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150th Anniversary Events 2009
🏏 Recovered from the old website in 2009
As 2009 sees our 150th Anniversary, we will be organizing some events to mark this special occasion. The events, along with other details will appear here once they are organized.
2009 season 150th Anniversary events including:
Tuesday 17th March – Junior club sponsored walk
Monday 4th May – Invitational “Sixes” Tournament at the Mall
Also on Monday 4th May – Watch out for our Girls Cricket team taking part in the Belfast Marathon!
Friday 19th June – Armagh CC Select vs. Leinster CC Taverner's XI on the Mall
TBC – Armagh CC Over 50’s XI vs. Laurelvale
Wednesday 12th August – Feature match Armagh CC vs. Select XI followed by 150th Anniversary Gala Dinner at Armagh City Hotel
Monday 31st August – Local League “Sixes”
TBC - Armagh Cricket Club will also be publishing a book on the history of the Club. Brian Weir the author is in the process of finishing off the book with it being sent to the printers within the next month or so.
Armagh CC is working together with the Wooden Spoon Charity in their 150th Anniversary Year using the spirit and values of sport to help disadvantaged children in Great Britain and Ireland.
Armagh Cricket Club 1859-2009 150 Not Out
Armagh Cricket Club 150th Anniversary Preview
The glorious weather in the last couple of days serves as a reminder that the new cricket season is only just around the corner, and the 2009 season will surely be a momentous year for Armagh Cricket Club as the Mall-based side celebrate their 150th Anniversary Summer. Only a handful of cricket clubs in Ireland can boast a longer history than Armagh CC and a number of events have been planned to make the sesquicentennial Anniversary a memorable one.
Club President George W. Breakey is serving his third term in the 2009 Anniversary Year and has been delighted to lead the way with some of the plans that the Anniversary committee have been working on through the winter months. The biggest production that the club is involved with in this landmark year is a comprehensive review of the history of Armagh Cricket over the previous 149 years of our existence. Club historian and 1st XI scorer W.B. Weir has been working for a number of years compiling extensive statistics for every player to have represented the 1st XI and making a review of each season of competitive cricket played on The Mall. The 500+ page book, titled “Armagh Cricket Club 150 not out, a story of cricket in an Ulster City” will be released at a date to be confirmed early in the season and will retail at £20.00, a bargain price for an item sure to be of great interest to Armachians both past and present.
The 150th Anniversary Committee are also hosting a Golf Classic to be hosted at Loughgall Country Park on Friday 12th June 2009 before dinner and entertainment that evening back at the Pavilion on the Mall. A four-ball team for the Classic costs £140 which covers green fees, supper and prizes for the players. These events are normally hugely popular with corporate sponsors and local golfers alike and given the excellent standard of the Loughgall Country Park course a high quality of golf can be expected, especially if the sun shines. Prizes for the Golf Classic are being generously sponsored by Tyrone Crystal so will undoubtedly be coveted and keenly contested when the final scores are collated back at the Pavilion on The Mall. The organising committee expect a strong response and for more information about entering the Golf Classic please contact the Pavilion on 02837 523925.
Of course the 150th Anniversary season will have plenty of cricket packed in with the 1st XI eager to make a big improvement on the relegation suffered in 2008. With the NCU rebranding the league names, Armagh do remain in Section Two of the Ulster Bank League but it is the third tier of local cricket for the first time in a generation and the players have been practising hard at the Royal School since late January to make sure that the Anniversary season is memorable for the events on the field as well as everything else that will be happening at the club. Popular Indian overseas player Charu Kulkarni will return to Armagh to captain the side in the 2009 season with wicketkeeper Gareth McCarter as his vice captain. This will be a piece of history in itself as Armagh have never appointed their overseas player as club captain, but the enthusiastic all-rounder from Pune has been keeping more than up-to-date with developments in and around the team. The playing staff might be seeing a few changes in the weeks leading up to the season with long serving players Joe Thornbury and Mark Elliott moving on to new clubs but with Seamus Crowe returning from Dungannon C.C. As with last season, the expectation for runs will fall largely with Colin Russell and Michael Villiers while solid contributions can be expected from Andrew Bratten, Kulkarni and David Bullick. In 2009 the Second XI will be captained by William Carberry, the Third XI by Paul Wilson while Keith Wilson resumes the reins of the 4th XI. Some of the most eagerly anticipated matches in the club this season will undoubtedly be whenever the 3rd XI face the 4th XI with both sides being in Division 3 Section 2 of the Northern Cricket Union, no doubt the selection meetings before those games will be well attended!
Events have already kicked off for the fundraising campaign with the Armagh CC Youth Academy leading the way with a St. Patrick’s Day Sponsored Walk around the Mall. Many of the club’s up-and-coming Under-15 and Under-13 players took part and event co-ordinator Paul Wilson was delighted with the response from the boys. As well as the senior teams Armagh has junior teams from Under-11 through to Under-17 and everyone is more than welcome to attend practices and play. The same invitation goes for any girls and ladies who want to try cricket as the Armagh CC Ladies XI hope to play their first fixtures in 2009 after beginning practices towards the end of the 2008 season. Any interested players can contact Andrea Hamilton or Natalie Wilson at the club to see about joining the team. The girls are being even more energetic in their fundraising as five of the players have entered the Belfast Marathon on Bank Holiday Monday May 4th and are holding a fundraising event in the Pavilion on Saturday 25th April. The girls are hard in training and all support and sponsorship is welcome!
Throughout the 150th Anniversary season, Armagh Cricket Club will be running fundraising events and playing invitational matches with the eventual aim of making a sizeable charity donation at the end of the summer. The club has chosen to nominate the “Wooden Spoon” as their charity of choice for the 2009 season. Wooden Spoon is the children’s charity of the sporting world. For 25 years Spoon has harnessed the spirit and values of sport to give disadvantaged children in Britain and Ireland a chance to achieve their full potential in life. Over this time more than 350 projects have been supported with over £15million given in grants to national and local projects. In Armagh alone both the Longstone Riding for the Disabled School and the Oaklands Respite and Assessment Unit have been supported in the past couple of years making the Wooden Spoon a National Charity that makes a difference at the local level and more than worthy of our support in our Anniversary year. If you wish to organise a charity fixture on the Mall, contact Keith Wilson at the Pavilion on 02837 523925.
Naturally cricket will form some of the main events in the Anniversary season with a couple of big matches being planned throughout the summer. The first of these events will hopefully be a great success and a fantastic spectacle, namely the Invitational Sixes Tournament on Bank Holiday Monday May 4th when 8 teams from across Sections 1 and 2 of the NCU First Division will play a 6-a-side tournament on the Mall for a cash prize and souvenir trophy. Several teams for the event have already been confirmed and more information on the competition format will follow after the Easter break.
Club President G.W. Breakey will be hosting his associates from Dublin’s Leinster C.C. when the Leinster Taverners XI takes on an Armagh Presidents XI on the Mall on the evening of Friday 19th June. While the participants action on the field may have slowed down ever so slightly with the passing years, the banter around the ground and in the Pavilion après match will surely more than make up for it. Similarly, after the hugely successful Jim Scott memorial fixture last season, an Armagh over-50’s side will take on their experienced counterparts from Laurelvale CC in a match sure to renew old rivalries and be a tremendous sporting spectacle. The date for that derby fixture is still to be confirmed.
The club intend to launch a souvenir brochure for the 150th Anniversary containing the summer fixtures, the Anniversary events plus some features and articles to boot. Representatives of the Club are in the process of seeking advertising from local businesses for this brochure with all support greatly appreciated. Individuals are also more than welcome to contribute with every donation being recorded and adding to our end of summer donation to the Wooden Spoon Society. Contact club secretary Ryan McCarter for more details about the brochure.
The focal point of the Anniversary seasons events though is sure to be Wednesday 12th August when the Mall hosts a feature match between an Armagh Presidents Select XI and a KUKRI All-Stars Select before the Armagh City Hotel hosts the Armagh Cricket Club 150th Anniversary Gala Dinner. The identity of the feature match teams is a closely guarded secret at present but there will certainly be a few high profile sporting stars taking part on both teams. Armagh C.C. are grateful to their technical suppliers KUKRI Sports for providing unique sponsored jerseys for the fixture as well as their support over the last two years and into the future. As well as the venue for the Gala Dinner, the speaker for the event has been confirmed as Geoff Miller, former England cricketer and currently head of the England National selection panel. Geoff played for Derbyshire and Essex as well as England in a distinguished playing career and is now a popular and successful after dinner speaker mixing his dry Northern wit with the numerous anecdotes and stories that come from a life in cricket. The Gala Dinner is sure to be a memorable formal occasion and tickets priced at £50 will be available shortly.
Clearly the 2009 season is going to be one of the action packed years in the long history of Armagh Cricket Club with plenty of events on and off the field to keep members, friends and guests of all ages busy. For more information on any of the events planned in Armagh Cricket Club’s 150th Anniversary Summer you can get in touch with any committee member.
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