SANDFORD Cricket Club would 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.

Running three teams on a Saturday requires a lot of help from club members, and each team effectively needs either an umpire or scorer, or even both.

With the First and Second XIs playing in the Premier and B Divisions respectively next season, neutral umpires should be appointed for all of their Devon League matches throughout the season, between May and August. However, the Third XI still has to provide an umpire, for H Division matches, where this luxury is not available.

The Club has in effect become a victim of its own success.

The Seconds had their own umpire last year, but following promotion to the B Division, Mike Canning has decided to go onto the Devon League panel instead of dropping down to officiate the Thirds.

If I’m honest this is perfectly understandable, as he is an exceptionally good umpire, and should do well on the Devon panel.

Sandford’s previous Third XI umpire Jerome Davis, jumped ship last year, and joined the Devon League Umpiring panel. He ended up having a very successful season, finishing second in his category of “newcomers”. Well done Jerome.

The issue is, that Sandford has had a very good track record of providing exceptionally good umpires for the Devon League in the past.

Currently the Secretary Paul Smith, is also on the Devon panel, as well as being on the National panel.

Add in Nigel Ashplant who came off the Devon panel last year, myself who retired from umpiring at the end of the 2017 season having been on the Devon and National panel prior to that since 2006.

As well as us “youngsters”, my Father, Bill Matten and previous Club Chairman Derrick Phillips were also Devon panel members many moons ago when Sandford joined the Devon League back in 1983.

So as you can see, Sandford has, and still is, providing Devon Cricket with a number of good umpires for the Devon League.

Regarding scorers, the club is very lucky at present to have three exceptionally good scorers in Alan Carbert (First XI), Nicky Radnor (Second XI) and Louise James (Third XI), all of whom have a tremendous amount of experience in this field of expertise.

All of them have completed many years of service, not only with Sandford but with other clubs as well, but we need new blood to come on the scene, particularly as scoring is moving to computer-based scoring, which hopefully will interest a number of people, including youngsters.

Courses are available for both umpiring and scoring, and the club would be very interested to hear from anyone who may wish to get involved, even if it is on a “suck it and see” basis, to see if it appeals (no pun intended) to anyone.

Umpires and scorers are very much “part of the team”, even if they are not actually on the field of play themselves, and at Sandford we are renowned for looking after our officials.

If you are interested and would like to find out more, please give me a call (Phil Matten 07970 157557), and we can have a chat to let you know what is involved. I look forward to hearing from you.

Phil Matten