Chris Firth has proved his determination to strengthen Southport and Birkdale’s first team squad over the close season by recruiting the former Burscough all-rounder Chris Andrews.
A left-arm seamer and left-hand bat, 21-year-old Andrews took over 30 wickets in both the 2012 and 2013 seasons but made only nine appearances for the School Lane side in the summer just ended.
“We’ve signed Chris to add depth to the squad because as we saw at the end of the season, there wasn’t much depth,” said Firth.
“Chris played against us in a T20 game and went for 15 runs when bowling to Josh Hine, and that’s a decent effort. He obviously can bowl and if you look at his stats he can bat.
“He’s a young kid and I’d like to make our age demographic a little bit younger. I think we’re adding hunger to the squad as we did when we recruited Josh Bohannon and Chris Brownlow recently.”
For his part, Andrews made little secret of his excitement at joining the Trafalgar Road club and the possibility of playing ECB Premier League cricket.
“I’ve always wanted to play at the best standard possible and the Premier League is the best,” he said. “I watched a T20 Finals Day at Northern and saw the quality of the cricket and how hard the game is played, That’s something I want to sample for myself.
“I’ve heard from experienced cricketers that S&B is a good club and it has a very good reputation, so there’s no better place to go. Chris Firth told me he’s looking to build a squad of very good young players and he asked me what I could offer.
“I’m going to a Premier League set up having never played at that level. It’s a very exciting prospect.”
