On Saturday I was privileged to be at The Holm to witness Donemana pick up a league title or should I say titles as everyone seemed to be getting a medal. However as I was playing I would have preferred to win the game and let others worry about the consequences. Alas that wasn't to be and the less said about our performance the better.

Donemana village was roughly split three ways. One third had stayed at home to watch Liverpool play Manchester United and would come down later if the cricket was good. One third was in the cricket ground to watch the firsts and the rest were in the Donemana bar trying to watch the football and cricket at the same time.

I decided some time ago that I would never do a report about a match I was playing in because of the difficulty in being objective but I can talk about the day itself. For the third time this year I travelled to Donemana with Brigade and thoroughly enjoyed myself. It would be fair to say our performance on the field was pretty poor but ‘Fish', Charlie Elder and I managed to occupy the bar a lot longer than we managed to occupy the crease. In fact you could probably say that of the entire Brigade team with the exception of Gordon Cooke. Mind you Gordon in his short time at the bar was probably more entertaining than his long time at the crease so that evens it up.

As miserly as the Donemana were with their bowling they were exceptionally generous with a cup overflowing with Smirnoff and a dash of coke. Umpires Connie McAllister and John Thompson sat down in the kitchen with the League champions and the ‘craic' started. The tea ladies provided the more accomplished singing voices but the rest sang with gusto and enthusiasm. On such occasions I would have preferred my car to be somewhere other than sitting in the car park but I did a ‘Russeller' and enjoyed the banter without a drink.

It was a rare insight to a special club with a special atmosphere. You could tell the players were close and comfortable in each others company. I began to understand why the players would rather play for Donemana than Ireland. Richard Kee, now with Fox Lodge, arrived and was warmly welcomed like a long lost brother. He told me he enjoyed my article on the Ulster League. Well not so much the article but the bit where Brigade were in Section 2! Charlie Elder then asked for another drink out of ‘our cup and you only have a loan of it for a year'. Well the banter started off again! Charlie was clearly ‘de-mob' happy. With the burden of captaincy gone he was back to his old self laughing and giggling and winding people up.

In a quieter moment I asked Junior how many league titles had he now. He couldn't remember but he knew James had one more so we started to count. There was the 9 in a row and the 4 in a row then there were now 3 in the ‘noughties', so that was an incredible16 for James and 15 for Junior.

When you think just how special these two guys have been over the years as cricketers and what they could have earned from the sport if money was their motivating factor then their loyalty should be commended. But on the other hand, as John Lennon and Paul McCartney once sang 'Money can't buy you Love'. It is clear the club holds them in great affection.

Earlier I had escaped farmer Johnny Boyd and the rest of the Last of the Summer Wine team and ended up beside Richard Hepburn. Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire!
Big Mackey was talking me through his innings in the Intermediate cup semi-final!..again, when I was summoned across the room to talk to Norma and Jennifer McBrine. Now I'm very fond of the big fella but I was glad to escape, as you can only listen so many times to how well he was playing the cut shot to my bowling, especially when only one of us is sober. How does Russeller do it, I wondered?

Norma, Jennifer and I exchanged pleasantries about our families and I told Norma how much Andrew looked like her and waited to find out why I had been called across.
‘I read your stuff on the web site' she said. Before I could finish saying thank you she told me ‘You make sure you say nice things about Donemana'. ‘I always say nice things about Donemana' I replied truthfully. ‘Who is the best team in the league?' asked Jennifer. ‘You are'. I replied. ‘Not the right answer'. She asked again. ‘Who is the best team in the league?' I started to panic. Was it a trick question? I knew that suggesting Limavady would most definitely be the wrong answer. ‘You are' I said again helplessly. ‘No, say it' she demanded. ‘Donemana is the best team in the league' I replied. ‘Correct answer' she declared. At that point husband Jim happened to walk past and said ‘The best team always wins the league'. I couldn't agree more. I also know that if Jennifer had asked me to finish my beans at teatime I would have done so.

Great people and a great club. If Donemana entered an all Ulster League tomorrow would they win it? I'm not sure. What I do know is they're the sort of club that always rise to a challenge. If they didn't win it the first time it wouldn't be long until they did.