SEB FECHER is jubilant after being selected for Sussex’s under-ten cricket squad.

He started playing cricket at an early age, mainly as a target for his cricket-mad older brother Dom, who himself has been selected this year for the county’s under-13 Western Warriors.

Fecher is a member of Stirlands Cricket club at Birdham and first played for the under-12 team aged just seven. He batted against some of the under-ten county squad’s fast bowlers and survived!

Aged eight he became the leading wicket-taker in the Stirlands under-12 squad and won the much-coveted bowler-of-the-year prize.

Last September he was put forward by his club for selection into the Western Warriors Sussex county area squad. He was one of 20 local players to be selected for development training last autumn.

From these sessions the Sussex selectors invited him to go for the full under-ten county trials along with 25 other boys from across East and West Sussex and he attended three selection afternoons in January at the Sussex CCC HQ in Hove. Dad Nick said: “He was lucky enough to be selected as one of the final 16 to be in the playing squad for 2012. He is delighted to have been chosen.

“Without the dedicated coaching he has received from his coaches at his club Stirlands and at his school, Westbourne House, he couldn’t have got this far.”

Stirlands are keen to recruit new players for their under-12 team for 2012. Anyone interested should call Dan Oliver on 07920 887093.

Fecher is not the only West Sussex prospect called up by Sussex CCC. They have announced their junior squads for all ages and West Sussex is well-represented.

Under-tens’ west players: Seb Fecher, Ben Hawkes, Michael Kirby Bott.

Under-11s: John Norman.

Under-12s: Josh Wood, Nick Smith.

Under-13s: Nick Oxley, Jacob Temple.

Under-14s: Jay Hartard, Ryan Maskell, Jamie Piper.

Under-15s: Beck Hemingway, Dominic Keats, Mason Crane, Harry Isted.

WEST Sussex raider Jon Charlton has finally shaken off his dose of snooker semi-finalitis.

Victory in the Cuestars South of England Championship Tour event at Jesters Snooker Hall, Swindon, ended a run of last-four exits in all four of his previous outings.

And Charlton, who made a 205-mile round trip from Bognor, is now top of the rankings after three of the six legs.

The Aldwick Royal British Legion cueman won all three round-robin matches in Group C and accounted for Group B runner-up Dominic Holmes (Sovereign SC, Farnborough) 3-1 in the quarter-finals.

After dispatching Group D winner Kane Grigg, from Landywood Snooker Club in Walsall, 3-1, he overcame Reading ace Martin Wallace by the same score in the final. Charlton, who posted the day’s top break of 63, pocketed £75 prize money.

The fourth leg of the Cuestars Championship Tour events is on Sunday, February 26, at Salisbury Snooker Club.

With less than two weeks to go until the opening race of this year’s Chichester Corporate Challenge, entries are pouring in.

The three-night series starts on Wednesday, February 29, with further action on Wednesday, March 14 and Wednesday, March 28.

Having started on February 26, 1992, the event celebrates its 21st running this year with some 25,000 finishers having crossed the line in that time.

The first race was a seniors-only event attracting just over 200 runners, but there have been more than 600 finishers on each evening for the past couple of years.

There are now popular schools races which precede the main A and B senior races, but the format has remained much the same over the two decades.

It was always the aim of the organisers to attract not only faster club runners but novices and first-timers who would enjoy running with friends or work colleagues.

The front end of the A race has proved a competitive affair, with the course record falling first to steeplechase international Tom Buckner as early as 1992 with a 12min 53sec clocking for the 4,500m four-lap city centre circuit.

Since then the mark has fallen even further with Commonwealth Games 1,500m champion Michael East the current holder with a scorching 12min 39sec.

The most prolific winner has been Chichester’s James Baker, who was too young to run in the first few races but is the only athlete to achieve a clean sweep by winning all three races in a year, a feat he accomplished in 2009.

The first individual winners from 1992 are both expected to run this year.

Keith Toop is still representing a permanently-strong Waitrose squad who lifted the team trophy in the first two years.

In the women’s category Jane Harrop ran a speedy 14min 54sec in that first race, which still compares well with today’s winners.

Now a member of the Chichester club and well into the veteran ranks, Harrop will be looking to reproduce her fine cross-country form of late.

Local athletes will not have it all their own way as there’s sure to be a challenge from Portsmouth, Brighton and further afield.

In the women’s race the Midhurst duo of Emily Alden and the recent winner of the Sussex cross country championships, Emma MacReady, will be hard to beat if they line up, as will Worthing’s track international Rachel Ogden.

One of the attractions of the event is that fun runners can join up with club athletes to form teams, some with conventional names, others whose titles border on the eccentric. Last year IBM, Royal Mail and Chichester University Staff were doing battle with Cliffords Angels, Oddbins and the esoterically-titled Crouching Tiger Hidden Van outfit.

There will be fierce competition in the junior races – the girls’ secondary race is wide open with several of the Sussex team due to run. In the boys’ secondary event, Harry Leleu, running for Seaford College, will be all out to claim the Year 10 boys’ record to add to the Year 9 mark he set in 2011.

Getting the evenings off to a frenetic start will be the primary races with some 100 boys and girls charging round the two-lap 1,400m course. Spectators will be welcome to line the streets during the series.

Full details of how to enter and race programme are available at Chichester-corporate-challenge.org.uk or from the Chichester Runners noticeboard at Westgate Leisure, Chichester. Queries can also be made to race organiser Phil Baker at philbaker5@btinternet.com

]]> 1.3527870 Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:15:19 +0000 http://www.chichester.co.uk/wolves_hungry_to_snap_up_poyet_brighton_boss_second_favourite_for_job_1_3542529

Premier League Wolverhampton Wanderers are eyeing up Brighton’s Gustavo Poyet as a potential replacement for recently sacked Mick McCarthy.

The Black Country outfit had interviewed Alan Curbishley, Neil Warnock and Steve Bruce but were left having to widen their search after all three turned their backs on the job.

Reading’s Brian McDermott is also believed to also be on the Molineux club’s shortlist and is considered a more likely option than Poyet because of his greater experience in the second flight.

Poyet has previously said he would remain loyal to the Albion unless faced with an offer he considered too good to turn down.

However, with a relative inexperience in management and a CV which currently boasts a single promotion from League One, the popular boss is unlikely to be in the running for more high profile vacancies in the near future.

Online bookies SkyBet currently have Poyet as joint second favourite at 5/2 with McDermott at 9/4.