9th -11th July

Mike Ireland (veteran seamer and occasional funky tweaker) decided that we should return to Shrewsbury this year with excursions to Wem, Nantwich and Oswestry as the playing venues.

Your teams and their captains were ..........

Friday - Wem CC

Tour highlights and lowlights were reported as:

Renewing our friendship with Shrewsbury, we ventured north to Wem for a 20 overs match on the Friday evening. The weather was fine, like the Banks's, but if your name was Mike it was not a day to be named Mike. Wem batted first and they scored 124 in their allotted overs. A first teamer came in at 7 and carted it everywhere for 42 in no time; Barford stuttered along to 76 all out. Both Mikes (Suffers and veteran seamer Ireland) copped a golden one. In our total was a top scorer of 22 named extras. A
fine evening of sunshine was our compensation.

Saturday started with a good downpour. We knew that the fixture had been cancelled so looked for alternate entertainment. Some elected to hone their glofing skills and
took to a local course with some impressive results. Others loafed around for a while before embarking upon a river cruise on the Severn. Discovering Budweiser and sand martins, in that order, an impressive line up of empties ensued so that Sunday's skipper, Peter Romyn, could set several fields using the empties!

Sunday, and off to Oswestry. The J C B roller was out and we should have known we were in for a hard time. They advanced robustly to 323 for 4 (Robinson 109 retired) with everyone coming in for a lot of stick from the 40 overs. In reply, the Mikes had a better time. After Nathan (39), Suffers scored 31 and the veteran seamer observed proceedings from the boundary - a good place to be. Barford had had enough at 127 all out. The game was played in the right spirit but Oswestry are a good number of levels
too high for us.

Regardless of the interference of cricket, a massive thanks to Mike Ireland who arranged the 2004 tour and we hope he might consider another one next year.

Minor issues considered as memorable:

• Grope Street - many tried but none (we trust) succeeded
• Our waitress at The Cornhouse on Sunday evening..............
• The Chairman arriving in Oswestry's clubhouse resembling Don King after a shower!?!

Again a big thank you to Mike for his organisation of the tour and to everyone who pitched up and made it happen. A few pictures to help the memories.

Skipper's got a cunning plan...

The distaff view of such tactics...

The battlefield...

I think we've got them worried...