La Manga Club and Cricket Club Charity 20/20 Weekend 26-28 Sept 2014
La Manga Cricket Club were the proud hosts of a fantastic weekend of 20/20 cricket at the end of September as clubs from Girona, the UK and Belgium joined the hosts in a real end of season festival.
First timers to La Manga, and undoubtedly stars of the weekend were the Rammy Traders Cricket Club, the social side of Ramsbottom CC – to whom the bumps and bruises increased in number, almost as quickly as the Amstel was drunk.
As was expected United CC from Girona and Ostend CC bought very strong sides to the competition and were joined by the hosts plus UK sides Phoenix CC and Rahat CC in making up the 6 sides.
(Girona v La Manga Semi-Final)
Over the weekend, every team played each other once with the team at the top of the division being crowned champions.
United CC from Girona ran out very deserved and comfortable winners on the field where the heavy rain in the area happily left us in peace apart from a brief downpour on the Saturday lunchtime which saw 2 hours play lost.
Off the field, the main aim of the weekend, as always, is to raise funds for La Manga Cricket Clubs charity of choice which this year was the Tom Maynard Trust. Tom, an outstanding cricketer, England Lion and Surrey CCC player, was a guest of La Manga CC 4 years ago in the autumn before his tragic passing in 2012.
The Trust was established by his family and friends to provide ongoing support to young sportsman across the UK and La Manga CC were very honoured that Tom’s parents, the former England Test Player and Glamorgan Legend, Matt Maynard, and his wife Sue joined us as guests for the weekend.
(Ramsbottom Traders Cricket Club)
Alongside Matt we were also very fortunate to have former England test opener Graeme “Foxy” Fowler and his wide Sarah who were great value throughout the entire weekend. Indeed Foxy was appointed the new manager for Rammy Traders for 2015 (incidentally at the same time Matt was receiving the news of his appointment as Head Coach at Somerset CCC)
Graeme spoke at the charity dinner and kept everyone entertained with tales of life in a county dressing room through the 80’s and some fantastic auction prizes including signed England shirt, a B3 Cricket Bat, a British Lions signed rugby shirt all helped towards the €1500 raised on the night for the charity.
Andy House
La Manga Cricket Club
(Matt Maynard presenting medals and
shirts to the La Manga Juniors)