Spider wins the curator Brownlow

Moonee Valley’s own turf curator, Ian “Spider” Beel, has won the Victorian Turf Cricket Association Curator of the Year award for the North B Division.

The win was announced at the VTCA Presentation Night on April 11, and is also detailed in the Association’s publication Leading Edge.

Ian is a past winner of the VTCA’s Curator of the Year across all divisions and grounds, and his work for the 2007/08 season was again of the highest standard.

It’s well known that the local VTCA teams – Greenvale in particular – were very happy when Moonee Valley was invited to host the North B 1 Grand Final at Ormond Park, as they knew Ian would prepare a top class track.

Several other Moonee Valley efforts were also noted in the Presentation Night edition of Leading Edge.

It detailed that our Arosha Perera came fourth in the North B1 best player vote with 15 votes, ,four behind winner Glen Courts of Greenvale – and we all know that Buddha is a former Valley player.

Another segment in Leading Edge advises that there were 30 overseas players on permits in VTCA First Eleven teams across Melbourne this season – including our Arosha.

Only five of them passed 350 runs for the season – and Arosha was third on the list with 381.

Moonee Valley players were also listed in the B North averages, with Arosha Perera’s 381 runs @ 47.63 third in the batting, and Dan Bailey’s 25 wickets @ 19.84 coming in 18th in the bowling.

9/5/08