Glorious sunshine, Sunday July 31st, cricket season still a long way to go, Lancashire in with a great chance of the Championship, could my predictive powers be improving? And England 2 up in the series against India.

            I did say cricket season, but the football teams have just completed their friendly games in preparation for the new season, which kicks off on August 6th. Of course there has been a great deal of interest this pre-season with a new manager in place, lots of new players being looked at and all the supporters asking who has signed on. Have we retained any players from previous seasons, has been a regular question and who will be signing and who won’t. It’s great to see the interest in what’s going on within the club. There is no doubt that the new manager has a difficult task and I believe that patience from everybody will be required, to see how things plan out. I have just being reading an article based on the Championship, and team by team guide. What was very apparent, is that on a number of the guides, the managers of the clubs knew what kind of players they wanted, but also felt they may not acquire them before the season started - and that may be the situation at Pickering, but only time will tell.

            The new Manager, Pete Vasey ex-player at Pickering, no managerial experience at our level of football, but I believe a good choice and his assistants also young men, but with good pedigree for coaching and all seemingly very approachable.

            Although none of them have experience at managing at our level of football, could their background and qualifications be utilised by the club in continuing the improving relationship between the junior and senior sections and at the same time helping the managers of the junior teams.

            Another thought I would like to pose – both the Cricket and Football sections have very active and strong junior sections with many of the players playing both sports, which must be a marvellous asset to the community. I realise that each club is independent, but is there some common ground that can be utilised that will benefit both sections. Something else I noticed from articles in the local press recently, was the success of the cricket teams at Lady Lumley’s. Without taking anything away from the teachers at the school, I wonder if the cricket coaching activities at the Club assisted in that success? Could a closer link with the activities taking place at the Cricket and Football Clubs be developed with the schools in a joint community project? I don’t know whether this is feasible, but is it something that could be investigated. I know this has happened in other areas, with other clubs, where joint community projects have been formed.  

            As readers of my articles will know, I often mention the word Community, and as you know, I believe we have a wonderful social focal point at the Recreation Club – but another issue I have touched on - on more than one occasion, is the need for more playing facilities to cater for all the junior club teams. With all the extra development that is planned for the town, surely the authorities must have some responsibility in assisting local sports clubs with their aims.   

            Well, as mentioned at the beginning, are my predictive powers improving? I doubt it, but my predictions do tend to create talking points, mainly because the teams I predict to do well, do the opposite! So who’s  my tip, outside the top echelon, to do well this season in the Premiership? There could be a number of candidates - Sunderland who have bought a number of players, many with good experience - Everton who did so well in the second half of the season, but who have bought nobody. But no, my tip for a team to create a bit of fun Bolton.

            Speak soon.

Alan Brenkley.