Please see information regarding  Davids funeral later this week.

This is to let you know that  I vacate the position of WDCU Administrator on 28th February 2023. Unfortunately my health and other family commitments mean I no longer have the time to commit to the role. I would like to thank all of you who helped and supported me during my 5 years in post. It is very much appreciated.

The WDCU is reviewing the role and an announcement regarding the future of administration support for clubs in the west of Scotland will follow shortly.

Iain Kennedy

WDCU Administrator

Please see notice below from West of Scotland CC

GROUNDSMAN FOR WEST OF SCOTLAND CRICKET CLUB

West of Scotland Cricket Club, based in Partick, require a groundsman for season 2023 to prepare wickets, cut outfield and surrounds. 35 hours per week Monday to Sunday starting at the end of March. If necessary, training on wicket preparation can be provided.  In addition, part time hours will be available from February on an agreed basis.

Please email CV and references with evidence of past groundwork experience to secretary@woscc.co.uk

Please see note below from Zarak Ahad from East Renfrewshire CC regarding indoor pre season nets. Please contact him directly should you wish to take advantage of this.

Please see below a notice of the death of Davie  Barr from Renfrew CC. A wonderful servant to cricket in the West of Scotland. He will be greatly missed by his family and friends and the very many people who knew him.

DAVID BRUCE BARR 15.01.1931 – 31.01.2023

David Bruce Barr was born on 15 ^th January 1931, in Kinning Park, Glasgow, just a short distance from the home of his beloved Rangers.

David played football from the day he was born, playing for the school and army amateur teams, and also trained with Partick Thistle for one year, but like so many youngsters, then and now, he dreamed of pulling on the famous light blue jersey.

Sadly, this wasn’t to be.

This did not deter young David and his love of sport was undiminished.

He worked with the Glasgow Corporation Youth Clubs as a leader, and obtained certificates in football and table tennis.

He also worked as a youth leader in football and table tennis for ten years at Garthamlock, Castlemilk and Bridgeton Y.C. clubs.

He was the Leader in charge of an inter-exchange group to Bavaria and was responsible for the welfare of 40 teenage boys and girls in Munich, Erlangen and Forcheir (Germany) and Brugges (Belgium).

David was also a member of the L.M.S. Rovers boxing club aged 12 and participated in the churches’ badminton league as an adult.

But when David discovered cricket he became captivated and so began a long love affair with a sport that he gave so much to and gave so much joy and pleasure to him.

He played for and gave great service to Cartha Cricket Club, Babcock & Wilcox Cricket Club which then became Renfrew Cricket Club as an accomplished seam bowler and middle order batter. David continued playing cricket well into his eighties, still demonstrating how he would bowl left and right arm.

David also had a spell coaching at Ferguslie Cricket club at a time when he had many children take up the game from his village of Inchinnan, with quite a few going on to play representative cricket.

He also freely gave his time to assisting the West District Cricket Union and The Scottish Cricket Union’s (as Cricket Scotland was known back then) various coaching initiatives as a qualified SCU Staff Coach.

There was many a time when David would turn up with another idea of developing coaching practices particularly in making/ inventing coaching aids.

On top of this, David was a founder member of the Babcock and Wilcox Charity Committee and Stars for Spastics organisation, was involved with coaching and supervising youngsters for over 60 years.

Away from the sporting arena, David spent a lot of time at numerous dance clubs indulging his passion for ballroom dancing and attributed this, along with a good sense of humour, to his continued good health in his later years.

He was a father of four children and grand-father to seven grand-children, and a number of great grand-children. Family was important to David and he loved the time he spent with them.

Sadly, only a short number of days after his 92^nd birthday, David suffered a stroke and was admitted to the Royal Alexandria Hospital in Paisley and, unfortunately, passed away in the early hours of Tuesday 31^st January.

David will be greatly missed by both his family and his cricket family and will be remembered with great fondness.

David once said that when someone dies a library burns down. This is so true, and we never grew tired of his stories and how he always had time to speak to all the people he met, who were captivated by his knowledge and enthusiasm.

David’s funeral will take place at the Woodside Crematorium, Paisley at 2.30pm on Friday the 17^th of February.

Please see below message of thanks from the Hampden Collection group.

The Hampden Collection would like to place on record our thanks to the Cricket Clubs of the Western District Cricket Union for their considerable support of the 2022 edition of our #Fitba150 programme. Our events successfully showcased how cricket and football are intertwined at the dawn of the beautiful game in and around the Glasgow area, aka Association Football, which is now played by 3.5 billion people around the world today.

During November, we hosted two of our four events at the historic cricket grounds of Clydesdale and West of Scotland:

• The historical links of Clydesdale Cricket Club, which we termed the ‘Forgotten Hampden’, where Queen’s Park Football Club played in the 1883-84 football season, is a fact very few know. Richard ‘Siggy’ Young provided a keynote speech on the links between Cricket and Football, which explained the origin of the countless football clubs, born out of those cricketers turning to football during the winter months in the 1870s and later decades. This decision led to the explosion of football across Glasgow, Scotland and the world through the trailblazing Scotch Professors, as they became known. This core message was supplemented by speakers such as Kevin Ferrie, Neil Stobie, Lindsay Hamilton, Norry Wilson of Lost Glasgow, Professor Fiona Skillen, Lynn Forsyth and Paul Coffey in showcasing the incredible heritage of the links between Cricket, Football, Glasgow and beyond. Furthermore, we were delighted to have on show two magnificent trophies from the Cricketing World, namely the Eglinton Jug and the Rowan Cup, with their heritage proudly explained. Finally, we provided rich examples, including the legendary match in 1884, where Queen’s Park thumped Aston Villa 6-1 in the 4th Round of the FA Cup on the Clydesdale surface.
• Our main event was held at West of Scotland Cricket on the 150th anniversary of the world’s first international football match, between Scotland and England on St Andrew’s Day in 1872. This match was a momentous event for world football, as this was ‘Game One’ of international football, where Queen’s Park Football Club chose an enclosed cricket ground to generate enough income to fund ‘Game Two’ and beyond. Again the influence of the cricket clubs, as a template for what would become modern stadium sport, is key to the development of football. Queen’s Park used this experience in designing their 1st Hampden, the world’s first purposefully-built international football ground. Through the support of West of Scotland Cricket Club and the Scottish Football Association, twenty-two children from Hyndland Primary School re-enacted this important match, with another 200 spectators cheering them on. The coverage was widely covered by the media, and promoted by both UEFA and FIFA, which shows the reach of this significant history.

These events have rekindled the interest in Glasgow’s important role in the origin of modern sport, and over the next decade, our events will aim to raise awareness. We provided the audience with the statistics, stories and facts, and we thank the cricket clubs for their fantastic hospitality and support in making these events happen.

One final thought. These events showed clearly this history is best showcased within these historic grounds, and therefore we had one underlying message from all of our events – These sites are the crown jewels of modern sport; therefore, everybody needs to support their continued maintenance and development. Otherwise, like so many others, these stories will become the written word only and become confined to the bookshelf to gather dust.

For more information, with videos and photos of the events, please visit our website page – https://hampdencollection.com/fitba150/ or follow @hampdeners on Twitter or The Hampden Collection on Facebook.

Cheers, and thanks again and best wishes to all for the 2023 season.

Graeme

Graeme Brown

Hampden Collection Gaffer

Please see link to the WDCU CMC meeting notes from the December meeting.

CMC minute of meeting 6-12-2022 – Final

Prestwick Cricket Club are holding their Annual Dinner on Friday 10th March. The guest speakers are Tam Cowan and Paul Hoffman. Please contact the club directly should you wish to attend.

We are launching our CSMOA 2023 Umpire education programme just now, and wanted to get in touch with a few of our contacts from the regional associations.

Regarding our umpire education courses, we have  three main courses running again this year, with the Introduction to Umpiring being of particular interest for members of your clubs who maybe have a few more years playing or those who want to improve their “player umpiring” in games where we cannot cover with official umpires. From there we also have our Stage 1 and Stage 2 courses with increasing detail. All of our courses this year are going to emphasise the changes to the Laws which became effective in October 2022, as well as further development sessions with our existing members closer to the season (although we haven’t launched these yet to our members).

Some useful information & links:

• Introduction to Umpiring; 2 repeated sessions (to hopefully gain more coverage)
  • 2-hour evening Zoom workshop
  • Thursday 16th February 2023 – 7pm
  • Tuesday 21st February 2023 – 7pm
• Stage 1
  • All-day Zoom session (with breaks), 9.30am – ~4.30pm
  • Saturday 11^th March 2023
• Stage 2
  • All-day Zoom session (with breaks), 9.30am – ~4.30pm
  • Saturday 18^th March 2023

All registrants are directed to our website to use our form:

• https://www.csmoa.org.uk/education-courses.html (with registration form in the website page directly)
  • the QR code on the two training posters attached link to this page, as does the main button in the middle of our website home page.

Any questions, please feel free to get in touch with Craig MacDonell