The Twelfth Man 2018

6 W ELCOME to the latest edition of The Twelfth Man. As ever it will reflect what has happened in the last 12 months. Those months have been tinged with sadness in losing members not only household names but members who have done sterling work in the background. Just ordinary members but they cannot simply be called ordinary members. We have also had to say goodbye to our Honorary Secretary Mick Pope who after 30 years on the committee has decided to step down from the committee to carry out more in depth research for his cricket writing. I hope he will find time to contribute some articles to future editions of The Twelfth Man. Speaking of Mick, the speakers that he and our Chairman arranged for the past year have yet again proved to be of the highest standards. Who could forget the emotion of Barry Wood as he spoke of his sad exit from Lancashire. Yes I did say Barry Wood; he was a replacement for his old Lancashire colleague Farokh Engineer. Barry was supposed to see us on March 5th but the snow meant that meeting was postponed and took place four days later. Again the weather interfered and many members could not get to the meeting as we broke with tradition and held three meetings in the afternoon. As we say goodbye to Mick, we welcome on board Chris Barron, Andrew Jones and John Howarth. Chris and Andrew have the unenviable task of taking over the roles that Mick did so well. Andrew, will also be administrating our Facebook page site at https://www.facebook.com/ WombwellCricketLovers/ A year ago we were all excited at the prospect at another battle for the Ashes, only to be disappointed again. Some of you may have been lucky enough to see the battle for the Ashes in Australia, some of you may have watched the Ashes on BT Sport, while others, like myself had to catch the brief highlights on the BT website. Speaking of television coverage and cricket we have to say farewell to Channel Nine who after 40 years have lost the television rights to show cricket in Australia. Channel Nine will not be forgotten, they revolutionised the television coverage of cricket and many of their innovations are still used today. As I said earlier we were excited about the prospect of another Ashes series. Some even dared to dream of a series victory which would see Wombwell old boy Joe Root bring the urn home. Some even thought that England would draw the series, others thought to lose the series by the odd Test would be a good tour, and nobody thought the Ashes dream would turn into an Ashes nightmare. Still there is a home Ashes series against the Aussies in 2019, even though Joe forgot 2019 when we spoke at the Kia Oval in May, and a Test at Headingley or rather Emerald Headingley as it is now called between Thursday 22nd August and Monday 26th. In March the world of cricket was rocked when the Australian captain Steve Smith admitted in a press conference that he knew that ball tampering was taking place during their bad tempered test series against South Africa. How they expected to get away with it when there are over 30 cameras covering a Test match and also the closed circuit television cameras? The CCTV even helped the Aussies during the first when they showed that Quinton De Kock was the instigator of the row with David Warner, the cricketer not the writer. Also in March the Society lost a dear friend. Dave Callagahan who covered Yorkshire cricket for years died of an heart attack weeks before the start of the new cricket season. For many years Dave held centre stage at our Christmas lunches interviewing our guest of honour a Yorkshire beneficiary. Long time Vice-Chairman and Functions Officer Ron Firth has decided the time has come for him to retire from his role as Vice-Chairman but will continue to act as Functions Officer. In September last year, before our new speaker season started, the Society was upset to hear of the death of committee man Colin Barker. Colin was a quiet and thoughtful man but he always got across his point of view. The Society was sorry to hear in July that one of Patrons Geoffrey Boycott had undergone a six hour heart surgegy, we trust that he will soon be back on top form. Get well soon, Geoffrey. Neil Whitaker EDITORIAL