ST HELENS TOWN REVIVING ON ALL FRONTS

Date: 5th April 2016

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

Club looking to bounce back in 2016

Bad seasons come in many guises and what appears to be a disaster can sometimes turn out to be a blessing. Nevertheless, it was difficult for St Helens Town to look on the bright side of events in 2015 after they lost Clubmark and the first team was relegated to the Second Division of the MI Dental Liverpool Competition.

Since then, however, to the delight of its supporters and to the many other cricket supporters who always enjoyed their visits to Ruskin Drive, St Helens Town has revived. New skipper Jimmy Davies admits he will be disappointed if his team do not win promotion back to the Competition’s middle tier and - even more important, perhaps – the roots of the club are being carefully brought back to life. Although loyal servants like Peter Whitfield and Fred Crawford have stepped down from the committee after decades of priceless service, there is an air of recovery about the club.

“We’ve now got a junior section back in place and have four Level II coaches,” said Davies, whose own enthusiasm for both cricket and his club is obvious in everything he says. “We listened to what people like Paul Bryson from the LCB told us and we focused on getting under 9s and 11s going because they are the ages at which you can find lifelong cricket fans.

“The core of the recently successful Under 21 side is back at the club, which is excellent because I thought some of them had been lost to cricket. In the middle of last season we signed Ian Jennions, who used to play for Wavertree, and he’ll be our first-choice spinner. People like Dave Gaskell, Bobby Kenny and Craig Woods are still fit and firing for the first team and the third team should be getting a few players back, too.”

Davies also reports that the fabric and facilities at Ruskin Drive are being attended to once more.

“The square’s looking more lush and we’ve had positive talks with the council about the ground,” he said. “There should be a new drainage system in place at the end of this season or next and the plan is that the current pavilion will get a refit.”

All of which has left the club with no spare cash for an overseas professional but that is the last of Davies’s concerns. “We’ve got a very decent squad,” he said. “We got up without a professional two years ago and we now have a stronger team than we had then. I certainly think we’ll have a good shout of being in the top three or four and I’d be disappointed if we weren’t promoted. “