Photo © ECC

On Friday 24 October, players, representatives and guests from the 11 teams that contested the 2003 Finnish League championships converged on downtown Helsinki at the Lord Hotel for the FCA's Annual Awards Dinner. The event was the largest ever staged by the FCA, with over 110 people attending, and was further evidence of the growing popularity of cricket in the north-end of Europe!

In addition to dinner and speeches, a fantastic bigscreen PowerPoint presentation, courtesy of Mr. Yasir Quadir, was shown to enlighten the whole gathering on what the FCA had achieved within its development programme in 2003, outside of the senior summer league. For all her efforts in the development field, having actively organised the FCA coaches team throughout the year including visiting 25 schools and introducing more than 250 new 7-15 year olds to cricket, Maija Scamans was given a special recognition award. For the coming year, Maija is keen to encourage more players to become actively involved with the FCA coaches program as well as to help set up a junior section within all clubs.

Photo © ECC

Awards were presented to Timo Ilva (pic 1 with FCA Chairman) for development within the National team; to Julian Roach (pic 2) as Batsman of the Year with 261 runs at an average of 130; to Anil Sood as Bowler of the Year with 19 wickets at an average of 8; and again to Julian Roach as Player of the Year as nominated by opposing captains and match umpires from all the season's games. Team awards went to Vantaa CC for the inaugural FCA Plate Trophy and finally to SKK1 (pic3) who were crowned Finnish Champions 2003.

The evening was a great success and was used by the FCA to also inform of winter development and plans to organise indoor tournaments and junior coaching.