Club News Archives - 2002

If you have a club news item to contribute, we would be grateful if you would email it to us... To make room for new stories on the 'Club News' page, all of our stories will eventually move here to the archives but they will stay available here for future reference... 28/12/02 Alex making good progress... We received another email from Julie Adams with some great news about Alex recent progress - check out the update at the bottom of this page. 15/12/02 News and pictures from the Club dinner... The Club's annual dinner was held on Friday 22nd November and was the usual sociable occasion, allowing the Club to honour its oustanding achievers of the season past. We now have the photographs from the night available, as well as a full list of prize-winners from the night. Our thanks go to Davy McKillen for acting as the 'Official Photographer' on the night and I would like to apologise for the slightly ropey quality of the scans, which is no reflection on the quality of the originals. Full details on the dinner can be found here. 15/12/02 Holy Moley! All 2003 fixture lists now available... Well, while the "season that wasn't" is still a fresh and unhappy memory in most of our minds, the fixture faeries at the N.C.U. have been staying up well past their bedtime, (bless them), to get the fixture lists for the new season formulated. As a result of their sterling efforts, we now have all of the Saturday XI's league and cup fixtures available on the site. Youth fixtures will follow as soon as they are available. The lists can be found here or via the 'Fixtures' button in the left menu. 28/11/02 Alex Adams thankfully making progress... We have just received an update email from Julie with what, at first, appears to be discouraging news about a hard weekend for Alex. As it runs out though, provided there are no further complications, the tough events of the weekend may actually have served to aid his recovery in the long-term by eliminating a long-standing and worrying problem. Let's hope so... (Note: although I have just received Julie's message, it was sent on Monday. If necessary, I will update this news with any further developments as soon as I can). Full news can be found at the bottom of this page. 12/11/02 Alex Adams thankfully making progress... As many of you will already know, Alex Adams, one of our most dedicated and respected playing members has recently been very seriously ill. We have all been absolutely shocked at the news and I know that everyone has been trying to keep each other informed through the grapevine, with Alex and his family very much in our thoughts. The reason that we haven't put any news of this on the site before now is that I didn't feel comfortable doing so without the approval of Alex's family and it didn't appear appropriate to bother them at this very difficult time. I have, however, been in touch with Julie through her much-appreciated recent entry in our guestbook and she has said that the family are quite comfortable with us keeping everyone posted and Julie herself has agreed to keep us updated with her dad's progress. Click here for a full explanation of Alex's condition and progress, as provided by Julie. Julie has also asked us to make it clear that she is happy to receive emails from anyone at this address and that she will gladly forward on messages of support to Alex. 11/10/02 Annual General Meeting held on 8/10... The Club's A.G.M. was held on Tuesday evening and was reasonably well- attended by our playing membership. Club accountant Graeme Ritchie presented the Club accounts and gave his valuable analysis of our current financial position. The minutes from last year's meeting were read and approved. Our President, Leslie Thompson, gave his thoughts on the past year and thanked his office bearers and committee members for their efforts and support. Roger Bell, Club Secretary, then presented his view on the past year at the Club. Team captain's gave their analysis of their respective team's progress over the course of the season. A number of fairly uncontentious motions were passed unanimously and without objections. Leslie Thompson was unanimously re-elected to serve a further year as Club President. Roger Bell was unanimously elected to the post of Club Vice- President. Having decided to allow his name to be put forward for this office, Roger decided to stand down as Honorary Secretary after many years of valuable and greatly appreciated service in this post. The post has passed, however, into highly capable hands with Roger's long standing assistant Roy Parkhill unanimously elected to serve as the Club's new Honorary Secretary. Roger was also re-elected to his long-held post of Honorary Treasurer. The current Management Committee was re-elected in a unanimous block vote with the notable and valuable additions of former capable committee members Alec Adams and Michael Ross. Finally, the A.G.M. was delighted to hear the news that our own Ryan Eagleson has agreed to remain with the Club for another year in his position as Club Coach and will, in addition, serve as Club Captain for another season. A full updated list of office holders can be found in the ' Contacts' section of the site. The only topic raised as 'any other business' was a discussion of Jim Oakes kind invitation to make a pre-season tour to Stapleford C.C. in Cambridge, after the disppointment of their tour to Carrickfergus this year which, unfortunately, saw no cricket possible. This brief initial discussion raised by Davy McKillen was greeted with a very positive response by those present and you can rest assured that any further developments on this topic will be posted on the site as soon as they happen... 11/10/02 Final league tables for 2002 now available... Final league tables for the 2002 season are available in the 'League Tables' section of the site. Despite a fairly disjointed season as a result of the rather inclement summer, (demonstrated clearly by the low 'matches played' figures), 2002 has proved to be a reasonably successful year for the club. Congratulations are due to Davy McKillen and his young Fifth XI team on their Division Four - Section Two Championship victory. Congratulations also to the First XI who finished the season as runners-up to Bangor in Section Two, showing much promise and encouragement for a big push next season. After a shaky start to the season, all of our other teams finished the their campaigns in various levels of comfort in their respective leagues. Credit and our appreciation is due to all of our team captains for shepherding our teams through what was a trying and frustrating season... 04/10/2002 Sad news of Robert Walker's passing... The Club received the sad news this week of the passing on Monday of life member Robert Walker. 'Snapper Bob' was closely associated with the Club over a number of years and was a popular figure with our playing and social membership alike. Robert joined the Club as a Belfast High School youngster and remained an enthusiastic and industrious playing member throughout the 1990's, including a season as 4th. XI captain in 1998. A patient and determined opening bat and committed wicket keeper, Robert's whole-hearted efforts and dedication made him a respected captain and popular team-mate. His dedication to the Club extended beyond playing into the administration of the Club and his contributions as a committee member and service as Assistant Honorary Treasurer were greatly appreciated. The Club would like to express our sorrow at this tragic news and would extend our thoughts and sympathies to Robert's family at this time. 21/08/02 Shane's benefit night at the Club... Sept. 7th. - Eight 'til Late Disco - Ballot - Tickets £2 behind bar Sept. 7th. sees a benefit night at the Club for Shane Singe, our popular Kiwi guest for this season. Despite a difficult and frustrating season for everyone weather-wise, Shane has managed to sparkle on the pitch and has made a number of vital batting contributions, impressing everyone who has seen him in action and he has quickly become a popular player throughout the Club. We hope that his popularity and success will be reflected with a healthy turnout on the night with all of our members making a special effort to attend and raise a few bob for Shane to help set him back up at home... 22/07/02 European Championship Match is great success... The European Championship fixture took place sucessfully yesterday and saw Portugal defeat Gibraltar by 32 runs. The entire day was a great success which went off without a hitch, drawing praise from players and officials alike. Even the weather finally showed us some kindness with a sunny albeit breezy day. The Club would like to thank all those who worked so hard to organise the event and those who came up to spectate on the day. For all the news and pictures from the day, click here... 09/07/02 Date problems with server changeover... The server changeover has been completed but, (as you will undoubtedly have noticed), the transfer has caused some problems with areas of the site which deal with dates, (e.g. Lottery results, upcoming events, etc.). This problem is currently being addressed and will be resolved as soon as possible... sorry for the inconvenience. *** This problem has now been resolved *** We would ask all users to keep an eye out for any problems subsequent to the changeover and help out by notifying us of any problems you encounter... 03/07/02 Ulster summers and Klinsmann dives... Anyone wondering just how bad this summer has been for cricket, (particularly our overseas visitors), need look no further than the picture below. Click the picture for some more photos and two of the finest Klinsmann dives you are ever likely to see, (if that doesn't intrigue you to click, nothing will!). Again, our warm thanks go to Jennifer Clements who was kind enough to provide all of the pictures in this series... 03/07/02 Photos of table quiz winning team (21/06/02)... Laurie Clements played host at another of his very popular quiz nights a couple of weeks back and Jennifer, Laurie's daughter, has been kind enough to pass on a few photos from the night. Pictured below is the winning team - click on the photo for some larger shots taken on the night! Laurie's quizzes have become a real regular feature at the Club and are always eagerly awaited and well-supported. Whether your I.Q. is 'Mastermind' or more 'Big Brother', they are a great night out if you are looking for a bit of crack... Keep an eye on our 'Upcoming Events' list on the homepage for details on all Laurie's quizzes... 25/06/02 Players selected for representative teams... Our congratulations go to several players from the Club who have been selected to play representative cricket of various forms this week. After shining in the recent Irish Universities Cricket Championship, Robert Craig has been selected to represent the Irish Universities team in the British Universities Championship. Congratulations also to both Mark McCrae and Andy Wilson have been selected to represent Belfast in the Lords' Taverners Under-14 Inter-Cities competition in a qualifying match in Ayr this week, with winners progressing to the competition proper taking place at Arundel in August. Our hearty congratulations to all three players on their achievement and best wishes to them in their respective competitions! 21/06/02 Radio appearance scheduled for Monday 24th... The good folks at Castle FM 106.2 have been kind enough to invite the Club to feature on Justin Macartney's morning show on Monday of next week. The show runs between 10am and 12pm and we're likely to get a little while around 10.30 so make sure and tune in... Justin has assured us that he'll be giving us the opportunity to publicise Ryan's youth coaching programme over the summer and we'll hopefully also get a chance to talk about the upcoming European Championships tie amongst other things. 21/06/02 Possible 'downtime' in middle of next week... Our webhost has recently purchased new servers and we will soon be required to transfer over to the new systems. This may cause a short period during which the site is unavailable. The work will be carried out sometime in the middle of next week after the weekend results have been available for a couple days as I know we have some overseas 'listeners' who keep up to date with results via the site, (good to see you found us Eammon!). After the transfer, we would very much appreciate it if users could drop us a line if they find any little glitches that we might have missed. Incidentally, anyone looking for webhosting or domain name registration services could do a lot worse than check in with the hosts we use. They provide good value-for-money and friendly support and, being Bangor-based, you'll be supporting a local business. Click the logo below to take a look at what they offer... 17/05/02 Lottery win featured in Carrick Advertiser... Maureen Moore's big Carrickfergus Cricket Club Lottery win features on the front page of the Carrickfergus Advertiser website - just another excuse for Tonto to get his face on the World Wide Web, if you ask me! Our congratulations go to Maureen, who netted just under £10,000 - the second largest jackpot in the history of the lottery! The new jackpot commences at a very healthy £2000, by the way... Read the full story on the Carrickfergus Advertiser website... As ever, the Club is indebted to the hard work of all of those involved in the administration of the lottery which, (along with, presumably, making Maureen a very happy lady), is such a valued source of income for the Club. We would urge all our members to acknowledge the hard work of all the individuals involved by supporting the lottery in any way they can... 17/05/02 New latest results feature on home page... The new 'Latest Results' headline on the home page provides a fast way to check what match results have been added lately. Click on the link to view full details for which matches have been added and to access links through to the relevant scorecards and summaries... Note: We now have the facility to add match summaries for teams other than the First and Second XI's. These summaries will highlight best performances rather than providing full scorecards. Unfortunately, (since these are not full scorecards), performances for the minor teams will not feature in player averages but the match summaries will remain in the database for future reference building up an archive from this season onward... so if your workmates don't believe you bashed a quick 50 on Saturday, you'll be able to provide the requisite documentary evidence to corroborate your tall tales! 25/04/2002 Message of best wishes received from Snehal... We were delighted to receive a message of best wishes today from one of our most popular and fondly-remembered coaches, Snehal Parikh. Snehal, who stays in touch with Club news via the site, obviously noticed that our season is about to commence tomorrow and sent this very thoughtful message to wish Ryan and the Club well for this year. You can view Snehal's message here. Incidentally, Snehal has asked for email addresses of a lot of the 'old-timers' who were around the Club when he was with us and I know he would be happy to hear from you all, so why not drop him a line via email. 24/04/2002 Friendlies against Stapleford washed out... Well, almost needless to say, the Ulster 'summer' put paid to the friendly matches against Stapleford C.C. last weekend and, unfortunately, no play took place over the course of the entire weekend. Jim Oakes has since been in touch with Roger though and it sounds as if the Cambridge boys enjoyed themselves all the same. No doubt some vigorous imbibing of the 'black stuff' eased the pain of not getting a match! Maybe we'll have better luck next time, lads... 08/04/02 News on Andre's successful test debut... Well, as expected, Andre made the Kiwi XI for the final test against England and acquitted himself in his debut match with no litle aplomb! The 'little firecracker' (as they were describing him on Radio Four! - well we don't all have Sky) may not have bashed the ball around in quite the same fashion as he had managed in the one-day series but his bowling performances went a long way to helping the Kiwis clinch the match and a series draw. Andre finished with 18 runs and 6 wickets for 105 off 31.4 overs for the match. The wickets of a stubborn Foster and the wonderful acrobatic dismissal of England captain Nasser Hussain in successive overs effectively ended the English resistance. (Let's say nothing about the head-scratching which followed the 'Freddie' Flintoff dismissal in the first innings - they all look the same in the book, after all!). Anyway, our warmest congratulations go to Andre on a very impressive test debut of which he has every reason to take pride... 08/04/02 Profile for Shane Singe now online... Roger has added a 'Player Profile' for Shane Singe. 22 year-old Aucklander, Shane, will be joining us this season as an amateur player and comes with a glowing recommendation from none other than our own former great Michael Clark. Read the profile for more detailed information about this exciting young prospect... We very much look forward to welcoming Shane to Carrickfergus C.C. and have no doubt that his time with us will be both enjoyable and successful! 29/03/02 Our very own Andre Adams set to make test debut... According to the infallible BBC Ceefax, our very own Andre Adams looks set to make his test debut! After a fantastic one-day series against England which saw him top the batting averages and run Chris Cairns a close second for his wickets haul, New Zealand selectors have decided to give Andre a much-deserved chance to shine at Test-level. Andre was a very popular player during his time at Carrick as an amateur in 1995 and I'm sure everyone at the Club is delighted for him and we would offer our very warmest congratulations to him on this proud occasion. I'm sure everybody will be tuning in to the series later tonight to cheer him on... Andre recently signed our guestbook and promised he'd call by next time he get's a chance. Hopefully by then, he'll have gone on from strength to strength and will have nothing but stories of his successes to share with us! 25/03/02 New 'Chat' feature added - login & shoot the breeze... We've added a simple chatroom to the site. You're probably unlikely to run into someone else by chance, given the number of visitors we have on-site at any one moment but you could always pre-arrange to meet up with someone here to waste a lunch-time or whatever... You can find the chatroom here, but there doesn't seem to be anyone chatting right now! The chatroom is still in testing and we're not sure just how accurate the visitor count at the top of the page is at the moment. If you find that it is proving to be badly inaccurate when you check, maybe you could email us so that we can work at improving it. Please note: the accuracy of the visitor count is greatly improved if Netscape 4.x users use the 'Exit' button instead of the standard Windows 'X' to close the window when they wish to leave the chat... thanks! 01/03/02 New 'Guestbook' feature added - make sure to sign it... We've finally got around to adding a guestbook to the site. You can find it here or via the button towards the bottom of the left menu. Make sure and add your own entry, even if you're a 'veteran' visitor of the site! If you know of anyone that might be keen to sign the book and wish the Club well, why not use our ' Tell a Friend' feature to let them know that the guestbook is now up and running. For your information, this feature might be a tad temperamental in the early stages but we can only fix problems we know about, so if you do notice any 'glitches', please let us know about them! 22/02/02 New downloads section added... We have added a new downloads section to the site which can be accessed by clicking here or via the new button in the left-hand menu. At the moment this section only contains a C.C.C. related desktop wallpapers for anyone who wants them but if anyone has any suggestions for anything else which could be included in this section, I would really appreciate your thoughts! 22/02/02 Second XI results for 1994 & 1993 added to database... Second XI results for the 1994 and 1993 seasons have now also been added to the database and are available via the 'Match Results' link in the left menu. This addition brings our archive into line, with both First and Second XI results now available back to the 1993 season. The 1993 season saw both First and Second XI teams newly-promoted into their respective Section Two, where they have both remained ever since. For this reason, this seems to be an appropriate time to pause in the results archive and addition of further results will cease for the foreseeable future... A massive amount of credit and our thanks go to Roger Bell for his efforts and enthusiasm, without which the results archive and excellent player profiles section simply wouldn't exist. Roger has now gone for a lie down... 18/02/02 Detailed Club contact info added to 'Contact Us' page... An extra page has been added to the 'Contact Us' section of the site, which provides a handy reference for contact information for all Club officers and team captains for the new season. The new page can be found via a link at the top of the 'Contact Us' page... 18/02/02 Second XI results for 1996/1995 added to database... Second XI results for the 1996 & 1995 seasons have now also been added to the database and are available via the 'Match Results' link in the left menu. Thanks again go to Roger for taking the time to enter all the results. 05/02/02 Second XI results for 1998/1997 added to database... Second XI results for the 1998 & 1997 seasons have now also been added to the database and are available via the 'Match Results' link in the left menu. Thanks again go to Roger for taking the time to enter all the results. 04/02/02 Second XI results for 2000/1999 added to database... Second XI results for the 2000 & 1999 seasons have now also been added to the database and are available via the 'Match Results' link in the left menu. Thanks again go to Roger for taking the time to enter all the results. 30/01/02 Sponsorship Proposal 2002 now available... It's that time of year again already and our new Sponsorship Proposal for the upcoming 2002 season has now been prepared and is available online for viewing or download. We would appeal to members and friends of the Club alike to make an effort to assist us in securing new sponsors for next season. If you work for, or know of a company which may be interested in supporting our Club, we would appeal that you approach them yourself or, at very least, forward us the details so that we can approach them! An awful lot of work goes into preparing and following up the proposal every year, so assistance is always greatly appreciated. (My advice: print off a copy of our proposal and leave it on the boss' desk and then casually mention that one of your colleagues is so excited about just having joined the Club that you're sick hearing about it. Deflect those suspsicious glances, baby!). Match sponsorship for our minor teams costs just £25 so it does not need not be a terribly expensive excercise but it all adds up very quickly. Bear in mind also, that every penny we raise goes back into our efforts of promoting cricket in East Antrim... 30/01/02 First XI results for 1993 added to database... First XI results for the 1993 season have now also been added to the database and are available via the 'Match Results' link in the left menu. Thanks again go to Roger for taking the time to enter all the results. 29/01/02 Upcoming social events added to calendar... In anticipation of the latest Club Entertainment Programme brochure hitting your doormat, we've added all the upcoming social events to the calendar. From St. Valentine's to St. Patrick's, there's something coming up at the Club to suit all tastes. Events over the Christmas period were enormously popular and well-supported by our members and we very much hope that February/March will prove to be similarly successful! Fiona G, our fantastic Club caterer, continues to provide great value, delicious fayre throughout this period, and our football coverage on the BIG screen remains unrivalled... 28/01/02 Something different- Eagy featured on 'Player Line'... Carrick's favourite son, Ryan Logan Eagleson, is currently featured on CricketIreland's 'Player Lines'. The big lad never takes himself too seriously and, as you might expect, it's great 'craic' and well worth a look! So for Eagy's views on life, love, Irish cricket and 36D boobs(!), head on over to the fine CricketIreland site. 27/01/02 First XI results for 1994 added to database... First XI results for the 1994 season have now also been added to the database and are available via the 'Match Results' link in the left menu. Thanks again go to Roger for taking the time to enter all the results. 21/01/02 New 'Team Averages' feature online... The new 'Team Averages' feature is now online and available here, or via the button in the left menu. This feature will allow you to view an ordered and summarised list of player averages for any given team in any given season. *UPDATED* It was suggested that an 'All Seasons' option be added to this feature. This extra option allows yout to view averages based on all of the players' scores for a given team, in terms of results entered into the database. For players who began playing for a team after the point our results stop, this basically amounts to their career average for that team. It should be noted, however, that the average generated for players who have played for a team for longer than our results go back does not take into account any of their earlier performances and should not be considered a 'true' career average... As ever, if you experience any problems or spot any errors, we would greatly appreciate it if you could email us the details! 14/01/02 First XI results for 1995 added to database... First XI results for the 1995 season have now also been added to the database and are available via the 'Match Results' link in the left menu. Thanks again go to Roger for taking the time to enter all the results. 13/01/02 Final league tables for 1990-2001 now available... An archive of final league tables for every Saturday league Carrickfergus have contested for the last dozen years is now available online. The archive covers all five Saturday teams final league standings from 1990 to last season so you can quickly see how we have faired in recent years. Feel free to browse the archive via the new 'League Tables' link in the left menu... 13/01/02 New links page added... We've thrown together the skeleton of a links page. This feature is still far from complete but, as it was long overdue, we thought we would make a start and add further links as we go along. This page is available via the 'Useful Links' button in the left menu. If you have any suggestions for a relevant link not already featured on the page, please email us the details and we'll endeavour to add the information! 13/01/02 First XI results for 1996 added to database... First XI results for the 1996 season have now also been added to the database and are available via the 'Match Results' link in the left menu. 08/01/02 First XI results for 1997 added to database... First XI results for the 1997 season have now also been added to the database and are available via the 'Match Results' link in the left menu. Thanks again go to Roger for taking the time to enter all the results, (he's on fire at the moment!). 07/01/02 First XI results for 1998 added to database... Another quick note to draw your attention to the fact that all First XI results for the 1998 season have now been added to the database and are available via the 'Match Results' link on the left menu. Thanks go to Roger for taking the time to enter all the results! 01/01/02 First XI results for 1999 added to database... Another quick note to draw your attention to the fact that all First XI results for the 1999 season have now been added to the database and are available via the 'Match Results' link on the left menu. Thanks go to Roger for taking the time to enter all the results!