Skipper’s Message for the upcoming season
I hope that you are all eagerly awaiting a positive turn in the weather so that we can finally say goodbye to the winter and get the cricket season going. As I was pondering the coming months, I thought it would help all the players and the Club in general, if I shared with you my views as first team captain for the season ahead.
On the Field
- Our club does not belong in the BCF second division and relegation last year was painful. So a clear and overriding objective for 2013 has to be that we win promotion and regain our top-tier status in the Belgian League. We already know the fixtures and we must focus our energy and training on winning those games. Additionally, we have performed well in the T20 competition reaching the finals day in 2011 and 2012, but we have yet to taste glory. For me, our priority must be promotion but a second objective must also be to reach the finals day again and once we get to that day, we all know in T20 cricket anything can happen.
- This summer, Ben Embleton will still be with us, and Ben has agreed to drive the training process on Tuesday (Club night) and Thursday (1st team night) and we must all strive to benefit from Ben’s experience whilst he is in Luxembourg. He has proved with the his training activities last year that focused effort can produce real results as we saw when the U18s beat both Belgium and France last August.
- Connected to this, we are now lucky that several of the ‘Senior Juniors’ are graduating up to Adult level. We are making all efforts now to ensure that as many as possible of these promising players are registered to play in the BCF and we will be seeking to integrate them into first team activity when possible. I expect their contributions to be very positive and particularly to drive improvements in our fielding and attendance at training.
- As a Club, we are committing two different sides to the LCF league process to give plenty of opportunity for people to play, and we have an interesting stream of club friendliest against visitors throughout the summer. And of course, we will be staging the 6-a-side tournament again on July 6th/7th so get your teams ready for that.
- In summary, on the field there is a lot to focus on, to train for and to be involved in so let’s all commit as much as we can to making the 2013 season one that we can look back on with pride.
Off the Field
- We all know that we are lucky to have such an excellent pitch in Walferdange. But it requires ‘true loving care’ and this work starts this weekend and will continue throughout the season. So whatever level of cricket you play, please support the Club’s efforts to maintain and improve our facilities whenever you can.
- Over the winter, we have improved the Club’s logo and set up a new ‘Club shop’ using a service provider from the UK and I encourage you all to see what is on offer by following this link http://www.seriouscricket.co.uk/shop/section.php/1222/0 There is a range of clothing on offer including new club shirts which I hope all first team players will take pride in wearing.
- The continued cooperation with the Luxembourg Cricket Federation and the Commune in Walferdange is often forgotten but remains a key focus of our off the field activities.
- And finally, we continue to support the development of junior cricket at the various age groups with over 90 regularly playing members benefitting from the process and the annual Cricket Academy.
All of this means that there is much to look forward to this summer and personally I look forward to seeing you all at some point as we continue to take the Optimists Club forward together.
Joost Mees