I can remember they recruited an Rumanian international hooker and a Number 8 from Ulster ( ex Ealing minis and youth player, Shaun O' Connell. They both made a huge impact and nearly turned our first season around but unfortunately other fixtures did not go our way. 

Best of luck to Caldy but it is obviously a big step up but challenging.

Having made that step up way back in 2004 (and staying there until 2009) all I can say is only the following.  Caldy will compete, they will enjoy themselves, the staff, players and fans who follow them will make lifelong friends and have wonderful memories that will last forever. I wish them all the best.

A visit to the dentist?

Mind you, this is the Rugby Paper which, in last Sunday's results, had Cov beating Doncaster at home (they lost) with Dawidiuk, Bulumakau, Tuitupou, Knox, and Maisey scoring the points.

We haven't seen any of those names at the BPA for some years (barring Will Maisey's uncle of course).

Bit of a rag really.

Your pitch. .....size , flags, post ,any water logging muddy areas ! God forbid a muddy pitch ( whatever you do not install a 3 G artificial pitch , dead ball area, distance of barriers from pitch, location of medical attendance and more.

Are you a 'real club ' are you a ' proper club' whatever that means I have read on here several differing explanations on what a ' proper' club is. 

Beer.....to some one of THE most important ingredients of a Saturday out . Availability , how long it takes to get a beer, the temperature , the taste,  texture , aroma.

Parking , distance to clubhouse ..  beer . TOILETS, very very important ,size availability queuing time ,smell ! 

Players , coaching backroom staff .

Players.  Are they homegrown , did you entice them away, do they sit on the bench. Have taken them on only to deny another team !.

 

Attendance, seating arrangements , are there covered , cushioned heated seats.

Programme , content ,accuracy , print size.

Your gates . I believe your gates a zinc coated , galvanised 5 v or six bar and are usually left open. I have this from a reliable source. 

Be prepared this barrage . Again welcome it is a fantastic league and can produce incredible Rugby

We have 3 full sized pitches and 14 Mini pitches all marked out weekly by our volunteer Ground team affectionately Known as the "Last of the Summer wine". 

The Ground is open and near to the River Dee so the winds can affect the game. 50mph is not unusual. 

With all the land parking is not a problem,, we coped well with the 3000 which attended the Final Game against Sale. We have the additional benefit of the School grounds being across the road with a further 3 pitches , an all weather hockey pitch and cricket pitch plus parking and changing rooms. 

There is parking at the top of the drive for approximately 50 cars. 

We do not have floodlights, other than training lights as we would need planning permission from National Trust and we are in a green belt area. 

There is no problem with the pitch and the barriers as they are 5 metres from the edge , although one side  needs to be temporary to enable cricket to be played. The pitch was levelled in 1968 in front of the clubhouse and is based on Sandstone. However in very wet winters can get very muddy in parts!!

We do not have a permanent covered stand but a bank the length of the pitch which has three standing levels. We are hoping to increase the number of seats by 50% this year from 80 to 120!!

We do have a small stand on the top of the bank which we refer to it as the "John Inverdale Stand" which sits 3 and doubles up as the BBQ.  

The Club house was built in 1928, whilst it has been extended , it is still a wooden structure, maintained by the members, although we have submitted plans to bring it into the 21st century. 

The bar, is small and we plan to have more bars outside to cater for the enormous support from travelling fans. 

We are proud of our hospitality, whilst our lounge is small and can cater for only 65 we are hoping to provide additional facilities in the season , weather permitting !! 

We are looking forward to meeting new friends in the coming season, I am sure you will enjoy our  warm Hospitality , both inside and out.

This is a new experience for us, we see this season as a journey not a destination we will enjoy it, our squad known as "the Ravers"  (it is all in the name!) will do all they can in a league of "Professional" clubs to show what can be done with pride and commitment which certainly surprised Nat 1. 

    

Should Caldy also prepare for a massive dose of paranoia? 

Caldy is determined to keep its Identity and ethos with promoting from within as much as possible .We are realistic and understand this is not always possible. 

We have come through Covid and some clubs borrowed to keep going, they now need to find how to repay the loans. Big clubs have big overheads, god knows what energy bills will be for the coming season. Playing under floodlights will be costly. Caldy has come from a league which gets no money from the RFU so anything is a bonus especially if we need to fly to Jersey and Cornish Pirates (if there are any)  Cost of Coach travel will probably double. 

So, you've left us. Thank goodness. I was getting tired of your lucid in depth analysis, now we can have someone talking snakefruits in National One. 

Eddie, promotion couldn't have come to a more decent bunch of people whose love of the game is only exceeded by your love of Pot Noodles. 

I wish you all the best for next year, run free and enjoy yourselves in the rarified atmosphere not far from HQ (Birkenhead Park). 

Now, about Minimum Ground Criteria - when does the build on the 10,000 seat stand begin? 

Foghorn 

It is all a bit surreal FHLH........we were convinced we reached our peak when we got to the rarified and dizzy atmosphere of National 1. Travelling to clubs like Moseley, Rosslyn Park and Cambridge was a journey none of us ever expected to be going on. Travelling and winning (or drawing) made it just that little bit more enjoyable.......but the Ravers motto WOLWAOTB..... 'Win Or Lose We Are On The Booze' is a lifestyle choice that now needs to survive an engagement with the Championship.

It is unlikely we will be changing any time soon

Workerbee has advised you of the classic nature of Caldy's facilities........if you visit you will be assured of the warmest of welcomes......and possibly balmy conditions if you come early September or perhaps the end of April. For the rest of the season conditions can be challenging but the view and the occasion is always spectacular.

When Caldy first entertained Southern based league opposition there was clearly some trepidation amongst newbie visitors.....it was the North, it was Merseyside and most would probably conjour up images from grainy, gritty tv dramas where the heroes and heroines were wrapped up in a never ending struggle to survive.......on arrival at Paton Field I have heard first time visitors look around with some bewilderment at the truly gorgeous vista and exclaim to their colleagues 'Do you know I believe One could almost live here'......and that was before they had even tasted a Pot Noodle.

There are a number of reasonably priced hotels within a couple of miles of the club. Ahead of the fixture list I will produce a list of hostelries and eateries.

Caldy was slighly remiss in not giving such information to some of our visitors from Chinnor this season who booked into accommodation in Birkenhead which is the 'racier' part of the Wirral sometimes likened to Las Vegas as it has some similar attributes to America's Casino City.......the most prominent of which is the ability to court alluringly pleasant female attention with a bag of chips

Bombay Bad Boy or Piri Piri Chicken?

That could be an innovation for this first ever season in the Championship. In the normal course the more fiery Pot Noodles are accompanied by a nutritious and filling crisp sandwich. Proper butter and 'One stop' value crisps......washed down with a few pints of 'Trapper's Hat'

Caldy first team players or, Caldy players? Genuine question, I've got no idea. They do have a lot of adult players though.

Probably complacency and Cornwall's impressively fast start. For all of the National 1 league season Caldy were underdogs .......they probably were discombobulated by being big favourites.

Next season Caldy will be back to where they feel most comfortable ...........massive underdogs

  

Although Caldy made up a significant proportion of the team, the fact that both prior games were essentially walkovers was only one small issue.

Having been to the Cheshire games, I don't think it was a Caldy issue, I think it was a Cheshire issue. 

Predominantly, the issue was/is the poor approach Cheshire take to the Bill Beaumont Cup. Is it on their website? (no it isn't)  Did their social media tell you which players were from which clubs accurately (no it didn't) Did we organise any promotion of the cup? (no we didn't) Did we approach all the Cheshire clubs and ask them what they wanted to do? (No we didn't) The "supporters bus" went from Caldy, to Chester, to Sandbach services. So apparently only Chester and Caldy are the only two clubs in Cheshire now? The final lineup (players out of position, top players sat on the bench) was also an issue. 

Realistically it was (at best) a slap dash approach compared to the much more professional approach of Cornwall to the competition that was more to blame than any individual clubs. Cornwall support at Twickenham was in the thousands, Cheshire was (optimistically) in the hundreds. It's not good enough to say "well, Cornwall have more support". If we don't take it seriously, we won't win and therefor might as well not bother. Perhaps next year, a more balanced team, with more support from Cheshire clubs might make a difference, but we need to take a thousand supporters, not a hundred.

The issues with the CC are simple, RFU Competitions cannot be a-rsed with it and County Championship Organising Committee couldn't organise a raffle. 

Agree with jjs that Cheshire tend to go in to things half-ass-ed but given you roughly have 2 weeks to organise things like transport/hotels with an ever decreasing budget you are not left with much wriggle room to add additional pickup points. If passed to a proper organising body the CC could be much better run and publicised and why there is not a Sponsor for such a competition with its history is another failure from those "running" things at TW2

Abit like the Championship cup then really.

This forum...

SO I blame Cheshire Exile who was the first to go off track! 😂😂

He was used to the press boxes at football grounds so the facilities at Caldy were a slight shock (!) to him, poor soul. I’d saved him 2 chairs, one for him and one for his laptop, had brought extra power packs to share with him and even let him use my data via my phone hot-spot. During the warm up his laptop was clattered by a wayward kick and only just survived. According to him, the only positive on the day was it wasn’t raining. Oh and we won, in that order! 

Since then we see him at some away games, but usually those with cover, a plug socket and a proper seat. His education continues though and he does write great pieces about us. 

Hope to be back at Caldy - in the sunshine - one day. Great club and great people. 

Probably a disgruntled supporter lashing out because rain was getting in to his Pot Noodle

Flat vowels in the North. 

Cov clinching promotion back to the Championship.

Cold, snowy day, only place to do commentary for local radio behind the goalposts.

Cov scored all but 1 try attacking '' our end '' When in the second half a try was scored 90 metres away, twitter confirmed the name of the scorer !

Memories come flooding back, not forgotten easily !!!

In January it's 'hel', to rhyme with hell as the wind cuts in from the Irish Sea and the sleet hits you horizontally!

What you wouldn't have known Cov Kid was that Saturday was meant to be a free weekend and foollishly about a dozen of the 1st team squad including circa 8 or 9 starters had pre booked a stag weekend and when this rearranged fixture was then pencilled in...consternation! 

The team that played a very good Coventry side was mostly Caldy's second xv. Caldy feared a terrible shellacking but after conceding some 40+ points in the first half they rallied in the 2nd half (and Cov almost certainly took their foot off the peddle) and Caldy got a few scores back. The final score was almost respectable given the circumstances...

Caldy are likely to play their 1st xv against Cov in this coming season...........only fair as Caldy's 2nd xv are on a 45+ game winning streak and it wouldn't be sporting to take undue advantage .

If the Wirral doesn't tickle your fancy, book yourself into somewhere in Chester 

I had a look on Google Maps and it seems to hint there’s a bus from West Kirby station or am I just best off getting a taxi the whole way or even from Birkenhead? 

I’m disabled so I can’t walk huge distances hence I’m asking about transport. I’m staying next to Lime Street station so I can get to whichever station. I used to live in Liverpool so I’m fine on that side of the water but I don’t know the Wirral too well. 

Thanks :) 

I suggest you book ahead to ensure that the taxi will be at West Kirby station when you arrive Phone 0151 201 1111 .Train journey time from Lime street approx. 33 minutes