Merseyside Cricket Umpires Association

The MCUA grading panel has met and are pleased to announce the following Grade 1 and Grade 1 reserve umpires for the 2024 season -

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Grade 1s
Paddy Brown
Jeremy Clein
Peter Crook
Alistair Davies
Chris Dunn
Steve Edwards
John Farrell
Stephen Fildes
Ian Laurence
Craig Parkinson
Richard Selkirk
Chris Spencer

 

Grade 1 Reserve
John Lawton
Royal Raj
Chris Williams
David Woods
Wayne Vernon

MCUA are running a refresher course covering the updates to the Laws of Cricket (3rd Edition - 2022) and other general points. 

 

This training session will be held on 

Sunday the 26th March 2023 between 9.30am and 4.30pm.

 

At Ormskirk Cricket Club.

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This training course is open to ALL umpires including MCUA members, L&DCC 2nd and 3rd XI umpires and Southport League umpires.

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The event is being supported by the Liverpool and District Cricket Competition and a light lunch will be provided to attendees.

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Further details are available from Dave Laybourne via email at -

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d.laybourne@gmail.com

David Halewood has informed MCUA that the Memorial Service for Eric Linford will take place on Friday 20th January 2023, 12.30pm at St Luke's Church Crosby (L23 5SE).

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This will be followed by 

refreshments at the Royal Hotel, Waterloo (L22 5PR).

Following a review of performance information from the previous three seasons the following individuals have been invited to be, and have accepted, the following grading for the 2023 season.

 

Grade 1

Steve Beswick

Jeremy Clein

Peter Crook

Chris Dunn

John Farrell

Stephen Fildes

Martin James

Ian Laurence

John Lawton

Craig Parkinson

Richard Selkirk

Chris Spencer

 

Grade 1 Reserve

Chris Burns

Steve Edwards

Phil Luxton

Gareth Townsend

Chris Williams

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It is with deep regret and much sadness that we report the death of Norman Edward's wife, Anne Crew.

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Anne passed away suddenly on the 14th of September 2022.
 

Funeral arrangements can be found at -
https://funeral-notices.co.uk/notice/crew/5068917.

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On behalf of all his colleagues and friends at MCUA, we send our deepest sympathy and condolences to Norman and his family at this sad time.

We have received reports that some members are incorrectly applying the upcoming changes to the laws in current L&DCC games.

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For clarification and the avoidance of doubt, the proposed law changes that have been outlined in the recent edition of the ACO Magazine do NOT come into effect until October of this year and therefore must not be applied in L&DCC games until the 2023 season.

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This is particularly relevant to the proposed changes to the laws covering which batsman will face the next ball after a catch is taken and also the application of saliva to the ball.

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Please remember that in L&DCC games if a batsman is out caught then the non striker should face the next ball if the batters have crossed (and it's not the end of the over) and players are still permitted to apply saliva to the ball.

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It is with Deep regret that we report the death of MCUA Life President and former Chairman, Chris Bell.

 

We have no further information to pass on at this time but will update the membership as and when funeral arrangements are known.

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MCUA offers its condolences to Chris's family at this sad time.

MCUA is please to announce that Six colleagues have retained their place on the ECB National Umpires panel.

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The Six members are -

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Steve Beswick
Paddy Brown
Alistair Davies
Chris Dunn
John Farrell
Ian Laurence

 

All Six will be appointed to County 2nd XI and National Counties fixtures throughout the 2022 season and we wish them all the best of luck for the year ahead.

Dave Jones

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MCUA founder and former President, Dave Jones, is recovering at home following another heart attack on Christmas morning.

 

Dave spent 15 days in Whiston hospital before being allowed back home.

 

We wish Dave a full and speedy recovery.

It is with deep sadness that we report the death of our former colleague Brian Ball.

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MCUA offers its condolences to Stephen and all Brian's family at this sad time.

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Further details will be posted on the website as they become available.

Our colleague and friend, Stephen Fildes, has just achieved his 1000th umpiring appointment.

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To mark this tremendous achievement the following was sent on behalf of the Gold Coast Cricket Umpires & Scorers Association. MCUA would like to echo these sentiments and we are looking forward to seeing Stephen officiate with us again in the spring.

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On behalf of the Executive, I would like to congratulate Stephen Fildes on his 1000th umpiring appointment

 

Stephen will be officiating the Round 16 1st Grade Match Surfers Paradise v Burleigh at Cambio Group Oval with Rod Rice for the 3rd and 10th February to bring up this achievement.

 

We are all aware of Stephen’s umpiring travels but to summarise, these 1000 matches includes 203 CGC 1st Grade games, 48 QLD County Representative matches, 29 at the National Masters Championships along with other Cricket Gold Coast competitions/rep matches and 533 matches in the UK.

 

Stephen has umpired 8 First Grade Grand Finals (including T20s), 3 Second Grade Finals and one Grand Final each of Over 40s and Third Grade since my records began in 2010/11. He has also umpired multiple games with his son Andrew which I believe was a first for the GCCUSA and one of only 2 father/son combinations to have done it for the GCCUSA.

 

This is an extraordinary achievement and the GCCUSA is proud of Stephen for achieving this feat.

 

I hope members join with me to congratulate Stephen

 

 

Kind Regards 

 

Michael Guy

Secretary

Gold Coast Cricket Umpires & Scorers Association Inc.

Colleagues are reminded that the MCUA 2023 AGM will be held on -

 

Thursday, 23th February 2023 starting at 7.30pm.

 

The AGM will be held at -

 

Liverpool Cricket Club.

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We hope to see as many members as possible at the AGM.

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MCUA is saddened to learn of the death of Dickie Davies' wife, Joan.

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Dickie served MCUA for many years as both a well respected umpire and the association's financial auditor.
 

Joan's funeral service will take place at 2.30pm on the 5th of January 2023 at Holy Trinity Chapel, Chorley Way, Spital, Wirral, CH63 9LS. This will be followed by a family only internment.

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On behalf of all his colleagues and friends at MCUA, we send our deepest sympathy and condolences to Dickie and his family at this sad time.

It is with deep sadness that MCUA has learnt of the death of Eric Linford after a short illness.

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Eric, who was a founder member of MCUA, was a well respected umpire and a fantastic colleague to those who stood with him.

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Latterly, Eric went on to become a boundary assessor for the association where he was extremely supportive and had a great saying of ‘coming to see good things’ when he observed colleagues.

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Eric's funeral will be in Northampton (date not yet fixed) but a Memorial Service will be held at St. Luke's Church in Crosby later.

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Eric was a lovely man who will be fondly remembered by all those who knew him and MCUA offers its deep condolences to Eric's family at this sad time.

MCUA are pleased to announce that four of our colleagues have been appointed to prestigious National Counties (formally Minor Counties) showcase fixtures over the next few weeks.

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We wish Paddy, Chris, John and Ian well for these fixtures.

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Fixtures and appointments are -

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• Paddy Brown - Northumberland vs Yorkshire at South Numberland CC

• Chris Dunn - Staffordshire vs Leicestershire at  Knypersley CC

• John Farrell - Shropshire vs Derbyshire at Shifnal CC

• Ian Laurence - Herefordshire v Worcestershire at Eastnor CC

The funeral arrangements for John Pearson are as follows -

 

The service will be held on Friday 25th March 2022, 12:30pm at St. Columbas Church & Presbytery, Primrose Drive, Liverpool, L36 8DL.

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Followed at 1.30pm by the committal at St. Helens Crematorium, Rainford Road, Windle, St. Helens, Merseyside, WA10 6DF.

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MCUA offers its deep condolences to John's family at this sad time.

Ray's daughter, Christina Bowden has updated details of the Arrangements:

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"Friends and Colleagues of Ray are invited to celebrate the life of Ray Partington"

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The Funeral will be on Tuesday 25 January 2pm at Southport Crematorium, 159 Southport Road, PR8 5JQ

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And afterwards from 3pm a Funeral Reception will be held at Fleetwood Hesketh Sports and Social Club, Fylde Road, Southport. PR8 9XH

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" All are welcome to share stories and memories of Ray". 

A few points of clarification and guidance for the forthcoming season.

 

Team sheets - if you can, umpires should not handle the team sheets. Clubs have been encouraged to send them to you electronically in advance of the game. Realistically this may not happen so you will still get them on the day. Restrict handling and it is recommended that you copy the names and any age restrictions onto your own team sheet. If you do handle the team sheet then sanitise your hands afterwards.

 

Match Result Form (MRF) - these are being used this season and will be completed after the match by the home team. Like team sheets you should not handle the form. Complete your over rate calculations on a separate sheet and ask the home team to enter the details onto the form for you. Sign the form if you can but its not essential. Again, if you handle the MRF then sanitise your hands afterwards

 

Covid Non-Compliance - the ECB ACO guidance for umpires and scorers includes a reference to penalty runs being awarded by umpires for a breach of Covid guidance. Penalty runs should not be awarded in LDCC matches. It is unreasonable to apply penalty runs for a non cricket related infringement. Do however ask teams to comply with the guidance and if necessary issue a formal warning. If there is no improvement then complete a disciplinary report. Umpires are not expected to formally police Covid compliance but you will see things so take the necessary action.

 

Match Timings - matches will start at 12.00 noon all season. Clubs can request a change to 1.00pm but they must request the change by the Thursday in the previous week. Matches are extended by 15 minutes to allow for sanitisation so are now of 6 hours 30 minutes duration plus any additional time it takes to bowl the overs in the last hour.
For matches starting at 12.00 noon the timings are as follows: - 

    Start time: 12.00 noon

    Interval: 30 minutes duration taken between innings but no later than 3 hours 30 minutes after the start (3.30pm)

    Last hour starts: 6.00pm

 

If the change of innings does not take place in the interval, then the 10 minutes between innings will be added onto the playing time so the last hour will start at 6.10pm

 

Over Rates - the required over rate has been reduced from 17 overs per hour to 16 overs per hour for the 2021 season. When doing your calculations make a standard 15 minute allowance per innings for hand and ball sanitisation.

Match Balls -  umpires are instructed not to handle the match balls either the new ball or the spares. After sanitisation ask the fielding team to put the ball on the floor close to the stumps. Umpires should not ask the scorers to keep the spare balls. Its the Captains responsibility to manage the match balls.

Sanitisation - last season I carried my own small bottle of hand get and a packet of disinfectant wipes. Helped when I wanted to sanitise and to have available for others if necessary.

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Ron Hayes

It has been reported that former MCUA umpire, Ron Hayes, has recently passed away.

 

Ron joined MCUA from the Manchester Association when Leigh CC joined the Liverpool Competition. He was a strong supporter of all cricket at Leigh and held many positions within the Club.

 

After retiring from umpiring, Ron followed Leigh 1st X1 both home and away.

 

He will be sadly missed

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It is with deep regret and much sadness that we report the death of Dave Wood's wife, Eileen.

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Eileen sadly passed away in Preston Hospital and details of her funeral arrangements will be confirmed as they become available.

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On behalf of all his colleagues and friends at MCUA, we send our deepest sympathy and condolences to Dave and his family at this sad time.

We had our very first T20 Cricket match vs our friends at Ormskirk Occasionals

Skipper Joe Parsons won the toss and elected to bat first on what was a sunny evening.

 

We opened the batting with 2 guest players with Phil King and Adam Post walking out to the middle. 
We got off to a slow start losing Phil King with the very first ball of the match. The slow start continued due to some great bowling from the 2 opening bowlers and lost Adam Post and Craig Parkinson
for 3 runs a piece, both being bowled. Steve Wallis and Royal Rajan then picked up the run rate a bit, both batsman reaching 25 and retiring not out, Skipper Joe put on a quick(ish) 14 in the middle order, with support from Royal and Depak Gupta who finished on 4no, Paul Vandome and Guest Stephen Dewsbury both
went out with the intention to swing and see what happens, both unfortunatly got caught out for ducks, Oliver Wallis faced the final ball, running a quick single to get out score to a slightly under par 81/6 off our 20 overs

 

Our bowling effort got off to a bad start. Joe opened the bowling and saw his very first ball smashed over midwicket
for 4, we thought it was going to be a quick finish, but we managed to slow the scoring rate. Oliver bowled better only
going for 5 runs off his first 3 overs picking up 1 wicket. The first bowling change saw Deepak Gupta coming on, taking 2 wickets with his first 3 balls, Royal backed him up from the other end taking a wicket in his first over and only going for 7 runs and taking 2 wicket, Deepak finish on 3for7 off his 4 overs, Steve Wallis bowled 3 overs going 14 runs. the moments of our bowling attack came in the final over, bowled by Craig Parkinson, his loopy spin tempted the batters, his second ball getting hooked to deep square leg, it looked destined to be going for 6, only for Oliver Wallis to take a fantastic overhead 1 handed catch on the boundary, skipper Joe Parsons also took a great one handed catch at midwicket to give Craig his second wicket, Craig bowled out and finished on 2for7, OOCC finishing on 61 for 9 off their 20 overs

 

Merseyside Cricket Umpires won by 20 runs

Thankyou to everyone who took part and Thankyou to Ormskirk Occasionals for hosting a great evening

Lancashire ACO are holding a Stage 2 Umpire Education Course at Ormskirk Cricket Club between 9.30am and 4.00pm on Sunday the 19th of February 2023.

This course is designed to build on Umpire Education Stage One, covering further Laws and exploring the concept of working as part of a team with a colleague and the scorers.

It is intended to introduce you to the skills and knowledge required to be a member of a league panel.

The cost is £30 and to book a place on the course go to- 

https://booking.ecb.co.uk/c/express/d0fa9237-afd2-4fbb-9115-635dd4ce71b6?1Q,M3,d0fa9237-afd2-4fbb-9115-635dd4ce71b6=
 

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Alistair Davies has recently informed the committee that after officiating in the L&DCC for the past 4 years he has decided to return to Cheshire for the 2023 season.

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Alistair, who is a National Panel umpire, joined MCUA in 2019 and won the Premier League Umpire of the year award in 2021 and also came runner up in 2022.

Alistair writes to say -

"It is with a tinge of sadness that I have to report that I will be returning to Cheshire next year.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for some great appointments over the last 4 years and to let you know I have really enjoyed my time with the MCUA. 

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To win umpire of the year last year and come second this exceeded anything I thought I would achieve."

All Alistair's colleagues at MCUA wish him the best of luck for 2023 and hope that we may still see him officiating in Echo KO games next Season. 

MCUA is sad to report the death of Jim Fort who passed away recently after a short illness.

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Jim was a police officer in 'A' Division in Central Liverpool with Merseyside Police before becoming a Court Usher at Liverpool Magistrate's Court following his retirement from the Force.

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He was a very competent and respected cricket umpire, officiating with Huyton CC and then as a member of the Merseyside Cricket Umpires Association.

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Jim's funeral will be held at St Bartholomew's Church, Thurstaston CH61 6HU on Friday 11th November at 1:30pm.

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MCUA extend their condolences to his children, Alan and Susan and their extended families.

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Following an L&DCC meeting between John Williams, Chris Weston and Rob Durand, John Williams wrote to MCUA regarding Sunday's Digman matches -

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We all agreed to compliment all the umpires involved in officiating all the Digman games. As you know the weather was not good, variable in different parts of the league area, but matches were played where they could be, results obtained and a couple have been set for another day.

 

Job done well Thank You.

 

John W.

MCUA has just learnt of the sudden passing of John Pearson.

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Peter Mercer from Rainhill cc has sent the following -

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With deep regret, I am advising you that John Pearson has passed away suddenly. 

 

It is hard to put into words John’s popularity and the massive impact he has made to the Club and its members.

 

He was indeed a driving force with the development of the juniors in our club and we will have many sad juniors and parents.

 

John was our Treasurer, Coach, All Stars Activator, Umpire, Junior Team Manager and always willing to volunteer to be involved in anything happening.

 

I know one of his proudest moments was at the October 21 Presentation event when he was honoured with the Clubman of the Year award.

 

John will greatly missed and our sincere condolences to all his family at this very sad time.

 

Regards.  

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Peter Mercer

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MCUA offers its deep condolences to John's family at this sad time and will update members as to funeral arrangements as and when we learn of them.

This is a message from Ray's daughter Christina -

"Dad passed away last night peacefully and with family.

 

He wanted me to tell his friends on here when the time came.

 
He spent his life making people smile and those memories are carrying me through today.

I will post details of funeral arrangements when they are made".

 

MCUA offers its condolences to Christina and all of Ray's family at this sad time.

Lancashire ACO are running a further two Stage 2 Umpire courses in March which are open to all colleagues who have successfully passed their Stage one course.

 

Booking details are:

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https://booking.ecb.co.uk/d/jjq0f6

 

https://booking.ecb.co.uk/d/8jq0fb

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Update on Ray Rigby.

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Over the past few weeks Ray has suffered a decline in his health. He has recently been diagnosed with Lewey Body Dementia and after a short stay in hospital has been moved to a nursing home.

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His condition means that it is not possible for Ray to receive visitors but if circumstances change then members will be informed.

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Our best wishes go to Ray, Carol, Julie and all his family at this difficult time.

Chris Coxhead has been to see former member Ray Partington and reports that Ray is presently not very well.

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He is currently resting at home.

 

MCUA wish Ray all the best for the future.