Sport

Blackmore Vale teams gear up for league cricket season

The Dorset Cricket Board has published its list of 2021 fixtures in the hope that it can complete this season in full. The lockdowns of last summer meant that teams only managed half a season, playing a ‘friendly league’ with no promotion or relegation across seven divisions. In the rejigged league, Dorchester ended up champions, thanks to a twowicket win over Poole in September. Two Blackmore Vale sides are due to compete against Dorchester in the 10-team Dorset Premier League this year: Sherborne and Shroton. Village side Shroton has held its own in the top-flight for four seasons but the club pulled out of last year’s competition, citing only a small squad and a number of older players. The team has also yet to fully commit to 2021. “We usually only have 11 players available,” explained batsman and former captain Marc Doble. “To pull out is not a decision we would take lightly as the cricket club is the heartbeat of the village. “Hopefully we can play, especially as we didn’t have any cricket last year.” Shroton is due to open its fixtures on May 1 at home to Christchurch – and finish with another home game against the champions, Dorchester, on August 28. It would be a much-anticipated game at a venue much loved by opposing teams. Sherborne starts its campaign away to Broadstone and also ends away, to Wimborne –should all go ahead as planned this summer.Dorset Cricket Board development manager Keith Brewer told the NBV: “The governing cricket bodies are talking to the government and the feedback is that there is no reason why a no-contact sport played outdoors shouldn’t be possible.” Last season, the DCB reduced the number of overs to 45 in the top divisions to allow more time to clean the ball and introduce other sanitation measures. Final details are not

GREEN DAY: Preparing the cricket square and strips is already under way at Wincanton CC Donations flood in for repairs

Wincanton Cricket Club is closing in on a £3,000 fundraising effort for emergency work on its pavilion. “Unfortunately, we had a water leak which led to the whole ceiling having to be ripped out,” said club chairman Matt Howell. “Everything that was in and around the kitchen area has had to be binned. Vital materials will need to be bought to fund this project. We are a town club and rely on volunteers working hard and stuff like this happening is heartbreaking.” The appeal sparked an outpouring of generosity, with more than £2,600 being donated within eight days of an appeal page being published. The season begins in May and it is hoped to have the pavilion interior repaired and replaced by then. n If you would like to donate, go to gofundme.com and search for Wincanton Cricket Club.

yet confirmed for this season. One step down from the Premier League, Stalbridge, Shillingstone, Marnhull and Compton House (Sherborne) are among 10 teams competing in Division One. Shillingstone hosts Compton in its first game. In Division Two, Shaftesbury and Blandford compete – and play each other in the opening game.

Dorset non-league football season set to be cancelled

Dorset non-league teams across several divisions are anticipating the football season will be abandoned next week. With the number of games having already been postponed due to lockdown or the weather, Shaftesbury FC secretary Lewis Disson said clubs are facing up to reality. “We want to carry on but I don’t think it is feasible. If we start the next season in August or September, there just won’t be the time to finish this season.” The Football Association says that any decisions are on hold until after the government reveals its ‘roadmap’ out of the current lockdown on Monday. The crucial step is whether games are permitted again, with or without spectators. The committees governing non-league football will convene after Monday but will also take into account a survey of clubs’ wishes taken last month. “It will go to a club vote but the league will say what they think is the best option,” said Disson. Shaftesbury is in the Wessex League Premier Division, Step 5 of the FA non-league structure. Sherborne and Wincanton are in the Western League Division One, a rung lower in the structure, at Step 6. Both steps are governed by the leagues committee, which will inform the clubs of their recommendation. If the higher leagues stop, it will almost inevitably mean ithe Dorset Premier League is abandoned, affecting Blandford, Gillingham and Sturminster Newton. A silver lining for Shaftesbury would be it ability to focus on plans to install an artificial 3G pitch this summer. “If football comes to a halt, it might be a blessing in disguise,” said Disson.

Sport Three years sailing round the world:

By Steve Keenan

sport@blackmorevale.net It was 2016 and Tom Dymond and James Haggett, his best friend from Bruton, left Portland Harbour to sail around the world. Tom was 24 and the journey took three years. He’s now written a book about their adventure. “Looking back, I’m not sure if we really thought we would make it all the way around,” says Tom. “Surely a disaster of some sort would occur, be it meteorological or mechanical – or we would simply become fed up spending so much time with one another in a space so small.” In 2015, Tom was crewing aboard a yacht when he had a call from James, his best pal since they’d begun boarding at Sexey’s school in Bruton, aged 11. James had a suggestion to make… “The trip was James’s idea,” says Tom. “His family have always been sailing enthusiasts and he had bought a 32-foot sailboat, Blue Eye. James thought sailing around the world would be a great alternative to a gap year. “It was appealing because it was different, it was a challenge. I was working on a superyacht at the time he bought Blue Eye. When he told me about his plans I handed in my resignation and flew back to the UK to help him get the boat ready for the journey.” Tom wasn’t entirely unprepared for the adventure. On leaving Exeter University, he returned home to Gillingham to work at Virginia Hayward and Neal’s Yard to earn money to do the courses required to get a job as a deckhand. He also found time to be first choice scrumhalf for North Dorset RFC. On landing a crewing job in Palma, he worked the Mediterranean and Caribbean aboard a superyacht, started dinghy sailing and did his RYA day skipper’s course. On responding to James’ call, Tom helped him prepare Blue Eye – but also volunteered to crew a transatlantic yacht “to get more sea miles under my belt”. He had put in the miles – but the real challenge was to come, spending three years together on “a very small boat,” cooking, cleaning, sleeping, drinking, toileting, washing and sailing together. He says: “The time when it was most downright awful was on our first ocean crossing across the Atlantic to the Caribbean. On the way, a nasty and unexpected storm engulfed us one afternoon. The waves became enormous and the ocean a seething, frothing mess, just like in the movies. “By this point James and I had sailed Blue Eye some 3,000 miles and were sort of getting the hang of things. That is to say, nothing had gone too disastrously wrong up to that point, other than the odd near miss with fishing boats off the foggy coast of Portugal, and the occasional engine malfunction in the middle of some dark and sleepless nights. “We were adapting. But my poor stepfather, Pat Andrews, had left Gillingham to join us for that first ocean crossing with promises of a nice tan as the trade winds eased us across the Atlantic…” In reality he was thrust into a storm with winds that reached 45 knots and seas that towered over the mast. But Blue Eye is a sturdy Nicholson-32, built in the 1970s when boat builders were first coming to terms with fibreglass. Their approach was to make the hull and keel from one mould, inches thick. In short, she was solid as a tank. Tom said: “This might have made for a very slow vessel, but it was also precisely the vessel you would want to be in situations like that.” The trio reached the Caribbean in one piece, albeit a little scarred. Pat fled back to the comfort of Dorset, and other friends arrived to fill his bunk on various stages of the journey.

OFF WE GO: Tom and James leave Portland Harbour in 2016 and, inset, arrive back at the same jetty three years later

Sport Tom and James’s excellent adventure

SOMEWHERE UNDER THE RAINBOW: Blue Eye moored up off shore and, inset, Tom working on a superyacht

They sailed south from Antigua towards Grenada, west to the Panama Canal and beyond. But these hazy, lazy days were not entirely without danger… “We were anchored one night in St Lucia, in a bay on our own.,” said Tom. “At nightfall we heard the engines of three speedboats. There were 15 men onboard who demanded money for the mooring buoy. “We found it pretty terrifying but paid and they left. We then moved to another anchorage where other boats were anchored. Men will come to a sailboat to check things out, and then return later in the night to steal from you.” The pair also had a hairy moment in the Panama Canal of a different type. “We were rafted to a large sailboat as we went through the locks. It’s normal practice but when the locks fill, eddies are created and Blue Eye was rocked around. A rope came under so much tension it wrenched the fairlead out of the rail, pinged it through the air past the head of one crew – it could have been the end of him. The rope then tore the pulpit (a steel structure on the front of a boat) out of the deck and cause an awful lot of damage. “Overcoming these dangers was more than worth it to travel down through the South Pacific islands. “Without doubt it was my favourite part of our trip. “The sailing was generally simple and pleasant, the people the friendliest in the world, and the little bits of land that they inhabit out in that enormous ocean are ineffably beautiful.” Tom and James spent six months sheltering from the cyclone season in New Zealand. Tom had saved enough money on the superyacht to fund himself around the world, and James had also saved up enough too. The pair also picked up the odd bit of work on boats as they travelled, with Tom earning extra cash money writing articles for magazines. After NZ, it was on to south east Asia, weaving through Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand before heading west to Sri Lanka. From there, the duo took on the most dangerous part of the journey, through the Red Sea. Tom said: “Infamous for its pirates, many cruisers scoff at the notion of sailing through those ostensibly dangerous waters. “But the data was showing that the presence of international navies had been extremely effective in reducing attacks in that area, and so we decided it was worth the risk. Whilst I confess there were some sphincter-relaxing moments when boats approached us, we reached eastern Africa just fine.” The remaining months of the journey saw Blue Eye pass through the Suez Canal and into the Mediterranean. Although it was spring, the mountaintops of Crete were still cloaked in snow. In the south of France, the mast was taken down so the couple could complete their journey via the French waterways.

“Some three years after we had left Portland

Harbour, having crossed three oceans and visited more than 30 countries, James and I returned to the same dock from which friends and family had waved us off. It was a wonderful feeling,” said Tom, who is now a postman in Bristol. “I definitely want to travel extensively again, though perhaps with a different mode of transport. I think James has dreams of circumnavigating again one day, but perhaps in a little more comfort than little Blue Eye could offer us…” n Tom has written a book about the circumnavigation, Hooked On The Horizon: Sailing Blue Eye Around The World. Visit tsdymond.com to read a draft chapter and sign up for his newsletter – be in the know for when it is published later this year.