NEWSLETTER APRIL 2015

CHAIRMAN WELCOMES MEMBERS TO A NEW SEASONWhether you are here for the first time or can remember coming here to watch Alec Bedser and Peter May, we are grateful for your support and hope you enjoy the coming season at The Kia Oval. As ever, the off season has seen the club busy around the ground, making improvements wherever we can and ensuring our ground retains its place as one of the finest places in the world to watch – and play – cricket. I won’t go into detail here as there is more in the newsletter. I would like to thank the large number of members who attended the club AGM on Thursday evening. It is always a rewarding experience to see the number of members who take the time to attend this event and I welcome both the new members of our General Committee and our new President, the great Pat Pocock. He takes over from Sir Trevor McDonald, who has now completed two years as club President. Having a chance to work with a man like Sir

The club are happy to announce that ‘The Feathers’ – the ground’s new pub – has been built by Entrance 29 and will be officially open for the first time during the match against Essex.

The pub is designed to offer Members sitting in the Bedser Stand the chance to purchase drinks at Members prices and also to relieve some of the pressure on the existing bars inside the Pavilion.

Named after the iconic Prince of Wales feathers worn on the club badge and decorated with historic pictures of The Oval and some of Surrey’s finest and most popular players, it is hoped the new pub will prove popular with Members.

The Feathers will be open to all fans during games in the LV= County Championship and Royal London One Day Cup (show your card for discount) but will be exclusively for Members use during the NatWest T20 Blast and International cricket.

NEW KIA OVAL PUB OPENS WITH MEMBERS’ BEER ELECTION!

Trevor has been a great honour. I am sure all our Members who met him around the club or heard him speak at different club events would join me in expressing our thanks for his work at Surrey CCC. The beginning of every season is always an exciting time and this year is no different. With a squad that contains some wonderful home grown talent; not to mention the world’s top test batsman; the inspirational Kumar Sangakkara. I very much look forward to watching the players walk out onto our ground for the first time on Sunday morning. It has been a long winter but the sun is ( hopefully..) shining and the cricket is back. I hope you relish that prospect as much as I. Yours in cricket (come on The Rey!)

Richard ThompsonChairmanSurrey County Cricket Club

To celebrate the launch of The Feathers – and the ongoing General Election – Surrey is staging a Members’ vote to choose the brand new Surrey beer!

Throughout the course of the LV= County Championship match against Essex, four different beers will be available to sample, free of charge, in The Feathers.

Once you’ve tried all four, simply cast a vote for your favourite. Votes will be tallied once the game has been completed and the most popular beer will be given a special Surrey related name and become the official 2015 Members’ Beer.

See you in The Feathers!

NEWSLETTER APRIL 2015

NEWSLETTER APRIL 2015

FORD - THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORTTo echo the words of our Chairman Richard Thompson, I would like to start by welcoming you all to a new season of cricket at the Kia Oval. April is always an exciting cricketing time – as the pre-season preparations are wrapped up and the real stuff starts! We have managed to get through some excellent work through the pre-season. Good training facilities are crucial to a productive pre-season program and our ground staff, led by Head Groundsman Lee Fortis, did a brilliant job in preparing really good surfaces inside the marquee which allowed us to do a high volume of quality training. It was a particularly impressive piece of work from the groundsmen, as this was the first time we had ever used a marquee and conditions really were excellent. Of course the key is to convert the good pre-season work into runs and wickets when it really counts and having now finished our first Championship match, I am pretty pleased with the quality of cricket played by our lads. It seems as if the hard work done in the pre-season has ensured that we have started the season with some players in excellent touch! One of the centurions in Cardiff was Kumar Sangakkara, who was making his debut for the club. To have Sanga join us has been a huge privilege. He has already made a big impact in the dressing room and put on a master class in his first innings in Surrey colours! I am sure there will be many more. As I have said in the past here, I don’t like to single out individual performances much as it is a team game. However, it would be very wrong not to mention Steve Davies’ wonderful double hundred at the SWALEC last week. Steve went away to Cape Town in January and spent two months working hard on his batting – it is great to see a player reaping the

rewards of his hard work. Obviously, there is much interest in KP and he certainly has shown in both the Oxford match and the last week’s Championship opener that he has lost none of his supreme class and is very ready to help the England team back into winning ways. The Second XI were also in action last week, against a combined Kent/Hampshire XI, and it has been very exciting to see some of our young batsmen put in some very good performances. It is comforting to know that we have some very good young guns coming through and challenging hard for first team spots. Finally, on behalf of the players and the coaching staff, we once again look forward to your passionate support. It really does make a difference and the players genuinely appreciate it – both at the Kia Oval and when we are on the road. There was a good contingent of Surrey fans in Cardiff, very many thanks indeed to those that made the effort to be there alongside us. Enjoy the summer! Graham FordHead Coach

NEWSLETTER APRIL 2015

The Surrey Academy have enjoyed an excellent pre-season tour of Sri Lanka, winning six of their seven games with three young batsmen recording centuries.

Olly Batchelor, Bradley Erasmus and Sam Curran all reached triple figures against a variety of quality opposition sides, including a Sri Lanka Development XI, a Kandy Combined XI and a Galle District XI.

The tour opened with games against the Development XI, with Erasmus’s ton coming in a One Day game that Surrey won by 16 runs.

Batchelor’s innings came against the side from Kandy. He hit a superb 146 in a rain affected game that saw Surrey post an impressive 310 all out from 49.3 overs but not get the chance to defend it because of poor conditions.

Curran’s century came towards the end of the tour when Surrey had made their way south to the village of Magonna, which was rebuilt ten years ago using funds raised from the all star charity T20 match staged at The Oval in 2005.

The sides played on a pitch in the middle of the village, which features street names honouring Surrey players such as Alec Stewart and Graham Thorpe, with Curran – Academy Player of the Year at the last End of Season Awards – hitting 105 from 97 balls as Surrey won the game by 137 runs.

The tour was sponsored by Lycafly, as part of the club’s ongoing relationship with Lyca, which was renewed earlier this year for another season.

A number of improvements have been made to the club’s historic Members’ Pavilion over the course of the off season, highlighting the amazing heritage of the Kia Oval.

As well as these, there have also been some improvements made based on feedback received by the club from Members surveys, including a complete overhaul of the toilets on the ground floor.

One of the most noticeable changes has been the installation of a new trophy cabinet in the Pavilion Reception, giving the club a more prominent place to display the trophies that are currently exhibited in the Galadari Museum.

The two doors that lead from the corridor behind the museum to the Pavilion Terrace have also be restored and been renamed as the ‘Bradman Doors’.

These were the actual doors that Sir Donald Bradman walked out of to play his final ever innings at The Oval in 1948, but in recent years had begun to fall into slight disrepair. The renovation work has restored them to their former glories and a plaque has been affixed to them, commemorating their role in cricketing history.

There has also been ongoing redecoration work, focusing on the Members Entrance, Ground Floor Lobby, Restaurant Lobby and the President’s Tea Room on the first floor.

ACADEMY SUCCESS IN SRI LANKA

Pavilion Improvements

NEWSLETTER APRIL 2015

The Surrey Women will open their campaign against Sussex at Reed’s School in Cobham on Sunday May 3rd.

Cecily Scutt’s side finished second in the Royal London One Day Cup Division One last year (the leading domestic competition for female cricketers) and will hoping for another strong year in 2015.

With the club’s newly appointed Director of Women’s Cricket Ebony Rainford-Brent in charge off the field, a Surrey side containing England all-rounder Natalie Sciver, New Zealand International Rachel Candy and a host of young local talent will be creating a strong competition for places.

All home games (bar Sunday July 19th which will be played at the Kia Oval) are staged at Reed’s School and all matches are played on Sundays and Public Holidays. A full fixture list is available on the club website (surreycricket.com) and also on the fixture lists that were sent out to all Members before the start of the season.

As well as their campaigns in the Royal London One Day Cup and the Women’s T20 tournament, the Kia Oval will also be hosting the first ever Pemberton Greenish London Cup on Monday May 18th.

A free event, the game will see Surrey take on Middlesex in a T20 match for the PG London Cup and the right to call themselves the number one T20 side in the capital. Starting at 5.30pm, the day will be preceded by events and coaching aimed at inspiring a new generation of young female cricketers to follow in the footsteps of the Surrey players.

There are still tickets available for Members’ Pavilion seats during the Royal London One Day International against New Zealand and the final day of the Investec Ashes. To buy tickets please visit the Ticket Office in the Pavilion forecourt or go online to the club website at kiaoval.com/tickets Day 5 tickets are fully refundable if there is no play, with money being automatically refunded to your debit or credit card within 36 hours.

WOMEN PREPARE FOR SUMMER

INTERNATIONAL TICKETS IN THE PAVILION STILL AVAILABLE

April:

27 New Members Event Free

28 Cricket Society Event Sold out

May:

10-13 Cinema Room Launch Free

June:

1Members Breakfast Forum

Free

UPCOMING MEMBERS’ EVENTS

FOR MORE EVENTS VISIT KIAOVAL.COM/MEMBERS-AREA

Surrey Women’s captainCecily Scutt