Sometimes things just aren’t meant to be!

After many years faithful service, the sight screens at New Place which were originally delivered new to the club when we used to play at the erstwhile IBM Damaged sight screenHavant Plant location, were beginning to look their age, with a “best before” date sometime in the last century.  So it was that a small band of committed individuals started the process of stripping them down in the autumn of 2006, pausing from their toil only to allow a helicopter to land on the outfield, delivering a bride to New Place.  A damage assessment was undertaken, and new components were sourced and, where necessary, fetched over the winter months.  Shortly before the start of the 2007 season, largely the same band of helpers rebuilt Damaged sight screenthe screens to a modified design courtesy of our general DIY guru, Taddy Williams (as documented on YouTube) .  The end result was one almost totally new sight screen and one that was built out of the best of the old components with a few new parts.  The net result was two effectively new sight screens for appreciably less than the cost of one brand new example.  The new design has a number of advantages - a much stiffer, more solid construction; a much simpler process to replace damaged panels when necessary; additional bracing to reduce flex and to minimise damage when Damaged sight screenthe screens are being wheeled through low branches.  And of course, much better resistance to any kind of falling debris!  But even the Taddy Williams’ design has its limitations, as was discovered after just one match.  On the Thursday evening before the match against Rogate was due to take place, the combination of heavy rain and high winds had a devastating effect on what, we were told, was a poplar tree, that decided to avail itself of a more scenic view than it had had for the last thirty years.  The end result was, as can be seen from the photographs, Damaged sight screenfairly catastrophic - about a third of the panels smashed beyond recovery; many of the framework components (effectively scaffolding, so not exactly lightweight material) badly bent, and bracing bent completely out of shape.   So, for the time being, batsmen batting at the “shed masquerading as a pavilion end” have to peer into the gloom until a new replacement is purchased after all!

My apologies for the poor quality of the photographs - unfortunately, all I had to Damaged sight screenhand at the time was my mobile phone camera in the early evening gloom and heavy rain.  At least, some basic processing with Adobe Photoshop has made them recognisable!

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