COLWYN BAY PREPARES FOR CLUB AND COUNTY CALLS

Date: 16th March 2015

A Paul Edwards copyright exclusive for L&DCC Official Website.

....two broad goals.

Rather like a few other clubs in the Med Imaging Liverpool Competition and elsewhere, Colwyn Bay’s preparations for the new season have two broad goals.

On the one hand, the Penrhyn Avenue club wants to make sure that their own teams are ready to play league cricket in a little over a month’s time; on the other, they are keen to ensure that their ground and infrastructure are ready to host the four-day LV= Division Two game against Lancashire, which is due to start on Sunday, July 19th.

So maybe it is no surprise that members of the club’s hierarchy were gathered in the pavilion on a Monday morning in mid-March or that the builders outside were laying the foundations for the new wall that is required on the Penrhyn Ave side of the ground.

“We generally have a good crowd for the county game and especially so when Lancashire come down, so we’re looking for 3-4000 attendance at least on the Sunday,” said club secretary Steve Walburn. “There’s a tremendous following for Lancashire in this area and we’re not that far from Old Trafford itself. It’s one of the best fixtures we could get.”

Of course, Colwyn Bay’s attempts to attract spectators and sell hospitality packages are not harmed by the attractively-tiered green slope that lies on opposite side of the ground from Penrhyn Ave.

Indeed, some might argue that the club is the envy of millions of people in the Western economies at the moment: their bank is conveniently situated and it makes money for them.

However, while the preparations for Glamorgan’s visit are progressing very smoothly, the business of the cricket club has not been forgotten.

Walburn reports that new skipper Sion Morris “seems to have galvanised the troops pretty well” and that the first team is gearing up for an attempt to win promotion to the Premier League.

“We’ve got new young cricket members on our committee and we’re looking forward to the season,” he said. “Jordan Evans is returning to us from Bootle from and Mike Littler is joining from Northop Hall as our new wicketkeeper.”

Also returning to the Welsh club will be overseas professional Samad Falleh, who took 56 league wickets at 11.44 apiece in 2014 and has taken his good form into Indian domestic cricket for Maharashtra

“The objective is promotion,” agreed Walburn. “We started off with hopes that we might go up in 2014 and it didn’t quite work out but there’s plenty of optimism that we might get to the top of the division this time around.”

Hospitality packages in the marquee on the bank at Colwyn Bay cost £57 per head, and are priced at £48 apiece in the tea pavilion. Anyone interested in discussing these opportunities is invited to contact Steve Walburn on 07740-239-358