A hopefully regular piece this season will be 21 questions with a player or official from the club. This week it is 1st XI captain Rob Swiergon, a man with plenty to say for himself….
Age: 27, Mind 17, Body 45+
Occupation: Geologist, I currently work for a Petrophysical company called Dataco, We do a whole array of Petrophysical Interpretation and studies. I am currently joining Petrophysical Well Logs for clients all over the world; recently I have worked with Cairn on their discoveries in Senegal.
Role in team: 1 XI Captain/Messiah, All-round level head and middle order rock
Previous Clubs: Wallingford CC, Cholsey CC (Typical English Village team, Cream Teas and all the Earl Grey Tea you could drink) QXSD, Aberdeen Uni CC
Describe yourself in one word? Champion
What words or phrases do you most overuse? It is probably ‘backing you bud’, always gets my bowlers riled up to take that wicket.
Which living person do you most admire and why? It’s going to have to be my Dad, he worked 15 hour days as a builder but was always there to support me in whatever I did, he always told me there is a big world out there and when I told my parents I was moving from Oxfordshire to Aberdeen they supported me as much as they could.
I remember when I was younger I would play for my village team and my dad would come and watch and that would make me concentrate so much harder because I wanted to show him how much I appreciated his time and wanted to show him that all the driving to and from places to take me was worth it.
Which three people would you invite to your dream dinner party? Jos Butler (Boys 6 Hitting game is unreal), Tiger Woods (his vision on the course was 10 years ahead of anyone else) & Price Phillip (All round joker and the after dinner speak would be unrepeatable)!
Favourite Other Sport? Golf (when I’m having a good round), I use to play off 8 when I was a junior and occasionally and I mean very occasionally I actually play golf instead of hacking it around (happy to have a game with anybody)
Favourite Ground to play at in the Aberdeen Grades? Banchory, it has everything that you want and I just think it is a nice place to play.
Least favourite Ground? The Links – not ideal on a cold day.
What one rule would you change in local cricket? Inner circle, I want there to be increased risk for batsmen and bowers, it will show who’s got it and who hasn’t, it will make captains think and make for much more competitive games. The changes this season in Grade 1 are a good start.
What is your most embarrassing cricket moment? As most of my team know I love a run out, but I think it would have to be being hit in the chest by a Sussex 2XI Bowler making my debut for AUCC opening the batting at Gordostoun, I’ve never seen anyone bowl off the wrong foot before nor did I the first time, he pitched it short but that didn’t make a difference it hit me square on the breast bone and was dropped at 2nd slip, I will say that I made a gritty 69 with a mid-innings lunch break where I consumed 6 pork shops ( times were tough as a student) I think I had Oxbridge imprinted on my chest for about 6 weeks!!!
Whom would you like to play you in a film of your life? It’s gonna have to be the fat guy from Hot Fuzz (Nick Frost)
What song would you have playing when walking out to bat? Pitbull – Fireball (YouTube it, a once in a generation song)
Professional cricketer most like you? Inzamam-ul-Haq, I like to think our batting and fielding techniques are very similar
What is your ultimate pet hate? People being late!!!
Best trainer at the club? Mike Nattrass, loves to score runs in the nets not so much at the wicket.
Biggest joker in the club? Gary Stuart talks a good Whatsapp game but has yet to convert this on to the pitch in my time at the club….
What is your most marked characteristic? Never quit attitude, there was a few times last season where I thought we could have let it slip but I made sure everybody was fired up for the fight.
Aims for 2018? Winning Grade 1 has been a dream ever since I came to Aberdeen and played my first game for QXCC so that was a great success in 2017. Chris Clelland and I sat down for a pint together at the beginning of the 2017 season and he said he wanted to get our 2 XI back in to G2 and I said I wanted to win G1 no mean feat. Ever since I joined the club four years ago I could see that people like Geoff Morrison, Chris, Roland Knudson and all the other committee members have put so much hard work into the team and I knew that I could hopefully bring some new players and a winning attitude. We both knew achieving both of these goals would be a big task and it would involve everybody at the club, and each week we got as many people down to training and we would pull as many rabbits out of the hat as we could to make sure that both our teams were strong.
We also had good fun in the CS challenge cup, this cup offers are players the experience to play against a more challenging opposition at some lovely grounds. Irvine away was an experience but something I would not change, that game for me showed how much of a team we are.
This season I want to continue our winning attitude as well as make more of an impression in the cup competitions, last year we knocked ourselves out by playing some good cricket and following up with some very poor batting displays.
Ultimately, I want to get as many people involved with the cricket club as I can, Cricket is such a social game and no matter your skill, level there is a role for you on a Saturday. FP’s is an amazing club and welcomed me in and I have enjoyed giving that back by helping the club win Grade 1 for the first time in 75 years and hope that not just FPs are successful, that all other clubs have a great 2018 and we can get more people playing cricket.
