Rob started at Hymers in Year 4 back in 2001 and finished the Sixth Form in 2011. He went on to study Mechanical Engineering at The University of Salford for three years after leaving Hymers and once he had completed his degree, he then decided to do a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering at The University of Hull for his 4th year.

He is currently a Mechanical Design Engineer for a mechanical and electrical services company, they specialise in critical infrastructure supporting Data Centres throughout the country for large telecommunication companies.

Rob has remained in touch with a few close friends, but he has also played cricket with and against a number of people that also attended Hymers such as James Brocklebank, Chris and Greg Lound, Tom Norman, Tim Atkin, and Tom McConnell.

It is nice to meet a few familiar faces on a weekend when we play new cricket teams. I also occasionally over the years have bumped into Mr. Prescott who has umpired a few of my cricket games on a Saturday.

Mr Fitzpatrick was Rob's first form teacher in senior school and remains one of his favourite teachers from Hymers. As his teacher, he was there for most of Rob's sporting career at school and helped him throughout his school years.

The school trips were always ones to remember; going to Paris for our french trip or going skiing in France but the one that stood out was our Rugby tour of Canada when over forty five of us went away with Mr Gaynor Smith, Mr Cook, Mr Fitzpatrick, Mr Guy, Mr Huntsman and Mr Harrison in 2010. It will always be a trip I remember, and I still have the full kit we played in as well.

Rob was always doing some form of sport throughout his time at Hymers, whether it was cricket, rugby, athletics, he was training most nights after school and playing games most weekends.

Rob has always played cricket for his local club Sutton-on-Hull CC from a very young age. After leaving Hymers, he had his Saturdays free to play club cricket again and he traveled back every weekend from University to play. He quickly became the 2nd team Captain, gaining promotion in his first year, however, this was short-lived as it only lasted a year before he became 1st team Vice Captain. This lasted a couple of years before eventually becoming Club Captain which he has now been doing for the last seven years, in which time they have been promoted and won a couple of cup competitions. They are currently playing Division 1 East in the Yorkshire Premier League North and are looking to finish in the Top 2 this year and gain promotion to the Championship League.

As well as Saturday cricket, he plays in a mid-week global 8 a side league known as Last Man Stands which is played in over 150 cities in the world, with 9,500 registered teams and 180,000 registered players. Everything is scored and ranked online, where you are given team and individual rankings based upon performances which are updated weekly.

I entered a side in 2015 called Sutton Scorchers and we are currently ranked 1st in our region and 23rd in the country. We have played 87 games and won 65 of these progressing to regional finals multiple times where we have beaten a team ranked 3rd in the world back in 2016

On the 23rd May 2021, his personal ranking in Last Man Stands became number 1 in England for bowling and it has remained that ranking ever since, lasting over a year to this day. However, to go one better on the 24th August 2021, he ranked number 1 globally for bowling for the whole of the Last Man Stands franchise which lasted until the season finished when they stopped playing but other countries such as Australia carried on.  As a result, unfortunately, Rob's ranking dropped as he wasn’t playing any games over winter. He is now looking to get this backup and has since increased his global ranking back to 9th.

He recently traveled out to Barbados for a Last Man Stands open tournament, where he was entered into a team with seven other players of similar ability in which they competed against other teams from around the world. They won their group but unfortunately lost in the semi-finals, but bounced back with a win in the 3rd place playoff.  Rob won Player of the Match in the 2nd group game and ended the tournament with the best all-rounder figures.

It was a great experience and even played against ex-international players and a couple of current West Indian international under 19 players. The highlight of the tournament was running out Dwayne Smith, an ex-international player for the West Indies (after I already had him plumb LBW but the umpire didn’t give it unfortunately).

He has played ninety-three matches over the eight years that he has been playing in this competition, scoring 3,089 runs at an average of 56.16 with 31 half-centuries and a high score of 113*, and also bowled over 320 overs taking 111 wickets at an average of 15.60 with best figures of 5.39.  He is aiming to play in the next World Champs competition for the England 8-a-side team, should he remain ranked number 1 in England for his bowling.

Highlights of the Barbados Open Tournament and Rob's games can be found on his player profile on the Last Man Stands website:

Rob Gainer - Player Profile | Last Man Stands - Play Cricket!

Not content with an engineering career and a cricket career, Rob also has a fishing career and is currently sponsored by two fishing companies and a consultant for a third company.