Part 6 - Back to Rural Roots : 1996-2006

1996 was the first season in the new league and Ross Coles took over the captaincy. With three of the Coles clan in the top five of the batting averages the previous year, with brothers Brett first and Tait fifth, the team had a solid base for improvement. The youth team policy was beginning to pay off as the team’s average age dropped back well below thirty for the first time for thirty years. In their very first season in the SNCL the club lost only two games, won the division, and then won the league cup, beating Adstock in the final at Priors Marston. Sunday matches and mid-week games continued, and Archie Sains found a new lease of life as a wicketkeeper, on Sundays and occasionally even in league matches.

It looked as though the club would gain further promotions as the team grew in experience. By the turn of the millennium, however it was still in it Division 2. After two years as captain, Ross Coles had passed the armband on to Andy Madeley in 1998, and after one season he had passed it on to Jon Funnell. Changes had been happening in the various official posts too. Tony James’ long spell as secretary had ended back in 1994, when he had passed on to the capable hands of Richard Blake. Now he in turn handed that unenviable position on to Steve Ritchie. Trevor McLean’s long stint as fixture secretary ended in 1998, with Paul Smith, for two years, and then Ben Ritchie taking over. Since the millennium the club has had a stable base, but there have been problems. At the end of 1999 Hanslope’s involvement with the youth league came to an end. The repercussions of this are only now, seven years later, making themselves felt as the club begins to struggle to find two teams each weekend.

However there have been innovations too. In the mid nineties the idea of a club tour was raised, and this has been a two-yearly high point since then, with the various tours to different parts of England likely to become the stuff of future club legends. The club went international in 2005 with a tour based in Wales. Or at least it thought it had. Despite Ben Ritchie’s best efforts, with three different matches arranged, they were all rained off and the tourists were reduced to watching the final test at the Oval on television as England at last won the Ashes. An impromptu game on the beach was all that was played, but the fleshpots of Swansea probably made up for the lack of cricket. One member was even heard to be applying for extradition to Wales. “Hanslope – Unbeaten On Tour “ the headlines could have been.

Back to the bread-and-butter business of league and friendly cricket. The Saturday team continued to flatter to deceive, either dicing with relegation or flirting with promotion, but totally teasing and remaining stuck in Division 2 of the SNCL. The team was a pretty solid structure by now; no one took a match with Hanslope for granted. There was sound batting, with any one of six or more regular players capable of notching 50 or more, at any time, and a bowling attack that was nobody’s sucker. Jon Funnell's irritating military medium was accompanied by pace from Steve Leathersich and Will Giffin, with plenty of others to give reliable backup. The SNCL format is much simpler than the MK league’s was – 40 overs each, with a maximum of 12 overs per bowler. This means each side needs a minimum of four bowlers. The format has stayed the same, only some tinkering with the points for wins and bonuses being changed over the years.

The higher standard and improved pitches of the County league pushed scores up considerably, though not so much at home, where the traditional Hanslope ‘low and slow’, combined with a less than smooth outfield, still kept scores low, by the standards of the last ten years. The MK league brought a real curate’s egg of different pitches, some being appalling, some quite the opposite, with pampered squares and manicured outfields. Unfortunately most of the latter were in the two top divisions and the regularity of the former was one of the reasons for changing leagues.

Now, in the SNCL, centuries are not uncommon, both for and against Hanslope. Scores generally are much higher and a total well in excess of 200 is needed to feel confident of victory. The installation of the artificial pitch around the turn of the millennium has made Sunday matches much more batsman-friendly too. It’s a pity that team and individual statistics aren’t available to look at this trend; Alan Brown tried long and hard, for season after season, to score his first ‘ton’, as uncle Fred had promised him a new bat. Fred did have to reach into his pocket eventually.

The final leap out of SNCL Division 2 hasn’t happened yet, for various reasons. Inconsistency, strangely with the quality of the playing squad, is the main one. ‘The playing squad’ - in those words is encapsulated the problem. The raw young tyros of the 90s have all grown up. They get married, not all at once (unfortunately), and when they do they have a weekend out for a stag ‘do’, and then another one for the wedding, and most of the squad goes each time, leaving the Sunday players, of whom some are now less than frisky, and the few youngsters, left to do battle in the maelstrom of cut-and-thrust league cricket. They do their best; they even scrape a point or few, but it means, with this pre- and post-nuptial pattern repeating itself time and time again, that it’s still Division 2 for the following season.

At the end of the 2001 season the club sadly had to bid farewell to Archie Sains, who was moving to Oakham following his retirement. It was the end of an era, and the post was taken over by Andy Madeley for the next four years.

The club still, in 2006, has a full programme of fixtures, with league matches on Saturdays, friendlies on Sundays and several mid-week cup matches. 2006 looked like it might be the year the Division 2 jinx was beaten, for, with two matches to go, Hanslope stood proudly at the top of the table. A run of huge scores by skipper Jon Funnell, averaging over 50 for the whole season, backed up by some slippery bowling from Will Giffin and one lethal spell from Steve Leathersich, put Hanslope in pole position for the final push. Alas, it was not to be again. Defeat was again grasped from the jaws of victory, and two ignominious losses actually meant a position in the lower half of the table. Just as well perhaps – the club had struggled to field teams of a consistent standard all season, on more than one occasion having to make do with ten men. With some soul searching and a bit of recruitment there should be the chance of another push in 2007. The Sunday team looked very vulnerable in 2006, having been carried by Will Giffin with sound backup from a decreasing number of stalwarts.

There is a long tradition of cricket in Hanslope, and surely it shouldn’t take too much to set it on its way for another 60 years. If the club can keep finding players, and particularly officers, of the quality and durability that served it in its first 60 years, then this should be just be ‘The Story Of Hanslope Cricket Club – Volume 1’, with Volume 2 due in 2066. Let’s hope so.

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