walker of Strathmore (who finished second) topped the Bowling. Perthshire XI were well ahead of Strathmore, but almost threw it all away in the month of September. They nearly lost to Montrose, then they did lose to Brechin before edging over the line by virtue of a game being abandoned against Dundee High School FP. It was their third triumph in five years, and the