St Boswells’ anniversary plans bowled out

The news hasn’t come as a surprise to those at The Green, especially after Cricket Scotland took the decision, for health and safety reasons, to extend the suspension of cup and club cricket in Scotland beyond the beginning of this month.

“All games under Cricket Scotland jurisdiction are banned till at least August 1,” explained Richard Young, of St Boswells CC.

“But we are still hopeful we may can get a few socially distanced Border friendlies in August.”

These contests, if they go ahead, may provide some small consolation to the club for being deprived of the chance to enjoy a landmark date in its history.

A game had been due to take place recently between the current St Boswells squad and a St Boswells Legends XI.

Peter Glover, a title-winning captain from 1983, was set to don the whites again and assemble a team of ‘old’ players to challenge the current XI – which is captained by his son Jamie.

A 125th Celebration Night and Dinner Dance had also been scheduled for September in the Buccleuch Arms.

Mr Young had predicted a few weeks ago that the celebrations may have to be shelved, saying: “It would be a fair statement to say we are not confident of getting any cricket played this year, or any of the celebrations in – anything would be a bonus. Most likely is that we’ll celebrate in fine fashion our 126th anniversary next year and rearrange everything then.”

Mr Young also said recently that, by the time the season finished, normally at the end of August, there was always a rush to get work done on the square and wicket before the grass stopped growing.

“So, as soon as the season is called off, we are going to make a big effort to take advantage of the extra summer growing months and do a lot more wicket work than usual,” he said. Work would depend on when it was allowed and social distancing would be observed.

“We’re also going to continue the work on the refurbishment of the club house and ground, which we started in the first week of March and was then stopped.”