Missionary work needed to resurrect county game

Major matches at the Brightside ground are promoted and staged in a first-class fashion. This will be obvious next year when the World Cup comes to Bristol. Revenue will receive a huge boost. There are however two other words in our title wich need close inspection. They are county and cricket, areas in which we are not doing well.

All my life I HAVE enjoyed talking about the fortunes of our County, whether they be good or bad. PEOple cared! Not now. EVERYwhere Iencounter apathy. A dreaded word fort ant sports organization. Iknow many people who love and play the game but show no interest in our county team.Missionary work is needed. Please take heed at HQ. Perhaps the real reason is the poor performance of the team. Since the early season victory at Kent every game has been little more than a rearguard action. tHE SAME FAULTS recurr again and again. Our batting in the first innings never results in enough runs for us to be in aposition to control the game.Worst of all our young players do not improve. They regress. InTHE PAST YEAR Somerset have produced threeTest players.They show us up. It pains me to write like this and some readers will deem me disloyal. Far from it.Of COURSEsome solutions must be offered or criticsms are useless .Some will be offered next week. My first footballing hero died this week. For many in the Cotswolds all roads and certainly railways led to Swindon but supporting could be a thankless task. too often we were bottom of Division 3(south). Then came the match fixing scandal,led by Swindon player Jimmy Gauld. They were dark days at the club.Someone was needed to raise our spirits and along came Ernie Hunt. Ernie came from the heart of Swindon and learned his football on Mannington REC. he played for the Town from the age of 16. He had some young friends around him,butit was Ernie who was the beating heart of the team. Watching him play brought joy, excitement and hope. Ihope we can find someone like Ernie who plays cricket.