After the small matter of 502 weeks and 1 day (9.6 years) the 1stXI finally got to stage a game on our own ground with the first ever senior game at Chew Moor coming some 153 games after our last home game at Lostock. In the intervening years we have mainly been based at Haydock, but many other clubs have stepped in to help us fulfil fixtures and to all of them we are eternally grateful.

Thankfully the weather was kind and with a decent crowd present the game went ahead with near neighbours Westhoughton our first visitors. After many pre-match photographs and a lovely gesture from Westhoughton  who presented us with a superb momento of the day, the game got under with Westhoughton batting first. Rob Holgate had the honour of grabbing the first wicket on the new ground on his way to the first fivefer here too as he finished with 5/58. David backed him up well taking 4/65 but the visitors tail wagged through Higham and Honour to leave us chasing a testing 182.

Dan Vincent and Matt Trow got us off to a good start before Dan fell for a fine 32. Trowy was enjoying himself against his former teammates and went on to hit the first 50 on the new ground before falling for 63. Pete and Leachy added useful runs but the innings tailed off disappointingly as Abbas took 5 wickets and Edwards 4 to dismiss us for 157 in reply.

The scorecard for this historic game is here

All things considered though the result was irrelevant as it slowly sank in that here we were in our new home at last!