PHOTOS
Camrose CC in happier times – winning the Alan Brown Cup Final in 2006
Dai Isaac
Steve Blowes

 
There was an air of sadness around the cricketing fraternity of the county with the news that with just two matches of the 2015 season remaining Camrose Cricket Club has folded and had to withdraw from its place in Division Two of the Pembroke County Cricket Club.
 
It means that the club, which had two teams at the start of the campaign, has imploded so badly that it has left some of its former players devastated at its collapse after a nomadic existence which started as Trecwn, switched to Spittal and ended its days in Camrose.
 

Serious ramifications for other clubs

 
The club’s demise also has serious ramifications for the relegation issues in the section because under the rules of the County Club all of its scores for the whole campaign must be expunged so that Burton are now out of the ‘danger zone’ and who gets relegated to division three will be decided at The Racecourse on Saturday, weather permitting, as Saundersfoot stand two points ahead of Haverfordwest Seconds and the pair meet in a straight dog-fight to see which of them goes down.
 
Watching from the wings will be members of Haverfordwest’s third team because they have already assured themselves of promotion from Division Four but if their seconds go down they will have to remain where they are now!
 

Dan’s desperately disappointed . . .

 
Current Camrose skipper Dan Wilks, told us,
“It was awful that we folded but I just haven’t been able to find enough players in the last couple of weeks so we had no option. What makes it even worse is the fact that some players said they were going for a friendly round of golf, or just had some excuse for not playing.”
 
. . . And long-serving Dai is even more so!

 
Even more disappointed was Dai Isaac, who joined the club in 1991 after 27 years at Haverfordwest.
“It was called Trecwn in those days and we played just behind the Jubilee Pub in Letterston, a field that had a telegraph pole in the outfield so if you hit it you got four runs and couldn’t be caught off the overhead wires!
 
“Then we moved to the picturesque ground at Home Farm, Spittal, thanks to the brilliant generosity of John Nicholas, and we had almost a decade of play there before John needed the land and we moved to Camrose Football Club, where we had every support from Steve Goddard, Alan Thomas, Ronnie Raymond and Paul Westhuff, with Chris Watts and Dave Haworth

doing yeoman work on the outfield.
 
When I think of the genuine characters who played for us I am gutted. It is a sad way to say goodbye to a friendly, welcoming club!”
 

Old-timers remembered

 
The inspiration behind the club in its Trecwn days was Rodney Kendrick, who was the club’s statistics man and kept detailed records of every game, with his brother Arthur, Rob John, Bob Talbot, Byron Williams, Jerome Merry, Billy Jones, Garfield Evans, John and Anthony Davies all involved when the team switched to Spittal because the pitch was needed for housing development.
 
The move to Spittal meant lots of work on the wicket for Dai Isaac and Robert John and it was a lovely place to play, as was Camrose when the team moved there.

Dai Isaac used four loads of loam to get the square in shape, aided by club chairman Frank Reynolds and a few others, as players of the quality of Phil Rees, Matthew Williams, Tony Griffiths, Malcolm Arnold, Darren Osborne and Dave Morgan joined the fold alongside Mike Wright and Martin Tweedie, plus a few doctors recruited from the hospital by Mr Morgan.

Steve Blowes moved into the area from London and the ex-chief inspector was a useful acquisition as a wicket-keeper/batsman but also took over the reins on the pitch over recent seasons, as well as being Hon Secretary of the Pembroke County Cricket Club.
 

Players let down club

 
But as more and more rugby and football players joined the fold they began to form the basis of the first team and the loss of the seconds meant a small squad which was badly affected by non-availability through events like stag do’s, and resulted in bottom place in the table, despite three wins on the trot in the second half of the season.
 
The club was unable to field a team for two games and with a third threatening last Saturday club officials felt forced to take action.
 
Steve Blowes told us,
“After so much work, on and off the field, by people with Camrose Cricket Club at heart it is a huge shame the club should end like this.
“We tried hard so hard to keep it afloat but all in vain – and I am desperately saddened by the way that the club had to shut down!