NATWEST CRICKET OSCAS 2006

On the 2nd October 2006 I and four colleagues were invited down to Lords for the cricket awards. When we arrived Dave Leighton met us and it was great to see him once again.The day will live long in my memmory as one of the best days out I have ever had. The people who had gone from Shiregreen were Mick Claridge, Pete Mason, Brendan Lowe and Pat Flaherty. We had a guided tour of Lords we were plied with champagne,wine great food and to be in a room full of people who had achieved so much for there cricket clubs was a real honour. The awards ceromony started with Jamie Dalryimple and the England Ladies Captain presenting the awards.Dave Leighton was reading out the nominations for each category and the people nominated had achieved remarkable things for there clubs. Dave then reflected back to this years Cricket Force event and mentioned Shiregreen he then Showed the Dvd where yours trully had a starring role evey time I was on shot I was comming out with my usual qoutations and every time I spoke the audience laughed it was great fun and I havent got a future in then after the dvd was finished Dave wanted to read out a few e-mails he had received after Cricket Force. After 2 e-mails he then read out the third. This e-mail was one I had sent him telling him about my challenge and thanking him for Cricket Force and wether or not Lords would help us with a donation towards this score board I was trying to get for the club. Although I had not mentioned it to anyone at the club as I thought it could be a project for the Cricket Force weekend in 2007. What happened next was unbeleiveable Dave invited me on to the stage and then said about Shiregreens cricket force weekend.That they had recognised a sterling effort put in by the people at Shiregreen and for that we were being presented with an electric scoreboard for our efforts. Knock me down with a feather for once I was speachless this was totally out of the blue. We had gone to this grand event and came away with this wonderful acolade this had to be one of the proudest momments of my life. The chaps that had gone with me were wearing the broadest smiles in the building. I couldnt wait to tell Jane my partner. She said she was proud of me but I was proud for the people of Shiregreen and for the kids of Shiregreen whose marvellous efforts had reaped such a fantastic reward.