Yes we all know the main event is in November, but as a warm up, we will be taking on our Australian Brothers at Laidley District cricket club for a packet of McCains finest Hash Browns, hence The Hashes!

The challenge we have set is to travel the 10,000 miles on foot from Whitley’s clubhouse in England to the Laidley Clubhouse in Australia!

How will we do this in Covid Times I hear you ask, not to mention the potential issues with visa’s now Brexit has happened. Well, the answer is virtually of course!

Through the website www.challengehound.com we will travel the 10,000 miles along an interactive map that will plot our route and show or progress against Laidley’s.

We will have 50 members to each team, made up of 45 club members and 5 wildcards. The challenge will run from 1st March for 1 month or until someone reaches the Laidley clubhouse.

Each member will have to complete on average 10km per day, so it won’t be easy going. You will be able to follow the challenge online and hopefully despite lockdown we will be able to bring the Urn back home!

Hopefully if Boris eases things, we can organise some group walks but if not, I have faith in my Wizards to put the convicts to bed.

We will be doing this in aid of fundraising towards the New Net Facility which I am sure you will all agree will be of huge benefit to the club and even if you are not able to join in the challenge we hope you can promote this across your social media and word of mouth to raise as many funds as possible for what will be our Main Fundraiser of the year.

The club is raising funds towards building a New Off Field New facility alongside supporting the club through the current pandemic. The growth of the club and the addition of a ladies section, the hugely successful All Stars Programme running alongside our 4 junior and 3 senior sides has meant the ground does not have the capacity to hold the fixtures and practice session required for the volume of players and teams we now have.

The main driving force for the new facility is providing the club with the ability to host both practice and games on the ground simultaneous. With the number of junior and senior teams rising and the addition of games being rearranged due to the good old English weather this has meant fixtures (and re-arranged fixtures) taking priorities over practice sessions.

The reduction of training opportunities has a negative impact on the experience we can offer and moreover the development of the players involved. Whilst we try to re-arrange practice sessions when possible, the constant changing dates of these also has a negative impact on numbers.

The new facility would allow the club to organise a consistent practice calendar greatly improving the development and experience of our players and moreover means we can use the ground for games or on non match days have group practice on the main ground and specialist dedicated one to one practice on the off field facility.

Local Schools also use our facility for there kwik cricket festivals and would be in support of such a facility and moreover ECB insight has shown the Womens and Girls Section, that we are trying to expand, placed practice in a comfortable and safe environment high on there priority list and this facility would aid greatly in our aims to grow this section and the sport as a whole within the community.