Badgers Cricket Club – What’s New Archive 2002

I promised an update before the end of the year, so with a couple of days to spare, here it is. Sadly I’ve had just one person bother to provide any feedback (kudos to Mr. Ward for taking the time to offer some of his ideas and reactions) on the proposed new structure, so we’ll stick with the old one until the first update of 2003, at which point I will implement what I’ve already done, unless there is an outcry to the contrary.

Main changes this time are further fall-out from the work that I did digging through the old scorebooks preparing details on Alan Tickner’s Badgers career, thereby fleshing out some of the historical reports that were previously limited to 1988 onwards – the official catching leaders, best partnerships and miscellaneous statistics – which now go all the way back to 1959.

As mentioned last time, I intend to implement a complete revamp of both the navigation structure of the site and of how it is presented in your browser. The implemented version of these pages incorporating the proposed changes is what you are looking at now, and the previous version is no longer available on this site, but I’d still be grateful for any feedback, especially if something doesn’t work or looks horrible.

The dinner and dance has been and gone, and those of you who were there will already know that not only was a good time had by all, but also who won what and that Alan Tickner received a special award in recognition of his service to the club. Now that the trophies have been presented I am able to reveal the gory details here, so you can find the full averages in the 2002 season report and scattered throughout the rest of the averages pages.

The season reports now include the overall season analysis and match record, as per the printed report, and therefore now contain everything that can be found in said report. I’ve also added sections on all-time partnership records and lifetime miscellaneous statistics, which are now interesting enough to warrant inclusion because I’ve trawled through the old scorebooks and entered fielding details for everyone so that the catching columns are pretty much complete (barring the 1981 season, for which we have no scorebook).

One of the changes that I will be making this winter involves a complete revamp of both the navigation structure of the site and of how it is presented in your browser. This involves a Javascript-based menu system and full use of something called Cascading Style Sheets. The implemented version of these pages using these new technologies is what you are looking at now, and the previous version is long gone and can no longer be viewed here, but I’d still be grateful for any feedback, especially if something doesn’t work or looks wrong.

I may yet get the time and inclination to write a season review (and now wish that I’d written it when I first thought of it and simply not published it at the time) but there are a number of other goodies either ready to roll or getting there that I will be gradually revealing as the off-season progresses. Expect another update between now and the end of the year, so watch this space!!

The dinner and dance details have now been confirmed, and you can find the official information on the news page. I was hoping to post a copy of the letter that you should all have received from Dave Tickner, but thanks to the mess that Word makes of HTML output I have to spend a little more time and effort on producing something that I’m happy to post here on the web with my name on it.

Minor changes of note include the provision of the final decade’s worth of results, for seasons 1959 to 1968; the inclusion of the highest and lowest scores as part of the season analysis at the end of each of the historical results pages; and the addition of a footnote to some of the averages tables for those seasons where there were matches that didn’t count towards the statistics and therefore created differences between the official and the full data.

I’ve put the idea of a season review into abeyance, because I can’t find any way to provide a meaningful write-up without giving away the trophy winners, nor indeed without taking away from Mark’s captain’s speech. Unless something unexpected crops up the site will now be in hiatus until after the dinner and dance so that I can concentrate on the printed season report and the new features that I will gradually reveal over the off-season.

The season came to a close last weekend with our regular visit to Merrow, and what an exciting climax to the season it was. Full details can be found on the results page along with the usual match report and key elements from the scorecard.

Some of the 2002 tables have been added to a partial averages page but you’ll have to wait until after the dinner and dance, which is the next order of business for the club, for the remaining tables since I wouldn’t like to give away the destination of any of the trophies and thereby steal Mark’s thunder. I haven’t yet received full details of the dinner, but what I do have can be found on the news page.

I intend to add a season review, once the dust has settled and you’ve all had an opportunity to read the final match report, and then there will be a hiatus until after the dinner and dance when I will be revealing a complete revamp including significant changes to the look of the site and several new features that I hope will keep everyone checking back here over the winter months.

Details of last weekend’s match with Beddington can be found on the results page along with a match report and the pertinent elements from the scorecard.

I’ve also added another tranche of historical results, from 1969 to 1977, which has had the side effect of changing the page names of all the associated pages – although that will not need to happen again, since there are exactly ten season’s worth of results left to be entered in.

Details of last weekend’s match with Crondall can be found on the results page along with a match report and the pertinent elements from the scorecard. I’ve also added links to their website to both the links page and the fixtures page.

I’ve started down the long and arduous road of entering more historical information (ie. for seasons prior to 1988) by adding the results for 1978 to 1987 and I’ve also extended the scorecards pages to include seasons back to 1988. I’m not happy with the concomitant changes to the menu structure for the results section, but I thought I’d get the content up first and worry about that rather cosmetic issue later.

Details of last weekend’s match with Epsom Liberals can be found on the results page along with a match report and the pertinent elements from the scorecard.

I’ve managed to add one or two more of Alan Tickner’s photographs to the photo gallery along with a couple of more recent ones taken by Janet at Ewhurst in 2000.

I have also been doing a lot of work on the historical side (ie. seasons prior to 1988) of the database from which the statistical element of the site is driven. Whilst using the old averages tables to try and tie down one or two facts about the latest photographs, I noticed a couple of strange anomalies and, as a result of investigating those, lumbered myself with a raft of corrections and additional data to derive from the old scorebooks. The end result is that many of the old batting and bowling tables have more accurate and complete data for those players that didn’t have enough innings or overs bowled to make the official end of season averages, and that three batsmen (Kevin Unwin, Jimmy Burke and Keith Partlett) and one bowler (Mike Law) now meet the criteria to appear in the lifetime averages.

As a side effect of all these changes, I’ve altered the handling of games played and games bowled in the historical tables, and these will now appear as ‘N/A’ for those situations where the real value is unknown (previously games played always matched number of innings, which is going to be wrong in a significant number of cases – Dave Bowerman had just four innings from fifteen games in 1980, and games bowled was being shown as zero).

One last item of note arising from all that poring over old scorecards is that an apology is due to Keith Miller, who ought to have appeared in the 1984 official batting averages, but was omitted erroneously. Whilst I wasn’t involved at the time, I can appreciate how easy it is for these things to happen and I’m sure that Windy won’t hold it against anyone :)

It turns out that I was wrong about both the place and the time of the game against Epsom Liberals this weekend. It will be a 13:00 start at Gibraltar Rec. in Ewell (for those that played and have good memories, we met Epsom Methodists there last year rather than at Old Salesians) and further details, including an accurate map link, can be found on the fixtures page.

This coming weekend will see Badgers visit Epsom Liberals. More details can be found on the fixtures page but please check back here, or with Barry, to confirm the start time and that the venue is the same as when we’ve played against them previously, as I’ve not had the final word just yet.

My apologies for not posting anything last week, but I’ve been working on building pages for over a dozen new photographs and I simply ran out of time to get everything in a presentable state come Sunday morning, at which point I realised, somewhat belatedly, that I’d not completed the match report for Maori-Oxshott. However, the first fruits of those labours are now apparent in the photo gallery and there are still more to come, mainly thanks to Alan Tickner digging out a raft of old photographs, some of which were taken by Dave Tickner.

Details of last weekend’s match with Blindley Heath can be found on the results page along with a match report and the pertinent elements from the scorecard. The match report and scorecard from the Maori-Oxshott are also now available.

Details of last weekend’s match with Deando (formerly Ceraf) can be found on the results page along with a match report and the pertinent elements from the scorecard.

Details of last weekend’s match with Reigate Priory Cavaliers, which make sorry reading, can be found on the results page along with a match report and the pertinent elements from the scorecard.

Hopefully I’m back on track with the updating now, so all the match reports, including the one for Hook Norton, are available to view. I’ve also added scorecard links to the 2001 match reports page and intend to provide all the scorecards for seasons back to 1988 just as soon as I’ve decided on the best way to link them in with the existing content.

Last Sunday’s game with Wallington was rained off by a torrential downpour just as play was about to start, but details of the previous weekend’s match with Old Alleynians, played in blazing sunshine, can be found on the results page along with a match report and the pertinent elements from the scorecard.

As ever, my apologies for the delay in updating the site since the tour weekend, but I just haven’t been motivated enough to spend yet more time sat at a PC when I get home from work, and most of the time I’m too tired anyway. I am still missing a match report for Hook Norton, but I have managed to write four others this week, so hopefully we’ll be up-to-date again by next weekend.

Details of last weekend’s match with Ewhurst can be found on the results page along with a match report and the pertinent elements from the scorecard. Additionally, you can find the matches from this year’s Cotswold tour plus the Woldingham Village and South Beckenham games on the results page, the match reports page and the scorecards page.

I’ve updated the scorecard generation process to include details of outfield catches and wicket-keeper dismissals and I’ve also spotted and corrected a problem with the partnership calculation logic which has meant a couple of changes to last year’s best partnerships (but not to any of the older ones).

Details of last week’s match with Merrow can be found on the results page along with a match report and the pertinent elements from the scorecard. The scorecards page also now includes last week’s NPL game, since I was able to copy out the relevant scorebook details whilst at Merrow.

Tour was supposed to start yesterday, but the Friday game at Windrush Valley was cancelled so, other than a round of golf for some, the tour proper starts today at Hook Norton. I have a day off on Monday, so for once I hope to have full details of this weekend’s matches up here by Monday evening.

PLEASE NOTE that tomorrow’s game with Epsom Liberals was cancelled at the start of the week, and we will now be playing a game against regular last match of the season opponents Merrow. If you’ve not had the pleasure of visiting Merrow before, then you can find the relevant details and a link to a map of the area, on the fixtures page.

Details of last week’s match with NPL can be found on the results page along with Alan Tickner’s match report (thanks, Al). You can also find a match report for the aborted Stoke D'Abernon game from the week before. My apologies for not posting it earlier, but last weekend was a busy one and things are simply frantic at work at the moment so I’m really struggling to find the time to update the site.

I’ve also updated the links page to remove a couple of links that have been dead for a while now, and to link to the new Merrow web page which is coming along nicely.

Since I’ve had no feedback with regard to the new scorecards page I can only assume that either you are all perfectly happy with what’s there or that you couldn’t care less. Either way I shall continue on my merry way in the vain hope that someone out there is actually reading this stuff and getting something out of the effort that I’m putting in.

The Dormansland game was rained off but details of last week’s match with Epsom Methodists can be found on the results page along with a match report.

The other major change this week is the addition of a scorecards page. Currently this is fairly experimental, and I’m not convinced that I’ve nailed either the layout or the navigation aspects, but I’m putting the current season’s cards up so that you can all send me comments on what you think of them and how I can improve things. The cards are linked from the match reports entry for each game, and also from the individual team scores details on each results page item. Try them out and PLEASE let me have some feedback (whether or not you are a member of Badgers Cricket Club) as I feel like I’m operating in a vacuum most of the time.

Once I’ve had some external input and I’m happy with the end result, I will be able to post the scorecards for every game played back to the 1988 season, which as stated before is as far back as my database of full match details goes.

Details of last week’s match with Leigh can be found on the results page along with a match report that makes rather depressing reading. Let’s hope that our batting finally comes together in this week’s game at Dormansland, because it has been woeful thus far.

I believe that I’ve finished off all of the adjustments to the results and match reports pages, including resurrecting all of the 2000 season match reports, so if you find anything that you think is incorrect, or simply feel that the navigation could be improved in some way, then please let me know. Also, for the anally retentive among you, I’ve updated the What’s New archive pages, splitting into separate pages by year, and adding all those historical entries that I had squirreled away.

Last weekend’s match reached a better conclusion from the club’s point of view and you can read all about our first win of the 2002 season on the match reports page. The results and match reports pages have still not been finished off entirely to my satisfaction, but since no one has let me know of any problems, I’ll assume that what is there is acceptable.

I’ve added two new photographs to the photo gallery, one from 1976 and an even older one from 1966, with grateful thanks to my Mum – Shirley Pitts – out of whose collection they came. I’ve no idea who took them, although the 1966 one looks like it might have been a professional job. Both appeared in the 21st anniversary booklet that Dave Tickner put together, but the colour one was printed in black and white there, and the other was misattributed to the wrong season.

The first match of the season has come and gone, and you can digest the gory details on the match reports page. I hope I’ve managed to reorganise the results and match reports pages, and links thereto, in a logical fashion so that you can still find anything and everything you might be interested in. However, be warned that I’ve run out of time to finish things off as I’d hoped, and subsequently have not been able to check everything as thoroughly as I’d like. If you find any anomalies, as ever, feel free to let me know what I’ve messed up, or how it could be improved upon.

Apart from the warning above about the change of fixture for the coming weekend (see the fixtures page for current details) I’ve changed very little on this pass. However, I am reworking all the results and match report pages ready for the first game of the new season (last Saturday’s match was called off, if you were wondering) and have been very busy in the background making some fairly fundamental changes to the whole site, which I hope to be able to unveil over the next few weeks.

I’ve finally realised one of the longer term ambitions for this site and added a photo gallery page to the clubhouse. There aren’t as many photographs there as I’d like, so I’d like to pass the buck to all of you and ask that you dig out any pictures that you have of the Badgers, from any era, and temporarily pass them on to me so that I can scan them in and create suitable image files from them.

Alan Wilkes has finalised the accommodation arrangements for this year’s tour, and you can find out more on the news page. Nothing else of significance has changed since last time, but one cosmetic change is that I’ve officially switched one of our PICS ratings from RSACi to ICRA. Click on the ICRA icon in the menu column to the left if you would like to know more about what that means.

It has taken me much too long to find the time to do it, but I’ve finally posted a report on the 2002 AGM, which you can find on the news page along with details of this year’s indoor nets and some initial information about a pre-season evening out courtesy of Dave Tickner in his guise as ‘the Entertainments Committee’.

Other updates include the official list of matches on the fixtures page and the removal of the rambling What’s New history from the main page to a separate page of its own.

Not much has changed since last time, but I have posted the provisional fixtures for 2002 on the fixtures page. We do have three free dates so if you know of anyone looking for a fixture then contact David Aldwinckle via email or telephone (see the club officers page for his contact details).

Please be aware that due to pressure of time I have not checked the fixture list as closely as I would normally do, so don’t treat it as gospel just yet, nor indeed until after it has been confirmed at the AGM.

Finally, Richard Kemp was released from hospital just a day or two after I posted that he was in there, so let’s hope that he’s well on the way to a speedy recovery.

Thanks to a combination of off-season lethargy, work commitments away from home and gross incompetence I’ve not made the intended updates to the site since the dinner. Initially this was caused by problems with how the past season’s reports should be presented, which I’ve still not solved, and the inertia has carried forward into the new year. However, the upcoming AGM has prompted me to get my act together, at least to some degree.

Two major items of note to start with, firstly Richard Kemp has been involved in a car accident, and is currently in hospital recuperating. For more information, including how to contact him with your well wishes, see the entry on the news page. Secondly, the AGM has been scheduled for 13th February 2002, and those details can also be found on the news page along with a link to a map of the venue.

All of the 2001 statistics have been incorporated into the relevant sections of the averages page but due to issues with the page navigation I have not been able to preserve access to the previous season’s reports. However, the full 2001 report can now be found on the current averages page and I will endeavour to straighten out the logistics of providing the full season report for 2000, and probably for the past dozen seasons, before the new season starts. To finish off the 2001 season, for those of you that were unable to attend the dinner and dance, the details of who won what can be found on the news page.

Finally, any past statements about future enhancements to the site will have to be put on hold, as my work situation is rather precarious at the moment, and I’m spending far more time that I’d like working away from home :(