The Twelfth Man 2016

30 books, which made impressive listening, and plenty of anecdotes and amusing stories about his subjects. The question and answer session proved lively with subjects from sledging to the experimental yellow and red card system being fully discussed. This concluded a first-class entertaining evening. 17 March – Lancashire Evening with Malcolm Lorimer and Geoff Clayton Jim introduced our Lancashire guests, Malcolm being a renowned cricket historian and author, and Geoff the ex Lancashire wicket- keeper who played through the halcyon days of golden county cricket 1959-67. We went straight into the question and answer session with members keen to get memories from Geoff’s golden era. Q. Did you ever consider yourself close to an England call up? A. Not really there were so many world-class stumpers around and they were all more than useful with the bat. Q. Words were exchanged between you and Brian Close when you stumped him – do you recall? A. Aye I remember well, believe it or believe it not, he told me not to rush off after the match, as he wanted a pint from me! Many more questions followed with Geoff giving us a good insight into being a county cricketer in the golden era, (including his experiences with Fred Trueman) this all kept the audience well entertained. Malcolm then went on to outline the present state of ground developments at Old Trafford including the inclusion of the Lancashire/Hilton Hotel overlooking the ground. We were also given an up-to-date report on players and coach situation with Ashley Giles replacing Mike Watkinson and present playing staff now under a full review. Malcolm then enlightened us with his own stories and anecdotes from the present Lancashire days. There is no doubt that between them Malcolm and Geoff provided a very entertaining evening. 24 March – Tommy Wilson Our chair introduced umpire Tommy Wilson who commenced with giving us a full background of his umpiring career starting as a scorer at nine-years-old (observing umpires) and replacement at 14-years-old when his club umpire passed away. Tommy then went on to give us lots of amusing stories (especially about his umpiring partner of the early days, Tommy Drinkwater). Our guest then went on to describe his first big match: Yorkshire v Lancashire at Headingley, followed by a very interesting and amusing outline of his career and the characters he met. Tommy ended his presentation with stories about his travels abroad with the game from Israel to Zimbabwe. The question and answer session proved lively with discipline in the modern game together with Minor Counties status, re- organisation of regional cricket leagues and first-class cricket, coming under the microscope, to conclude a very entertaining evening. 31 March – Presentation Evening Guests ‘Dickie’ Bird, Richard Damms, Matthew Taylor The impressive list of junior award winners were presented with their awards by Society President ‘Dickie’ and Matthew after which we went straight into a question and answer session with Richard and Matthew. Matthew commenced by giving us an update of his back stress fracture, and he is now well under recovery and back into training. Richard gave us an overview of the new local league situation, explaining that the aim is to raise standards in local cricket. The question and answer session covered aggression in the modern game, sledging, and modern coaching etc. and this soon led us to pea and pie time, to conclude an excellent season. Richard Damms, Matthew Taylor and John Ambler at WCLS’ coaching awards night 2016