SANDFORD Cricket Club would still be very interested to hear from anyone who may have been either a Cricket Umpire or Scorer in the past, or would be interested in becoming one in the future.

A scorer for the Second XI and an Umpire for the Third XI are required.

Both appointments can be either on a regular or part-time basis, and training can be provided if necessary.

They both require regular attendance at Saturday afternoon games between the beginning of May and the beginning of September.

Up until now the Club has been very lucky in that the Second XI have had a regular scorer in Nicky Radnor, who has provided her services unstintingly during the past 30-odd years, but she has decided to put her pencils away to be able to help the Club in another direction.

Under the rules of the Devon Cricket League each team is obliged to supply a scorer for every league match.

Although the League is looking for scoring to be completed on-line wherever possible, this is still not mandatory in the case for the Second XI.

Although they won promotion to the B Division at the end of last season, it is still possible for them to complete scoring in the B Division off-line.

Regarding an Umpire for the Third XI, again Sandford has been a victim of its own success, in that we have had two very good umpires within the Club over the past few years – Jerome Davis and Mike Canning - who have now gone on to join the main Devon League panel.

Throw our Secretary Paul Smith into that mix as well, and the Devon League is very well represented by Sandford Umpires.

The issue is that they all umpire in the Premier, A and B Divisions, who have independent umpires for each game, but our guys are not allowed to umpire their own team.

The issue for the Thirds is that whilst they do not have to have independent umpires, it would be ideal to have their own umpire each week, rather than the players having to umpire their own games.

So if anyone reading this feels they could help out the Club, we would love to hear from you.

Please call Phil Matten on 07970 157557 for more details.

Ideally two or three people interested in each position would be superb, so that the workload could be shared.

I can assure you, you would be joining a great Club, and you will be made to feel very welcomed, as well as getting a free tea each week.

This coming Saturday (January 28) Sandford Cricket Club will be sponsoring Crediton Rugby Club’s home First XI match against Sherborne, and at the time of writing this we have 52 members attending – an excellent effort.

Phil Matten