25 years of service: New president Paterson discusses plans for the future

The former junior association president and senior vice president became the new head of the Tamworth District Cricket Association at last week's AGM, after incumbent Dave Mudaliar announced he was leaving Tamworth.

Paterson was nominated to take Mudaliar's place, which did not come as a surprise.

"Someone had to step up, and it happened to be me," he said.

Although he feels like a perennial fixture on the local cricket scene - which he has been for the last quarter of a century - Paterson was raised in the town of Gloucester, an hour northwest of Forster.

At the age of 17, he began a nomadic period of seven or eight years during which time he worked for Elders, before settling in Tamworth in 1994.

Two years spent focusing on family and establishing his own business meant Paterson could not indulge the game he loves again until the 1996/97 season.

But once he got his hooks into the Tamworth cricket scene, there was no way he was going to step away.

"One of my old clients, Dougie Crowell, asked me to play cricket for Bective, so that's where I ended up playing," Paterson said.

"I suppose I've always believed you should always put back into the sport you love to keep it going."

With no plans to coach any junior teams this year, and having passed the leadership of Bective-East to Luke Scicluna, Paterson has more time free to dedicate to the presidency.

"Tamworth cricket's been going pretty good, but there's always little things we can try to improve," he said.

"That'll be my aim, to keep the quality there, keep all the clubs going. That's the main aim, is to keep Tamworth cricket strong."

The two areas on which he intends to focus as president are sponsorships and representative cricket.

In recent years, he said, sponsorships have been "lacking", while the representative side of the game has "gone by the wayside a bit" in recent years, and he hopes to return it to its former glory.

"We've got to bring back the 'Tamworth' feel about it again, when there was a bit of prestige playing for Tamworth," he said.

This, he acknowledged, will need to be offset by the understanding that players often prefer to spend their Sundays with family or relaxing instead of playing more cricket.

While he is eager to sink his teeth into his new duties, Paterson does not expect his stint as president to be a long one.

After "two or three years", he believes there will come others with new, fresh ideas to continue progressing local cricket. The last thing Paterson wants to do is stand in their way.

"There's always people that come along with different ideas about how to do things," he said.

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