After 45 years unstinting service and arranging over 3500 fixtures former Devon Cricket Association President, Les Haynes, has decided to hand over the Axminster fixtures to new hands at the Club’s AGM next February. The Cloakham Lawn Club have benefited from one of the longest uninterrupted services from a single member not only in Devon but perhaps the UK. Haynes started his role in the early sixties, before the Beatles Please Please Me single had reached number one in the charts, around the time of the assignation of JFK and at the start of the decade that was to transform British culture. Bobby Moore had yet to lift the World Cup when a young Les Hayes commenced his mission. Anyone who has been involved in arranging a game with Axminster will have dealt with the meticulously efficient Haynes receiving an immediate confirmation, in his own hand. As soon as the envelope hit the mat you knew who it was from. Following their transfer to Cloakham, it was their fixture secretary who was instrumental in getting county youth cricket to the town. The ground has now become a second home with their magnificent second playing area staging its first two day game in 2008.

Haynes role as President of the old Devon Cricket Association should never be under estimated, he helped drive an Association, formed in 1947, forward and when necessary he calmed troubled waters, an outstanding diplomat. He was instrumental in ensuring the smooth transition of the club wing of Devon cricket into the present board structure. Next year he celebrates fifty years of marriage; it is a shame that he now feels it time to call it a day five years short of his own golden anniversary with the club he has served so well. The new fixture secretary is likely to employ email and use a computer; however his scrawled letters will be greatly missed by fixture secretaries throughout the country, as will this stalwart of Devon cricket. He deserves his retirement having left a huge legacy at his own club and in the county.