A cricket team has broken a 35-year losing streak by finally winning a match abroad.
Ash Tree Cricket Club has spent the last three decades travelling the globe as part of its annual pre-season tour.
But despite a competent record at their home in Prestbury, the luckless sportsmen couldn’t buy a victory on the road.
Until now.
In their latest trip to the sleepy Croatian island of Vis the Macclesfield cricketers finally found a cure to their travel bug by beating Sir William Hoste Cricket Club.
Mark Crook, the club’s chairman, said it was a mystery why the team’s tour record was so bad.
The 72 year old said: “Over the years on home turf we have won and lost in equal measure, but abroad it was a very different story.
“It became a bit of an inside joke.
“We used to share our record with the team we were playing but they never believed us and thought it was a ploy.
“I think the main reason for not winning was a lack of skill, but we’ve also been a bit unlucky. We came very close a few times, and only lost by one run last year in France.
“In Vis we didn’t expect to win with our track record, so it was amazing when it happened. We couldn’t believe it.”
The team returned home to a hero’s welcome and a message of congratulation from its honorary vice chairman David Rutley.
The club was formed in 1975 by a group of punters at the Butley Ash pub on London Road.
The team – which has an average age of 55 and boasts a butcher, financial advisors, engineers, a pastor and space scientist –now meet at the Admiral Rodney pub in Prestbury and play their home matches at Prestbury Cricket Club.
Games involve 30 overs batting time, with a 30 run cap and every player bowling three overs.
Mark, from Poynton, said: “We are just a pub side full of players who played at school and at lower levels.
“It’s competitive, we play to win, but it is about the fun and social aspect just as much.”
The tours first started around the UK, with a string of losses, and the first trip abroad to Portugal in 1988 ended in disaster when the host team didn’t turn up. Undeterred the team went on to have successful tours to Barbados, Corfu, Malta and Ibiza.
