Resurrection

I'm nearing the end of my first year playing cricket and have decided to resurrect the MPA first eleven blog. From around about June when we played and lost the two matches that weren't affected by the rain the MPA first eleven started to lose it's momentum. Things were then made worse because I had a run in with a residents association that thought they had the unique rights and say as to who had access to a council playing field (Great Berry). This took nearly 3 months to resolve and while that was happening it gave me a long time to look at the team and ask how should we move forward. I was influenced by a mate of mine who has a very competitive streak and we moved towards the idea that in future we were only interested in winning. The MPA first eleven was then disbanded and the Great Berry Cricket club was formed as we had a few new players and it made sense in that the new players resided around the Great Berry area.

Unfortunately the new format, the new name, the weather, getting beaten so badly and the issue with the field all conspired to slow down the momentum the team had. I decided as a back up plan in order that I was able to play cricket I'd join a local team and I have - Grays & Chadwell cricket club and I now play for their 2nd or 3rd XI.

But for some reason I want to be involved in my own little informal team alongside the involvement with Grays & Chadwell. The thing is I really do enjoy playing and practicing I think David Hinchclife at http://www.harrowdrive.com/7-reasons-cricket-is-the-best-sport-to-play-in-the-known-universe/ puts a good case. So I'm looking to ressurect the mpa first eleven and use what I've learnt this year to hopefully set us up for a few games next summer. So we last 2 out 2 this year let's see if we can get 4 games next year and win half of them?

The annoying thing is that there are people out there that do play cricket and want to play against teams like us. There's the Kiwi's and Aussies, There's Grays & Chadwell CC and then there's all those Asian blokes that play at Glouscester Park - 24 + blokes that I'm sure we could persuade to put together a team and play against us? We've even got the gear to lend to people - we can kit out an opposition team if need be. We've even got access to several places to play some of which are free - Great Berry-the council has formally said we can play organised/competitive games there now. Okay so it's not a cricket pitch - but then neither is the place the Asian blokes play on. We've got access the 'The Rec' free of charge ocassionally and that's a fantastic cricket pitch. But the cost of renting a council pitch is not that much and between 22 blokes it's peanuts!

There is so much potential it just seems wrong to give up on the idea of creating a team. It seems wrong that Richard, Simon, Nakul, Badger went out and bought gear that they've hardly used. It seems wrong that Suhail went back to Pakistan and brought his gear back to the UK and never got a game. It seems wrong that today I played cricket with Carl Hodges who lent us all the gear nearly a year ago and he's a good player and yet he doesn't play cricket.

So what I'm going to try and do is keep this going and maybe put out a general email around the college and see if we can get a few more people involved - 20 maybe? What I want in the short term is a match over at Great Berry in Sept 2nd between us all as we did that day back in June. So who's up for it?

Dave