Relief for Ashington as washout helps Mighty Acorns secure Premier League status
After hearing that Ashington had escaped from the relegation trapdoor on Saturday, Ben Harmison breathed a huge sigh of relief then said “we cannot let this happen again.”
The Mighty Acorns went into their final game of the season against Newcastle at Jesmond with second from bottom Tynemouth breathing down their necks.
But on a day of squally and persistent showers, shortly after news had come through that the coast club’s match against South Northumberland had been rained off, Ashington’s also fell foul of the weather.
Consequently Tynemouth joined Sunderland with both clubs dropping down into division one of the North East Premier League.
Afterwards, Harmison admitted: “I’m obviously over the moon because we have stayed up. The last few weeks have been a bit stressful and with the team that we’ve got, I still can’t believe that we were fighting relegation instead of us being at the other end of the table trying to win the league. But it’s all done and dusted now - we are safe – and hopefully the lads will winter well.
"This past season will hurt them – not so much with how we played because I think we’ve produced some decent cricket but in phases of games we have let ourselves down too many times.
"We are still a Premier League team which is good and we won the hundred competition so overall, although I’m a bit disappointed with the league finish, we still managed to get a bit of silverware for the club.”
He continued: “We’ve just said to the lads in the dressing room that we cannot allow this to happen again. We are far too good a team to be fighting relegation but hopefully we will come back next year and use what was a close call as motivation. A few of the more senior lads and the committee will probably sit down in a few weeks and analyse this year but I don’t envisage that anything is going to change because we’ve got an unbelievable group.
"We’ve got a load of lads under 21 who are playing regular first team cricket coupled with some good senior players then add an overseas player into the mix and we’ll be a match for anyone. We’ve got to look to be a bit more consistent - and I’m sure we will get there. Right now, we’re just over the moon that we have stayed up - and it’s a relief.
“The club are looking really good - but in the first eleven we’ve never had a settled side. We have got a lot of shift workers who dip in an out of the team whilst Charlie Harmison has been injured for a while and he’s our strike bowler. Dan Gardiner was bowling excellently then also got injured and we missed him for five weeks. Those are not excuses but if you take players like that out of your team, it’s going to hurt you. We’re just over the moon that we are safe so we can now start to plan for next year.”