The Twelfth Man 2018

4 CHAIRMAN’S REPORT W HERE will we be in five years time? I threw out this challenge as I closed my report a year ago. We are at a crossroads...in fact we are at two sets of crossroads if such a junction is possible...a bit like facing up to an eight-ball over from Ray Lindwall! But we are getting in behind the ball, and the runs will come. The retirement of Mick Pope from all of his committee roles was always going to be a hammer blow, but Mick gave us two years’ notice of his intention, and while you, the members, make up the sovereign body that must take the vital decisions at AGM, the committee has produced two nominations that I wholeheartedly commend to you. Step up Chris Barron, a highly competent and thoughtful administrator, whom your committee is recommending that you elect as our new Secretary – do read his enclosed paper on Data Protection, and take the appropriate action -- and stalwart Andrew Jones, the committee nomination to become Assistant Secretary. We thank Mick for using the winter months to coach Chris and Andrew through their expected roles, and while we know that Mick will never be a backseat driver we nonetheless hope that he will still be the old uncle in the corner! Mick’s experience of the Society and its workings is unsurpassed: he has been a member of the committee for more than 30 years, including stints as Twelfth Man Editor and Assistant Secretary before becoming Secretary 14 years ago. Mick is one of the most resourceful and successful researchers in the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians, and we trust that the presentation we were able to make to him on awards night will enable us to enjoy more of his writings. My song shall be cricket and cricket my theme...but when exactly should we sing it? ‘This is the second set of crossroads’ We said last year that we would try one or two afternoon meetings as a pilot study. We could not hold these at the Ardsley Oaks Working Men’s Club, because their afternoons are too busy, so we looked to the Holiday Inn for their cheapest afternoons, usually Mondays. The two became three because of the logistics of the late arrangement with Mike Gatting OBE, the ECB’s Participation and Growth Ambassador and former Middlesex and England captain. How did they go? The room for Mike Gatting was packed…perhaps for Mike we would have got a good crowd at any time of day. Yorkshire and England’s Geoff Cope also filled a room…perhaps he always would have done. The Lancashire afternoon with Malcolm Lorimer and Barry Wood was bedevilled by snow – I dug myself out at Leeds only just in time, and some members never made it – but the crowd was still good. Members who say they cannot face night-driving any more put their money where their mouths were by turning up…some of them for the first time in years. Now what? Which turning do we take at the crossroads? Members have been giving me their views: those of you who are still in work cannot make afternoons; some have said “make it four or five” and others “how about 50-50?” The result? We have an afternoon meeting at the Holiday Inn in each of the five months of the Wombwell winter season – not counting the Christmas Sunday Lunch, where we expect to welcome Yorkshire and England’s Tim Bresnan, catching up on the beneficiary visit that was never reached during his official benefit year. Our afternoon guests will be India and Lancashire’s Farokh Engineer, David Graveney OBE, former chairman of the England Test selectors; Malcolm Nash – did you hear his radio interview with Gary Sobers on the Golden Anniversary of the six-sixes-in-an-over at Swansea? – Robin Hobbs, of England, Essex and Glamorgan, and Alan Butcher, former captain of Surrey and