INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the new inaugural Spitfire National O60 Cricket County Championship for 2009.

We have two great Sponsors in Shepherd Neame, one of Britain’s most famous Breweries and extremely popular with people of all ages and a second Sponsor, a new name, but fast becoming a major player in sporting supplies, D&M Sports. They supply top quality equipment for most sports, at extremely competitive prices.

All of you will know Barry and Jean Smith. They started the O60 competition back in 2004. Initially it was Home Counties based but then it evolved.! For five years Barry and Jean ran it virtually double handed and extremely successfully. Obviously, without them we probably wouldn’t be here now!
In 2008 Barry and Jean decided to hand over the reigns and for a long time it seemed no one was willing to take it over. Then after a few phone calls, Martin Pearse (Norfolk), Martin Couch (Surrey) and Gil Collins (Hampshire), together with Gerald Wadley (Worcs) offered to try and build it up.

From Sept 2008 till the end of November 08, enough emails to fell a rain forest criss-crossed networks in search of the ultimate agreement of the 10 existing Counties. The old saying ‘you can’t please everyone all of the time’ springs to mind. Questionnaires were sent to all Counties with proposals 1 or 2 to vote on. Eventually all replies were in situ and we were down to the last straight. During all this, 9 new Counties formed – Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Cheshire, Devon, Somerset, Wiltshire, Cornwall and importantly Surrey 2nds! We decided to split, after emails/discussion/vote, into 4 groups, logistically the best option with matches being played Home and Away. After the group matches there will be play-offs for all teams, the top two from each group go to the Final Playoffs and the rest playing for the Final positions. So we all look forward to the new season in 2009 with excitement and a little trepidation that all works smoothly!

Martin Pearse