Daniel Styles received Life Membership of the Esperance Cricket Association on Saturday night. Styles also won his seventh ECA A-Grade Cricketer of the Year award for his efforts in the 2024-25 season, with 681 points. Photo: Greg Symes.
One of Esperance Cricket Association’s favourite sons, Daniel Styles, was the toast of the local cricketing community on Saturday night when he was bestowed the honour of life membership.
The casual windup held at the Traveller’s Inn Wine Bar brought together club players and supporters alike, but it was formal recognition for Styles that ultimately stole the occasion.
More commonly known around the Association as “Poodle”, Styles was visibly moved in accepting the honour from fellow life member Shane Tobin.
“It was a bit of surprise, I did not expect this,” Styles said in receiving the accolade.
“I consider life membership to be the highest achievement that you can achieve in sport and always have done.”
Styles has been a mainstay of the Association’s representative sides since 2003, playing 106 country week matches and 22 country cup matches, including the famous victory in the 2009 country cup final against Upper Great Southern at the WACA ground.
“I haven’t done too much for the Association (on the administration side of things), it’s mainly been through playing, to receive this honour in that manner, I’m pretty proud of that,” Styles said.
Styles also gathered his seventh A-Grade Cricketer of the Year award after scoring 681 points for the season, 34 points ahead of Cascade’s Jacob Bruinsma.
The evening commenced with Association president Neill Liddle remarking that the competition was in good hands with the current crop of players as all games were played in great spirit and it was fantastic that on field player behaviour was at an all-time high.
Liddle said he was impressed with the ECA’s continued participation of three sides at country week by not only overcoming the travel factor, but also the smaller size of the ECA compared to other Associations with larger population bases to draw players from.
Liddle also presented the Club Service and Volunteer Awards for the unsung heroes of the five cricket clubs that did a majority of the behind-the-scenes work allowing the players to do what they do best on the field.
Kyle Stone and Brendon Tyrrell awarded the Leon Stone Memorial Shield for the Best Under 21 Team Player at this year’s senior country week to Thomas Magagnotti, primarily for his “team first” attitude that he displayed all week, playing in the Associations No.2 team in the D-Section.
Stone was a young cricketing talent from Esperance who passed away in 2012 at the age of 21 after a brief battle with Osteosarcoma.
Stephen Butler continued his domination of the B-Grade competition collecting another Cricketer of the Year award with 809 points, some 286 points in front of the runner-up Michael Magagnotti.
