On Sunday 8th November 2020, Cricketers as far south as Milton Keynes and as far north as Coalville settled down to the Fleckney Village CC end of season AGM/Awards evening..
1st Team Player of the Year
Mark Harris
A steady bowler in his 4th season at the club and fast approaching 100 wickets in this time - 95 not out at the minute - in 2020, Mark achieved the best bowling figures for the season (4-21 in the victory against University of Leicester Staff) and was the most economical bowler across the season - going at 2.48 runs per over, with a measily average of 9.63. He held the bat occassionally but we tend to gloss over this.. He is a man who walks off after each over, shakes his head at the skipper, and says "I'm knackered mate..." Yet he returns the next over and does it again..
2nd Team Player of the Year
Young Sam Hill - it's unlikely that Sam will ever not be referred to as "Young Sam Hill" as I am sure we will always see him as that 13yr old who stood up to the barrage at Wakerley and Barrowden - 20 overs batting against the best attack we faced as he helped us recover to 102/9. Very often Sam had to bowl against batters who were "teeing off" so an economy rate of less than 6 is a superb return - only 3 wickets but that would be closer to 10 if we could actually catch occassionally.. With both Bat and Ball, Sam stood up and gave his all, often when we were facing better opponents and more experienced team mates had already under-performed...
Sunday Player of the Year
Andrew "Andy" Holmes, plays for as many clubs as want him... Stony Stratford, Leicestershire, Wendover, Stoke Bruerne, and Shenley Church End - just kidding... he's too good for the county...
368 runs in 9 knocks, with 5 of them ending in fifties, it was no surprise that he topped the batting averages with a cool 73.60 and he even took a wicket - although it was a child who had never seen that bowling action before - he bowls of the wrong foot, and normally delivers it on the wrong square, but it's his batting that we need and boy did he deliver.
Midweek Player of the Year
2020 wasn't a particually great year for the world, but it did give us Yakesh Sachdev, new to the club for this season, alongside some promising Sunday displays he also delivered in midweek - leading run scorer with 76 runs and pitched in with some wickets too - he always impressed in the weekly matches away at Great Glen.. The big thing which Yakesh was the attitude - everything done with a positive spin, always friendly, always encouraging - doing exactly what a great clubman does.
Young Player(s) of the Year
Yep, that's correct, our youth system is flourishing enough to mean that TWO players were neck and neck for this award so the decision was taken for both the boys to get the award. Sam Hill has been waxed lyrically about in the 2nd team player of the year space and is the first to take this award, alongside Ben O'Reilly. Both Ben and Sam have taken massive strides forward this year under the careful tutorlidge of the coaches from Tom Flowers, and it's great to see. Ben picked up 4 wickets, but remember this was often massively impacted by the fielders in-ability to hold onto a moving cricket ball
Clubman of the Year
The award for the person who can't actually play Cricket but does a lot of admin work behind the scenes - normally the Chris Walsh award but someone else has jumped forward.. James Sheath gets that win this year - we will forget his match winning 32* and 3-0 off 6 balls against Ashby Carington and his solid contributions as back up midweek captain. We will focus on his work as Fixture Secretary, Social Media manager, Website designer and writer of blogs.. He also got Andy Holmes into the club..
