Cricket: Simon Marshall ends family connection at Neston

Feb 7 2008 by Our Correspondent, Liverpool Daily Post

AFTER playing his cricket at Parkgate since he was a Birkenhead Schoolboy, Lancashire all-rounder Simon Marshall, 24, has switched his allegiance to Alderley Edge for the 2008 season in the Cheshire County League.

The new season starts on Saturday, April 19.

This means there will be no-one named Marshall on the Neston team sheets for the first time in 40 years, Simon’s father Jim having also played there since his youth before hanging up his boots in 2006 following a spell as chairman when the club left the Liverpool Competition eight years earlier.

Alderley Edge should be a force next season as they set out to challenge for the ECB Premier Division title, having also signed Lancashire’s 6ft 5ins paceman Oliver Newby and Jason Whittaker, Walshaw’s professional all-rounder in the Bolton Association and a regular in the successful Cheshire Minor Counties side.

Neston have moved to fill the gap in their squad by securing the services of Upton all-rounder Lee Dixon, 23, who captained the First Division club last season and has played for Cheshire second XI.

The opening programme of ECB Premiership fixtures in the Cheshire County League is: Alderley Edge v Toft; Bowdon v Nantwich; Heaton Mersey v Oulton Park; Hyde v Widnes; Neston v Macclesfield; Urmston v Chester Boughton Hall.

Irby are celebrating their 60th anniversary with a series of event headed by a celebrity luncheon in their Mill Hill Road pavilion on Friday, May 23. Former New Zealand Test star Sir Richard Hadlee will be the main speaker. Tickets are available at £50.