Pre-Season Begins

18th Jan 2019

Barely two weeks into the New Year the players of South North returned to training in readiness for the coming season. The selected venue was the beach on the sunny sea front of Tynemouth on a very breezy if not so cold Saturday morning. What a hive of activity the beach was, full of dog walkers, boot camp participants’ and of course the hard core body boarders who decided that despite it being the middle of winter, the weather was indeed warm enough to get out there and enjoy some waves.. The players on the other hand were not so keen, they knew that at the conclusion of the upcoming session, half of them would have to embrace the waves as a forfeit for being second throughout the morning’s competition.

The twelve senior players in attendance along with two keen as mustard juniors were due to compete as two teams across a range of fitness based games and activities. The morning was heavily biased more towards fun and enjoyment of course rather than anything specifically cricket based. Indeed much fun was had. The two junior members in attendance Adam Helsby and Bobby Green, were immediately given team captain status and from amongst the group, two teams were selected. Football was popular initially, the blind football which followed proved rather more challenging and needless to say the game ended 0-0 although many of the players didn’t even touch the ball despite being guided by other `sighted` teammates.

The morning came down to a test of courage with the final game revolving around a selected team member having to plank in the breaking waves. The object of the game was stay in there longer than your opponent. The two young team captains, without knowing the purpose of their selection, hastily selected their two most senior players for the final game. John Graham and Adam Cragg entered the water knowing that due to the morning`s games being so closely scored, the first person to yield would see the remainder of their team have to take a dip in the freezing cold North Sea.. It was tense but after approximately 3 seconds of being in the waves the ageing pro John Graham decided he was in fact `too old for this’ much to the amusement of his opposing team members..

It was indeed all good fun! Within seconds of the laughter concluding every man there stripped off and ran into the water – much slower I might add than they ran back out afterwards!!   

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