SMC FP 45th Annual Dinner | Friday 7 September
A few tickets remain for the SMC FP 45th Annual Dinner which is being held on Friday 7 September at the Clubhouse at Inverleith.
To book your place please email smcfpclub@esms.org.uk
Weekend Sport – Sat 25th August. Cricket / Rugby / Golf
1st XI v Grange for last match of the season
Cricket: Grange 344 for four (50 overs); Stewart’s Melville CC 154 for nine (50 Overs). Lost by 180 runs.
The 2018 cricket season drew to a close for the club with a final league match against Grange, the new league champions, at Raeburn Place. With ninth place secured a fortnight earlier the club had already retained their place in the Premier League for 2019. In the event as anticipated Grange’s batting proved too strong for a Stew Mel bowling attack missing professional Shaylen Pillay who returned to South Africa earlier in the week, with Nick Farrar a very accomplished opening bat compiling a score of 120 for the home side supported by Tom Foulds (52) and Neil McCallum, a former Scottish international bat playing his last league match before retirement with 46. Facing an unlikely target to win the Stew Mel batsmen were faced with aggressive seam bowling on a pitch that suited them from Graham Goudie and Stuart Davidson, another two former capped players. 20-4 suggested another early finish but Hayden Sweet dug in against the rest of the Grange attack to achieve a personal best for the season of 75 (from 86 balls)supported by Sam Tait who resolutely blocked out 117 balls in 98 minutes to finish with 13 not out and leave Grange still looking for the 10th wicket when play finished with the score on 154. Although well beaten the lasting thought was that with the same approach to batting shown by Hayden and Sam in earlier games we might have finished with more than three league wins.
Rugby: National League Cup. Carrick 19 points Stewart’s Melville RFC 41 points
Maybole was the destination for the rugby club’s first competitive game of the season with a comfortable win being achieved which takes them into the second round of the National League Cup.
A full report is available on http://www.stewmelrugby.com
Golf: Third place finish for Grant Forrest on European Challenge Tour Event
Grant Forrest showed a return to form with a 15 under par score of 273 (71,70, 66,66) and third place finish in the 40 man field for the Rolex Trophy in Geneva, one of the more significant events on the tour. This takes Grant back up into seventh place in the tour rankings with the top 15 at the end of the season winning cards for the main European Tour.
SMC FP 45th Annual Dinner | 7 September
Make sure you get your ticket for the Annual Dinner held on 7 September at Inverleith.
We have an excellent speaker; Thomas (Tommy) Kelly, Director & Co-founder of Jöttnar Ltd , an On-line Outdoor Clothing Specialist. Tommy left SMC in 1993 and after University and the UK Defence Academy, joined the Royal Marines. On leaving the service, he was a Performance Coaching Consultant prior to forming Jöttnar Ltd.
Places are priced at £36 per head (£26 for under 25’s)
To book your place please email Lindsey Geddes
Weekend Sport – Saturday 11th August. Cricket – 1st XI win
Stewart’s Melville CC 226 for 9 (50 0vers); Glenrothes 138 all out (35.3 overs)
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- Kyle McCallum
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- Greg Bissett
There was one result we wanted on Saturday – a win to secure our East Premiership status. This we did by 88 runs, but it wasn’t all plain sailing.
On losing the toss, a rare event this season, not surprisingly we were asked to bat , however it produced our best opening stand of the season by some distance. Kyle McCallum with 49 and Greg Bissett with 42, batting with caution worked very hard to put on 95. Being in such a strong position in the 21st over, it all became a bit of a struggle. Several of our batsman found ways of getting out. Shaylen Pillay made a patient 29 and Steve Parker looking in good form made 18 before being run out. This week again we had a lively last wicket stand with Adam McHoul (24*) and Tom Hilton (9*) putting on unbroken 33 runs – a very vital contribution to help push our final total to 226 for 9. We were not safe at tea, but at least the task for Glenrothes was more challenging.
Glenrothes, in spite of their ‘no wins’ season to date, have batsmen who can score runs – indeed they have been very close to winning at least 4 games this season. Our bowlers stuck to their task – 2 early wickets helped. It took a while to shift their middle order, and 48 runs for the 6th wicket to take them to 131 showed they weren’t giving up easily. However, we moped up the lower order quickly and the celebrations were soon underway.
Saturday sees our last home match of the season for the 1st XI against Watsonians with a 12 noon start with a final match against league leaders Grange at Raeburn Place on Saturday 25th.
Weekend Sport – Sat 4th August. Cricket 1st XI v Carlton
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- Arun Pillai (Carlton)
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- 1s batting v Carlton
At Inverleith – Carlton 245 for seven (50 overs); Stewart’s Melville CC 72 all out (26.2 overs)
Notwithstanding our earlier league win against Carlton Saturday’s match ended with another comprehensive defeat for the 1st XI. Adam McHoul stood in as captain for the unavailable Greg Ruthven and Steven Parker. With Kyle McCallum ruled out with a calf injury our batting was thus somewhat depleted and this was reflected in our score.
Whatever the outcome of matches our captains have had remarkable success in winning the toss and on doing so again Adam elected to bowl first on a pretty green pitch. Shaylen Pillay and Tom Hilton once again caused the early opposition batsmen some issues restricting Carlton to 37 for 2 from 12 overs before being replaced by Chris Bissett and Adam McHoul and then Sam Tait who bowled the next seventeen overs as Carlton took the score onto 106 for the loss of one further wicket. With a platform established Carlton added another 139 runs in the remaining 21 overs with Rory McCann the Merchiston school coach and a former Irish internationalist finishing on 90 and Arun Pillai finishing on 72.
Hayden Sweet and Greg Bissett opened our batting against Scotland World Cup bowler Alastair Evans and Omar Ahmad before Hayden was run out in the tenth over with the score at 17. No one played an innings of any substance thereafter as the next eight wickets fell in only nine overs with the score just 46. Our last two bats Zaki Thompson and Tom Hilton then held out for a further 30 minutes adding 26 runs in the highest partnership of the innings. Thoughts now turn to next weekend’s crucial match against bottom of the league Glenrothes when a much better performance is hoped for. A win then would secure the club’s place in the top division for another season.