Devon Cricket Board - Thommo on way to St Fagans

Thommo on way to St Fagans

DEVON cricket captain Matt Thompson is leaving Torquay next season to play for Cardiff side St Fagans.
Thompson, who was 24 last week, has been with Torquay since his primary school days and admits leaving the Recreation Ground will be a huge wrench.
For the last four years he has been studying and latterly working in Cardiff – and the trip back every weekend during the summer has become an issue.
Thompson circulated his name via an agency looking for a new club and feels Welsh Premier Two club St Fagans is the challenge he wants.
“I had a few options to consider, but St Fagans looks a good fit,” said Thompson.
“For one thing it is only 12 miles from where I live and that’s important.
“Premier Two is a good standard of cricket – most of the clubs have a couple of Glamorgan boys in the team – and I need a new challenge.
“I have played all my league cricket in Devon and enjoyed it. But the time has come to leave my comfort zone and face up to a new challenge.”
Thompson has played 122 times in the Torquay 1^st XI since debuting as a 15-year-old keeper-batter in a derby game against Barton.
He was one of the young leading lights in the group of talented young players who stayed together after relegation from the top flight at the end of the 2009 season with the aim of rebuilding the club.
Torquay had never been out of the Premier Division before – they were the last of the founder members from 1972 to fall on hard times – and it took them two seasons to get back.
Last summer skipper Justin Yau delivered Torquay their first Premier Division title since 1998.
As a Torquay player Thompson has gone through the Devon youth ranks from U10s to the full county side. He was made captain of the three-day, Minor Counties side this season.
Along the way Thompson has also played for the Unicorns at U25 level and played for the MCCA XI.
Thompson said he would have achieved nothing in the game without Torquay’s support and said he won’t be gone for ever.
“I am sure one day I will be back at Torquay as that is where my heart is, but I need to go in a different direction now,” he said.
“Perhaps I would have felt differently if we hadn’t won the Premier title this year as I would have been leaving unfinished business behind.
“Winning the title was the end of a journey for those of us who were there in the dark days of relegation.”
Devon have not had a Minor Counties captain who played outside the county since Gerald Trump was in charge during the early-70s.
Now they have three-day skipper Thompson playing for St Fagans and one-day captain Rob Woodman turning out for Taunton Deane.
Thompson doesn’t see it as a problem – and neither does Devon’s director of cricket Keith Donohue.
“Keith and Neil Gamble (chief executive) have been very supportive about my move,” said Thompson.
“We have a good set up and it is not that I don’t know who is coming through as I have been playing in Devon a long time.”
Donohue said playing outside the county isn’t a bar to being captain, adding there is no desire to change the skipper again.
“For various reasons we have got through a few captains in a short space of time and what is needed is continuity,” said Donohue.
“I have spoken to Matt and said to him I think, in the short term, we can work round him being in Cardiff.”

DCB Ltd, University of Exeter Sports Hall, Stocker Road, Exeter, Devon EX4 4QN Company Registration Number: 7024773