We had a very successful season and I would like, straight a way, to thank our very dedicated team of helpers. We held a presentation day in May and Derek Underwood (England & Kent CCC), Rob Cooke, Sports Development Officer for Mole Valley and Dr John Dew MBE, President of Horsham CC, presented the prizes. This was a departure from our normal dinner and was a great success.

We had over ninety registrations and match results were as follows:

Under 9s – Managed by Veronica Annis, Christian John, Bob Davies,Chris Ball and Mike Quigley came ninth out of eleven. This, for many of the children, was their first introduction to cricket.
Under 11s – Managed by John Callcut & Dev Patel came third and if they had beaten Capel in a last over cliff hanger would have won their league.
Under 13s – Managed by Don Jones and Geoff Cox got promotion from division two and then managed to survive in division one.
Under 16s – Managed by Paul Bettesworth, Craig Jones and Dave Puddicombe came third out of five in a very tough league.

Jack Wylie played for Surrey under 11s and he is the first Newdigate player to represent their county since Richard Callcut in the early 1990s.

We established an agreement with the Newdigate First School which involved forty level 2 children playing Kwik Kricket on the Brocus during the summer term. Basic skills were taught and they all obtained a bronze award.

The following attended the Russell Haigh Bursary at the Surrey Cricket Centre at Guildford in April.:

Under 9s – Andrew Kehl and Jamie Addison Under 11s – Stephen Kehl and David Atkinson
Under 13s – William Bennett and Queresh Shamsuddin Under 15s – Alex Goddard and Charlie Pankhurst

They all benefited enormously from the course and our thanks, as usual, go to Chris Haigh.

We took a large group to the Oval in July where we were guard of honour and we ran a net session using the mobile cage as our participation towards Village Day in September.

The under 11s showing off their bowling skills – Village Day, 1st September 2007

Newdigate juniors performing the ‘guard of honour’ for Surrey CCC

During the winter months a number of coaches will have attended the UKCC Level 1 course, child protection and first aid courses in an endeavour to provide the best quality coaching that we can. Perhaps testimony to this must be the fact that nine children attended every single coaching session last year.

Coaching is an enormous commitment and I would like again to mention, not just the above managers, but also all the other people who have unstintingly given of their time. One only has to look at a weekend to see the number of players who have passed through the coaching ranks to see the debt that the club owes to the junior section.

John Callcut – Autumn 2007.