ASHFORD Cricket Club's critical shortage of personnel for their first round of Kent League matches was eased at the weekend by the gallant efforts of two young players to answer the emergency need for recruits to fulfill the fixtures.

Robert Hoad made a round trip of 750 miles from Carlisle to turn out for the first team against Sibton Park and Paul Koronka junior took an awayday from his studies at Manchester University to play for the second team.

Without their services the club were faced with cancelling fixtures, which would have incurred a Kent League fine with the threat of expulsion from the league if further fixtures were not honoured through shortage of players.

Koronka's journey cost his father, Paul senior, the third team captain, a small fortune. He booked a flight for his son from Manchester to Gatwick only to discover that junior planned to travel to the match with his girlfriend and could not get her on the plane.

Undeterred, Paul senior booked rail travel to overcome the problem with the whole operation costing him £400 by the time they had finished celebrating their solution to the club crisis.

Ashford captain Darren Pugh said: "This was a wonderful show of loyalty and has bought us a little more time to solve our problems. We are still desperately short of players, needing at least half a dozen recruits to get us through the season.'