Thanh Nien News, a Vietnamese newspaper, has an interesting piece on the English Cricket Club of Saigon (ECCS) which "connects members of the British community in Ho Chi Minh City with one another, preserves culture and does charity work".
The club chairman, Mr. Alan Mossman, said, “We want cricket to be a means of linking our fellow-countrymen and encouraging English expatriates to play our traditional sport. We also want to popularize it to other communities, including Ho Chi Minh City dwellers.”
“At the same time, we call for contributions from the club members, so that we can do some charity work in HCMC, as a way to express our honor and gratitude to the country we are living in.”
All the members strongly support the club's community policies.
The ECCS has grown quite big since it started in 2006.
It celebrated its first anniversary last month with a ceremony and officially made itself known to the public.
On the occasion, the club donated VND10 million to the Wildlife At Risk (WAR) in HCMC.
"We also want to popularize it to other communities, including Ho Chi Minh City dwellers." They might make a start by trying to "popularize" the game among expatriates from India, Pakistan and Aus. Surely these other expatriates would have never heard of cricket.
Good to see. But who do they play and where?
Why not try to link up with the Australians, mainly ex-army personnel, currently living in Vung Tau. These Vets might now be too old for serious cricket but they could probably organize several games a year given sufficient notice.
I played in HCMC last year. At that time (and no reason it would have changed) there was a 6 team competition - the Brits, 2 Indian teams, a SL team, an Australian team and one representing the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (with various nationalities). The Australian team (at least) plays Vung Tau from time to time.
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