Mark Patterson recently took over from Gareth Taylor as the new cricket chairperson.
Taking over the chair of any club would be a daunting prospect, but Mark Patterson appears to have a clear vision of where he would like Old Eds cricket to go in the future.
“Old Eds is spoken of as one of the privileged clubs as we have strength in depth, and field as many teams over a weekend as any other club” said Patterson.
“We have a wealth of talent that has to be nurtured.”
However, Patterson raised some concerns he felt needed his attention. “There is a natural feeder system from King Edward school, but that is really only short term. They finish matric and we lose them to university, so the task is to ensure that they want to come back and play for us when they have finished there. We have to create more than that to sustain longevity.
“We have people who want to play for us, the hard part is to keep them.”
He takes over after a season where the Premier League team won both Gauteng titles, but results have slipped a bit this year.
“With our strength in depth we should be looking to finish in the top three of all leagues, and win at least three of the nine we enter,” he said.
“Yes, we have lost players this season to the Lions, Strikers, U19 and now universities, so it has been difficult. We are short in the fast bowling department, but have great depth in the batting.”
The 43-year-old joined the Old Eds society in 2005, and has a sports science degree from Wits, with playing experience in rugby as well.
Off the field Patterson is a bit of an action man, having run marathons, and over Christmas he attempted to climb Aconcagua in Argentina, the second highest of the seven summits, with a group of climbers.
“Severe blizzard conditions did not allow us to climb the last 150m of the 6 692m-high peak. We could not see the top even from such close range.”
But the summit in cricket is well within his reach.
