Castle Hill U9 Festival June 2016

Red is the colour!

A remarkable display of
skill and technical wizardry saw Paul Bromley use his personal weather radar
service to accurately predict an unlikely afternoon of colourful cricket at our
very own CHCC. The annual CHCC U9 festival took place between black clouds,
short showers and then golden sunshine. The event was well supported with no
less than four teams from CHCC and guests from Capel (A and B), Robertsbridge
and Cranbrook.






The grey skies and
early showers failed to dampen the collective mood no doubt partly due to a
splendid feast of cake and sandwiches which made for a rainbow colourful
spread.





Our teams and players
all played well.





The Blues coach
marvelled at his players fabulous team spirit and bonding. Edward said he used
all his wily coaching tricks to help the team, but in truth they were very
self motivated. 





He reflected that the
team played with bright spirit. Alex, Bo, James, Theo, Robert and William were
top team players. Whilst Alec excelled with both ball and bat -
bashing flamboyant boundaries with the bat in all directions. Austin
bowled with great consistency and accuracy. Ben also bowled well with some
good hitting off the front foot.





For the Yellow team Duncan the
coach said it was a story of what might have been. 





Despite a comfortable victory
over the ultimate winners in the pool stage, a low scoring loss to
Robertsbridge in the first game cost the Yellows an appearance in the Final.
Everyone had some great performances. Charlotte and Callum bowled well
throughout, while Ben Anderson bowled one of the sparkling overs of the season
taking two wickets in three balls. Felix showed how much his bowling has
improved while Jack and Sam played some lovely leg side shots. A real highlight
was the final game partnership between the Campbells - elegant John and fierce
hitting Ewan - with sunny cheers roaring the boys on from the boundary!





The Yellow's coach was left to
muse on the somewhat mellow Yellow team running that led to the loss of wickets
and defeat to Robertsbridge .





Meantime the Green team
fought hard - joint top in their group they missed out on a place in the final
by a few runs difference.





Bear was the team star
turn - batting with ferocity and bowling fast and tightly. Oscar kept a
mean line and length taking several wickets. Our two boys carrying injuries, Henry
and Ryan also bowled really well.

Charlie, Hugo and JJ
batted with energy and enthusiasm; whilst William took a sensational catch
which brought the crowd to their feet.





In a tense play off
game the Greens came close ultimately coming up short but doing themselves
proud.

Castle Hill Reds had an
excellent afternoon with bat, ball and crucially in the field. There
was passion and fire with some great catches, noticeably by Cameron. Proof
again that catches win matches! 





The team bowled with
accuracy: Joe, Finn and Will M doing excellently with both line and
length. The big hitting was done by Cameron, Elliot and Hugo who found
boundaries a plenty to keep the scoreboard ticking over.





The final was an
emotionally intense affair, Lucas saved his best bowling for this
match and Will C did a fine job of fending off some fierce bowling at the
death.




Jim, the Reds highly
motivated coach said it lovely to see the more experienced boys partnering the
younger ones and really supporting them throughout the whole tournament, never
a crossed word said between team members.






Well done the Reds!