Latter's arrival as president is heralded by a wet dawn

AS SEASON starts go, Guernsey Cricket Association president Mark Latter could have wished for a happier one. After the first two weekends were rained off, as well as the opening week of the Barclays Evening League programme, Latter was relieved that a rearrangements secretary had been found in John Mountford.

'Without rearrangements, we would have had to have started this week across the board,' he said.

The GCA president is still covering his previous role as secretary, a situation he described as interesting.

'I would have preferred not to have to do everything myself, but there you go,' he said.

'We need new blood on committee. Things like this week show how much you need people to help to run the game.

'It's no coincidence that changing rooms and umpires are available for games and we need help to keep that going.'

Latter joined the GCA committee three years ago, persuaded by a friend after their inebriated offer to then president Gary Tapp.

'He approached me and I didn't know what he was talking about. So I agreed to turn up once to see what went on and it went from there. They used to do that to seamen outside pubs in Portsmouth, didn't they?'

As well as getting the infrastructure right, Latter has his own challenges on the pitch this year.

His side, HSBC Griffins, was due to embark on its first top-flight evening league campaign on Thursday against Deloitte, likely to be fellow strugglers. Instead, they will face the champions, C&W Rovers, in their opening fixture.

The triumph of reaching the top division has come well into the swing bowler's cricketing life.

'I've played for Griffins for 17 or 18 years and we've always spoken about it and a lot of people have retired trying to get to that standard available to us.

'It's one of the reasons that perhaps the EL structure works better as a ladder. You can do a Wimbledon: get 10 or 11 players together and go through the system.'

Latter said that his side were not daunted by the task they face.

'We're excited. It's different. We've worked hard, we've had a bowling machine, Mike Kinder coaching at nets, but the main thing is that we don't let ourselves down. We want to enjoy ourselves playing a reasonable level of cricket and hope that the teams against us enjoy a good game.'