WALLING REPLACES TIPPER AT NORTHERN

Date: 6th January 2012

A Paul Edwards copyright exclusive for L&DCC Official Website.

New Year happiness continues in Elm Avenue!

Northern skipper James Cole has acted quickly to replace Chris Tipper, who has returned to his former club Hyde, having left the Moor Park club on good terms. Lancashire Under 19 batsman Mark Walling has agreed to join the Premier League outfit from Palace Shield side Garstang and Cole believes that his new signing is capable of scoring over 500 runs in his debut season in the Bridging Finance Solutions Liverpool Competition.

"Mark is currently topping the run-scoring charts in the Melbourne league I play in," said Cole. "When I heard of his interest in joining a Liverpool Competition side we decided to meet up and have a chat over a few cold beers. He is keen to play on a good wicket every other week and we believe we have signed a young lad who is eager to make a living out of the game. Mark has a strong work ethic, so it will be great to have him around the place and helping out with the junior programmes that we run. He will be batting at No3 for us, so there are going to be plenty of opportunities for him to score big runs."

"We're going to have Ben Sloan, Stephen Lucas and Mark all batting in the top three for us and I think these are very exciting times at the club."

As to the departure of Tipper, Cole revealed that he knew the talented young batsman was keen to return to Hyde at some point and said he understood his former player's reasoning.

"Chris has been fantastic since he joined Northern and he is undoubtedly one of the most talented players not to be on the pro circuit. However, it has been hard for him with all the travelling he has had to do since his accident and for our part we needed someone who was going to be around the club at least once a week and play an active part in our junior coaching programme. Because of work and where he lives Chris couldn't commit to do that, but he has made a lot of good mates at Northern and we wish him well."