The Twelfth Man 2014

! 6 Lunch, but into the breach stepped...Patron Mike Cowan. What a tour de force ! It is a privilege to look over his shoulder and see how meticulously he prepares. With the turn of New Year we entered the programme that makes the Wombwell stand out from the other societies: the coaching classes for young players at Bawtry Road, Sheffield. John Ambler had seamlessly passed the role of Coaching Co-ordinator to Brian Workman, and their henchmen were Andy Bennett, Darren Crossland, Robert Hulley, Brian Marsh and Brian Workman – with a guest appearance by Richard Wilkinson, who ran a masterclass on spin bowling. I hope the young players will graduate to taking a more fulsome role in the Society's affairs: remember, boys and girls, one day all this will be yours! We had a Lancastrian's view of the Roses matches with Colin Shindler, and the first half of what was to be a double-whammy from Yorkshire coach Richard Damms. To meet Yorkshire's young players of the future always makes this one of the most exciting evenings of the Wombwell year, and Richard stepped into the breach for our end-of-term presentations to our own young players when he brought along pace-bowler Matthew Fisher, who enjoyed his one-day Yorkshire debut when still only 15. A triumph of an evening if ever there was one. Adrian Grayson, father of Simon and Paul, told the story of this amazing family of sportsmen, given all the more authority because of his own life as schoolmaster and coach, and Nottinghamshire Coach Mick Newell visited us at the height of the speculation about whether he would get the England job. Perhaps next time. Mike Smith, England's last double- international...at cricket and rugby union...pulled few punches as he recalled his time as captain of Warwickshire amd England. His disappointment as the skipper who so narrowly failed to snatch back the Ashes in 1965-6 would have been as nothing to what has happened since! In 1964-5 and again at home in 1965 Mike captained England in what were to be the last Test matches against South Africa for a quarter of a century. Sam Collins depressed us with his opening gambit about the demise of Test cricket, but at least in England we really do set the example with the size of our crowds. I wish we did better with the size of our crowds at the Wombwell...yet our membership roll remains more than twice that of some cricket societies in Yorkshire, and we thank our members both near and far for simply being Wombwell! Triumphs? We congratulate our President, Harold “Dickie” Bird OBE on becoming President of Yorkshire County Cricket Club at the 2014 AGM. No need to ask who are special speaker is for the next Christmas Sunday Lunch. 2013/14 Membership Report Welcome to all our new members, especially David Frith who has agreed to fill the vacancy of Patron replacing the great Don Wilson. I am pleased to report we have had a very good recruitment year (12 new members) mostly thanks to Ron Firth’s brilliant idea of putting information sheets on each of the tables at the two very good functions he organized. On the other side of the coin we have also had quite a few cancelations (14 retirees and 3 gone to the cricket team in the sky) this means we are not growing but at least our membership number is stable. After counting the names, I find we have got 349 members including Patrons, Vice Presidents and 14 members who never updated their standing orders at the last increase in membership fees. These members do not receive a copy of the Twelfth Man . It has also been a very sad winter season not having Margaret Harrison sitting in her usual corner, selling raffle tickets and taking the speaker evening photos. Margaret’s loss leaves a very big gap in our lives not only as a hard working committee member for many years, but also as a wonderful person. This is my final report and I am very pleased to announce Ali Saad has very kindly agreed to take over the position of Membership Officer and committee member if accepted at the next AGM. Thanks for all the help and friendliness I have received in my seven years of office. I will sign off with my usual cry – please fly the flag and get new members to our wonderful Society. Beryl Ambler