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

86 and away to Blairgowrie. Their return from Blairgowrie on 8th May 1965 after their first defeat for several years saw some of the team sitting disconsolately in the Queen’s Hotel, discussing how on earth it was that Blairgowrie had managed to get 176, and how they had not reached that total. The game was analysed at length, and eventually some of the customers began to get fed up of them, and to ask things like “What’s the metter wi thae leds? Are they no meant tae get bit, like?” For a town whose football team knew rather a great deal about getting “bit” at that time, it was odd to be so associated with success, and a defeat was a matter of great importance – and indeed sadness. But it was not just a matter of having eleven good players. The structure at the club was superb with the coaching, the bar, the teas, the scoring all completely well organised. The 2nd XI, while never as completely successful as the 1st XI, did consistently well and was always able to supply talented players for the 1st XI when required, although it was often very difficult and frustrating for the 2nd XI players waiting for a call to the 1st XI. Very few players ever got dropped from the 1st XI. You had to be really good to fight your way into that side! The consistent success of the team was all the more remarkable when one considers that it all happened at a time of considerable social change, and at a time when cricket was, generally, not doing as well as it did in the 1950s. There was the welcome and necessary abolition of the Gentlemen v Players distinction in 1963 (this meant in Forfar that the Scorer was now able to write NL Hazel, rather than Hazel NL, as he was technically supposed to do!), and in England the gradual introduction and expansion of one day cricket to give a welcome boost to the County Championship which was failing to attract the crowds (largely because it was played when everyone was at their work!) and slowly dying on its feet. Test Matches no longer had the hold on the population that they once did. It was not that Test Match cricket didn’t produce the occasional good series. Who can forget, for example, Colin Cowdrey coming out at Lord’s 1963 with his arm in plaster with one ball to go to save a Test Match? Or Derek Underwood’s spinning out of the Australians in 1968 after volunteers had spiked and dried the pitch for him? Or the brilliant cover point fielding of the South African Colin Bland? On the other hand, there were several really dull Test Match years – 1962, 1964, 1967 and 1969 – and two very uninteresting tours of Australia in 1962/63 and 1965/66.