Christmas Party Produces the Best of British
Dec 18th: The CPCC faithful gathered in the Youth Club on Saturday night for the Club’s annual Christmas Dinner. As usual, the fancy dress theme (this year all things British to celebrate an Ashes year) was well embraced with the following characters represented:
Thomas the Tank Engine - Tom Carden
King Brendo - Brenden Ball (winner male category)
King Bor - Rob Minnett
Winston Churchill - Col Huxley
Alice in Wonderland - Jocelyn Huxley
Mr Bean - Dom Wheeler
Robin Hood - Dave Gilkes
Maid Marion - Amber Gilkes
Sid Vicious - Pete Henriksen
Harry Potter - Dave Bennetts
Spice Girls - The Albaneses & Fudalis (winner Steve Albanese - female category)

The Luke & Camo Trivia Show entertained as usual, the Kebabs were a hit and both Junior and Senior sections of the Club were well represented. Photo gallery to be posted soon.

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It’s All About Partnerships - Update

The feats of 4th Grade’s Nick Beaton & Jack Fox in Round 2 prompted an article on Club partnerships and records. For the first time since the early 90’s, there was cause to start an investigation into what is the Club’s record partnership. Since then, Beato and Jack Fox have been at it again putting on 211 for the 4th wicket in round 7, just prior to Christmas. Then in the first game of 2011 a lightning bolt came from 4th Grade when Ewen Chung and Blake Conde stunned all with a 254 run opening partnership in a 35 over one day game. Chung scored 150 whilst Conde was out in the nineties. Click here for original article.

Highest Senior Partnership records since the introduction of MyCricket in 2006/07:
1. 254 - Chung/Conde 1st wicket, 4th Grade 2010/11
2. 228 - Beaton/Fox 1st wicket, 5th Grade 2010/11
3. 218 - Moss/Henriksen 2nd wicket, 1st Grade 2007/08
4. 212 - Beaton/Fox 4th wicket, 5th Grade 2010/11
5. 211 - Porter-Dening/Wheeler 3rd wicket, 7th Grade 2008/09

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WHOSE YA DADDY?
1ST GRADE LEAD TOWERS’ CHALLENGE FOR CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP


Dan Peters blazes away at Harbord Bowling’s Dan Venables during round 5’s 1st Grade clash at Nolans

CPCC’s First Grade ‘Dads Army’ completed an emphatic victory over competition leaders and defending Premiers Harbord Bowling at Nolans 1 on Saturday. Chasing Harbord’s 199, CPCC cruised to victory at tea on day two. Dan Peters and Dave Bennett’s sixty run opening stand in only ten overs was followed up by a partnership of almost 100 by Rob Minnett (60) and Anthony Papandrea (30). The result, coupled with wins in 3rd, 4th and 5th Grade over Bowling and a 6th grade outright win over Wakehurst brought CPCC right in to contention for the Club Championship last won by the Club back in 1961/62. The firsts comprise five Masters eligible players (40+) prompting the predictable jokes from more youthful opposition however the Towers are once again making a strong run at playing finals cricket being 2nd on the table going into their bye round.

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Cricketers - 2nd Class Citizens? by Col Huxley, Oct 2010

On the opening Saturday of each new season, without fail Manly Warringah’s local cricketers encounter sub-standard pitch and ground conditions. In many cases the facilities are not fit for play, and require significant work by players to remove sand from pitches and fill holes in the outfield. Unfortunately, conditions never get much better throughout the season and can in fact get worse as repair work on the damage from winter codes is conducted during summer. What we experience can be attributed to several factors; lack of Council resources, lack of understanding by Council of cricketers needs and finally just plain and simple lack of care.

The concept of ‘User-Pays’ inevitably comes up whenever the issue of Sportsfield condition is discussed. It is acknowledged that Councils have limited resources for Sportsfield maintenance and improvement, and these resources are under increasing demand. I am not against the concept to a degree but will argue that the current resources are neither distributed equitably, efficiently or effectively. Council’s maintenance resources are primarily focussed on repair of grounds from damage inflicted by football codes in order to prepare them for the next winter. This work occurs in the middle of cricket’s season resulting in us putting up with thick top dressing, big kikuyu sods blocking the outfield and the sprinklers coming on during our games. If User Pays is the answer to better grounds then those codes that cost Council more should pay more. Cricket has already taken the initiative in order to get some control and improvement in our facilities by imposing a ground improvement levy. The junior and senior associations then use these funds to replace old pitches. This Club contributes by performing basic maintenance on the nets, pitch and outfield at our home ground, Plateau Park. The development of strong, well resourced Clubs with adopted home grounds and working in conjunction/liaison with local Councils is probably the most effective way forward for improving facilities. Councils just need to be more willing to let Clubs do their thing and not block them with bureaucracy.

In our experience Warringah is the best performing Council in terms of providing and maintaining cricket grounds. They appear to have a fortnightly mowing schedule and are relatively responsive to most requests for basic maintenance or repair. The records of Manly and in particular Pittwater Council are poor and it appears their policy on ground maintenance is to “let nature take it’s course”. Lake Park, Kitchener and Jackson’s Rd grounds are lucky to be mowed once a month in summer. The outfield at Lake Park is nothing more than tufts of crabgrass (unmowed of course) and the pitch is surrounded by a sand pit. Soccer is allowed to play on Jackson’s Rd until Christmas meaning the grass does not start to recover till then and soccer posts compromise standard boundary sizes for cricket. This is despite the Manly Warringah Junior Cricket Association contributing the funds to build here arguably the best hard cricket pitch in the district. Both Lake Park and Jackson’s Rd should be two of the best grounds we have. Pittwater don’t contribute any turf pitches, have expensive aquatic centres or national rugby league grounds to maintain or netball mega-complexs to build. The irony is, Pittwater Council is the first of these Council’s to move towards a user pay system and first experiences are that their grounds have become worse. As far as Manly Council is concerned, it is rare to arrive at Kierle Park mid-summer and not be up to your ankles in grass and clover.

The needs of Cricketers are fairly straight forward. The majority of the game is played on the pitch, and on the grass within a twenty metre radius of the pitch therefore this area should be the focus of all maintenance for cricket. To achieve this the following is required:
- The concrete pitch is flat, level and provides an even bounce
- The artificial grass surface is not torn or vandalised and is as clean of sand and dirt as possible
- Bowlers run-ups and approaches to the pitch are level and firm
- Creases are marked in white paint
- The playing surface within a 20 metre radius of the pitch has good grass (all the way to the edge of the pitch), is kept cut and free from holes and undulations
- The remaining outfield is grassed as best as possible, is free from holes & other hazards
Apart from repairing vandalism and replacing the odd concrete pitch at the rate of about two per decade, little if any of Council’s maintenance and repair work is directed to achieving this. At the start of the season, contractors remove the dirt covering the pitches during winter. Their performance in this task is atrocious with sand and dirt still covering the pitch when we turn up to play. On one occasion we found the astro turf torn to bits by the bulldozer and left without a word said! A one to two metre sand pit also surrounds the pitch resulting in sand and dirt washing over the pitch every time it rains and players walking it on during games. This quickly ruins a $40 cricket ball increasing costs to clubs and degrading the cricket experience. If putting up with a sand-papered ball isn’t enough, bowlers often have to run through a sand pit before stepping up onto the pitch to deliver the ball. These areas quickly erode into hazardous holes and pits.

Cricketers gain little and lose much from the seasonal repair work conducted by Council contractors. Goal mouth re-sodding with Kikuyu only creates ‘ground under repair’ areas in our outfields. In the past contractors have excavated the hole for new turf to be laid only to leave them bare for several weeks before they got around to laying the grass. Couch grass has a better chance of surviving the hardships of winter and is more drought resistant but Councils appear to be reluctant to pay the little bit more for a longer term benefit. The condition of couch grass grounds such as St Mathews Farm and Jacksons Rd (prior to this season) are evidence of this. Then we have the constant battle with Council over the timing of the sprinklers as they invariably come on during trainings and at crucial moments in our Saturday matches. As most of our game is not played on this area we do not benefit much from the eventual improvement to the playing surface. Some of this re-sodding budget should be given to cricket with the area around the pitch done early in the season to remove the sand pits. If shortening the cricket season to give Councils a 3-4 week window in September to conduct all maintenance and re-turfing is feasible then this may be a solution.

Historically, local cricketers have been poor in voicing their dissatisfaction to local Councils and unmotivated in doing anything about it. Part of this has been general apathy, particularly at the cricket Association level. This is changing with action taken such as the ground levy resulting in several new pitches being laid at Nolans this season. We are happy to pay a bit more if we can see a direct return for our money. We will not be happy to pay more, particularly the same as winter codes, only to see the current focus on ground maintenance stay firmly fixed on using summer as a time to get the grounds ready again for winter sports.

To summarise, these are the main points we need to communicate to Council
- Annual re-turfing to include the area surrounding pitches
- All re-turfing work to be done in September
- Contractors to be better managed and work inspected prior to season start
- Developed Clubs to be given more power to undertake home ground improvements
- Couch grass to be used (harder wearing & drought resistant compared to Kikuyu)

Click here for photo gallery of some of the best moments in local cricket ground preparation & maintenance

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Chasing ‘The Don’ Oct 2010, by Col Huxley
For as long as I can remember, a CPCC Annual Report has always been on hand in the Huxley house. As a boy, it was the names I recall best. I would marvel at Vic Huxley’s marathon stint as treasurer, the name listed 24 consecutive times representing an eternity (now I marvel at how quickly the seasons pass), and the legacy of Bruce Shearer. One name in these reports however always stood out - Don Leech. The Plateau’s own ‘Don’ held the record for ‘Most Runs’ and for years this record stood as a beacon to young players. Don also had 400 wickets establishing him as the Club’s top all-rounder. Rob Minnett surpassed ‘The Don’ in the late 90’s for most career runs on his way to ten thousand. I’m honoured to be within a fraction of finally passing Don in both categories. Incredibly, I have the opportunity of doing it in the one game. After all these years and matches what are the chances I could reach both milestones at the same time? Whatever or however it happens, it will be with a touch of regret that I do so after 30 years of chasing. It’s only right to take this moment to pause and remember Don Leech, a great player, Clubman and above all a great bloke.

Don Leech 1957/58 - 1980/81
Played: 22 seasons
Matches 279
Runs: 5403
Avg: 17.95
Centuries: 2
Fifties: 23
Wickets: 413
Avg: 15.93
5 wkts: 11
Best: 7 for 61

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A Ton of Tons!


6th Grade’s Matt Terry brings up the first of his two tons for the season so far. Coaching in this grade now focussed on setting up stumps correctly.

Season 2010/11 is fast turning into the ‘Season of the Centurion’. Up to the start of round 4, CPCC senior batsmen have scored nine centuries with two players, 6th Grade’s Matt Terry and 5th Grade’s Nick Beaton scoring back-to-back tons. To put it in perspective, seven tons were scored in total during the 09/10 season. The Centurions to-date are:
2nd Grade - Steve Albanese, Sam Marsh
5th Grade - Nick Beaton x 2, Jack Fox
6th Grade - Matt Terry x 2, Angas MacKenzie x 2
The total could be higher. 3rd Grade’s Andrew Davis was out LBW for 97 and there have been several scores in the eighties. Not to be outdone, bowlers have also come up with some big stats. 2nd Grade’s Mick Mackin is off to a flyer with 2x ‘six fors’ (our bowling equivalent of a century) as well as a ten wickets in a match haul. 4th Grade’s Ewen Chung took an amazing 8 for 36 off only 5 overs last Saturday.

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KOOKA CUP KINGS


Canberra Oct 2: CPCC’s U12 Kookaburra Cup squad have been crowned 2010 champions after winning all four of their T20 competition matches in Canberra last week. The wins included a Final victory over Camden where CPCC chased down the 90 run total without losing a wicket. CPCC fielded 3 teams in the annual competition with the other teams all competing well. The U12 squad was: Joel Woods, Alex Bain, Nick Marsh, Aaron Stevens, Matthew Lawson, Isaiah Vumbaca, Ellis Raymond, Harry Brock and Tully Moffat, Coaches Daryl Stevens & Ian Raymond.

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It’s All About Partnerships! - Update

Nick Beaton and Jack Fox’s 228 run opening stand for 5th Grade in Round 2 has started a quest to establish records in that most valuable of batting categories - partnerships. As Tony Grieg has said more than once “It’s orl abort Portnorshups” but unfortunately it is not something that the club has had the capacity to record accurately until the recent introduction of the MyCricket system. With regards to opening partnerships, we do know that Dave Quarford and Garry McDonald put on a 200 run stand in the first game of the season in the early nineties with both players scoring tons. Freddy believes the stand was 204 or 205. What is even more remarkable is that these two openers almost repeated the feat the following year. Whilst amazingly they both opened and scored tons again, McDonald was the faster scorer and dismissed when the partnership was around 150. This unearths another interesting stat of players who have scored tons in the opening round. Whilst that in itself is not so remarkable given the lightning fast outfields and out of shape bowlers, doing it twice is a bit special. Known fast starters are Quarford and McDonald as mentioned, and Rob Van Dam also joins this elite group. All achieved the feat in A1s.

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SWEEP FOR 6!
CPCC’s 56th season is underway in the best fashion possible with all 6 teams winning in round 1. It is believed that this is the first clean sweep ever for CPCC in the opening round, and the first true sweep (6 victories by playing result) for 6 grades. At Vic Huxley Oval, 1st grade chased down Belrose’s 180 total in style losing only 4 wickets, Anthony Papandrea’s 60 being the highlight and Dan Peters capping a fine match with 43. 3rd Grade’s result was much closer however with 4 wickets to Brenden Ball and good support from Andrew Davis and Jeff Porter-Dening seeing the 260 total defended. 4th Grade completed their run chase and so did the 5ths with Nick Beaton scoring a big ton in their 200 chase.

The standout results were the outright wins to 2nd & 6th Grade. McDermott’s men easily turned their week 1 seven points into ten with Mackin, Fudali and Nick Armstrong taking the wickets. 6th Grade skipper Angas MacKenzie’s 100 turned a close run first innings win into a crushing outright.

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SEASON START 2010/11

CPCC’s 57th season gets underway with 6 teams entered in all 6 grades. Rob Minnett will lead the “The Pride of the Plateau’ 1sts onto Vic Huxley Oval, play starts at 1pm. Daz McDermott takes on the challenge of 2nds at Lionel Hutz whilst Dom Wheeler heads CPCC’s ‘Young Guns’ into the next stage of their development in 3rds at Balgowlah Oval. The remaining 3 grades see Blake Conde’s 4ths at Lake Park, Doug Wiles takes over from Adam Peacock with 5ths at Dee Why and Angas MacKenzie captains the 6th grade Development team at Warriewood. Best of luck to all Captains and players for what promises to be another big season.

55th Annual General Meeting
7:30pm, Friday August 6th, 2010

Collaroy Plateau Youth Club
Blandford St, Collaroy Plateau

Notice is hereby given of the 55th AGM of the Collaroy Plateau Cricket Club.

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The Battle Of Collaroy Plateau
We Want Our Suburb Back!

Plateau residents are waging war on the bureaucratic nonsense that has apparently cost Collaroy Plateau it’s status of ‘suburb’. The Manly Daily has recently been reporting on the revelation that Collaroy Plateau is officially an ‘urban location’, not a suburb. The Plateau and Wheeler Heights are now part of the suburb Collaroy 2097 with both suburbs losing their suburban status as a result of ‘public consultation’ back in 2002.

‘Public Consultation’ is a term bandied about a lot by Public and Private organisations alike. We’d like to know just who Council consulted back in 2002 to base this ridiculous decision on as it certainly wasn’t us. We suspect it was the bloke at the next workstation down there in the chambers in Dee Why whose parents used to live up on the Plateau. Or perhaps it was like PIPE International’s way of community consultation before tearing up Plateau Park - half a kilo of sausages, a loaf of bread and a mention to two men and a dog about a free BBQ one day!

Anyone with a hint of knowledge about the area understands that Collaroy and Collaroy Plateau are distinctly two different areas, and different again from Wheeler Heights. Make the mistake of thinking that catching a bus to Collaroy will get you close enough to walk to a location on Collaroy Plateau and you are in for a rude shock (as I’ve seen on the face of a number of people staring up Alexander St from Pittwater Rd!) Ask any Plateau Pioneer about where they believe they live and there will be no confusion between Collaroy & Collaroy Plateau. Hauling building supplies along the dirt track up the escarpment and onto the Plateau was akin to an expedition into new Territories. The geographical definition of Collaroy Plateau is the most obvious example of why the area is clearly separate from surrounding areas.

Collaroy Plateau has developed post war like most new suburban areas. In the fifties, local community institutions such as The Collaroy Plateau Primary School and Collaroy Plateau Cricket Club were established. No-one associated with the early years of the Cricket Club were ever confused about whether it should just be the C.C.C. And then there is the War Veterans Home. Residents of Collaroy Plateau are proud and honoured that this village exists within our suburb. The Anzac Day convoy of taxis weaving its way across the Plateau transporting our Diggers to the march in the city is both a unique and moving event.

These things and more define life on Collaroy Plateau. Like the sign on the front of the L80 bus says, Collaroy Plateau is the destination and there’s no thought that it’s going anywhere else.

Ten Reasons Why Collaroy Plateau Should be a Suburb!
- The L80
- The Escarpment
- Alexander St
- The Water Tower
- The War Veterans Home
- The Anzac Day Taxi Convoy
- The Olympic Torch Relay
- The Collaroy Plateau Cricket Club
- Plateau Park (Vic Huxley Oval) - ‘The Home of Cricket’
- Collaroy Plateau Primary School

Plateau Fine Meats, Augusta Shops in Veterans Parade are collecting signatures on a petition to have Collaroy Plateau’s suburban status re-instated.

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JPD WINS THE SHEARER



Brookvale Hotel, 7 May 2010: Jeff Porter-Dening crowned a great year for the Seventh’s by taking out the Club’s most prestigious award at the recent senior Presentation Night. Jeff’s 913 points was good enough to take the Bruce Shearer Memorial Trophy from Fourth Grade’s Matt Moore. The list of Major Award winners on the night was:

• Bruce Shearer (Best Senior Player on Point Score) - Jeff Porter-Dening
• Randolph Beddows (Best 1st Grade Player on Point Score) - Jason Haithwaite
• B & B Moore (Clubman) - Rob Van Dam
• Warwick Armstrong (Most Catches) - Darren McDermott
• John Jackson (Touring Player’s Player) - Tied, Dean Storey/Toby Horstead
• Frank Huxley (Touring Best Player points) - Nathan Storey

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Silverware for Sevenths!

Sunday 28 March, David Thomas 2: CPCC’s 7th Grade team have captured the Premiership after a tough victory over Balgowlah GC. Led by Dom Wheeler, the 7ths dug deep to post a 240 total on day one. Before Saturday was out, they had sunk the first dagger into the opposition by claiming a wicket in the last over. Regular breakthroughs kept Balgowlah behind and at 5 for 100 things looked good. A couple of strong partnerships kept the opposition in the hunt however Mitch Curran closed the deal with 2 wickets in consecutive balls to clinch the title, Balgowlah all out for 180. It was a great result for the development team given the majority of the squad has come from the 16/17’s and Under 15 junior teams.

CPCC’s other Grand Final participants, Adam Peacock’s 5th Grade were unable to keep a lid on Harbord Diggers’ innings as they amassed 300. Scores of 48 to Andrew Graham and Stuart Forbes had the 5ths off to a good start however it fell away quickly with the team all out for 180.

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PLAYERS REQUIRED
Seniors / Masters / Juniors

info@collaroyplateaucc.org.au
or call Col on 0407 246 069

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