KEVIN Hitchon is hoping for a fairytale ending to Padiham’s Ramsbottom Cup journey, and his own.

For the Arbories skipper was 12th man the last time they lifted the trophy.

Having played in most of the previous rounds, batsman Hitchon had a watching brief in their win over Ribblesdale Wanderers, having missed out on selection in favour of an additional bowler.

But a decade on he is the one calling the shots as captain of the club, and would love to be the one lifting the cup against Settle on Sunday, at neighbouring Read (1pm).

“The last time we won it I was 12th man that day,” Hitchon explained.

“I had played pretty much all the other round, only missing out on one round that year.

“It was a bit of a downer to get left out for the final.

“They had a choice to make and went with an extra bowler rather than a batter, but never mind.”

Ultimately the move paid off for the club, and captain Hitchon is hoping he makes the right decisions too this weekend.

“We are all set. Everyone’s available, which makes my job easier this weekend, so it should be a good day,” he said.

“Settle are the favourites but we’ve just got to give it our best shot and hope we can cause an upset.

“We just have to try to put on a decent performance and see what happens.

“Settle looked like they were going to walk the league again but they have had a couple of defeats recently so it could go either way.

“That might make it a bad time to play them because they are smarting.

“But it also shows they are capable of being beaten so we have to look on that as a positive.

“If they were winning every game we would be going into it thinking we’ve got no chance but it shows they are beatable and it gives us a little bit of extra confidence going into the game.”

But Hitchon is not reading too much into Settle’s recent stutter.

“They are a good side thought so they could turn it on at any point,” he said.

“The Davidson brothers are all very good players, and their overseas amateur Sadrian Ward.

“If he is in the mood and gets going he can get some runs very quickly, and he is a very good bowler as well.

“We need to get into the early on if we can. We’ve really come together in the cup and put in some decent team performances.

“We seem to have bowled really well in the cup games with a good mixture of bowlers, whereas in the league games we’ve relied too much on a couple of people rather than sharing it around.

“Toby Burrows has done really well for us, particularly in the cup, and Callum Clarke is having the season of his life.

“He has had a couple of years away from the captaincy and it seems to have done him the world of good.

“He had a good year last year and is having an even better year this year.”