Toby Bourgein. Picture “liberated” from the 1980/81 Keele Prospectus
I am sadly motivated to write up this story having learnt, a few days ago (September 2020), that Toby Bourgein has died. Toby captained the Players cricket team in all three of the festival matches I played. I had been intending to write up this glorious 1984 match for a couple of years, since I wrote up the tale of my surprise appearance in the 1982 match..
For those not motivated to click the above link, I was a late selection for the 1982 match (for reasons that, alone, make the 1982 link worth clicking). I did not bowl and I did not bat in that historic victory, but I did, more by luck than judgement, take a stunning catch.
Toby Borgein had a long memory and a good heart. I ran into him a week or two before the 1984 match and he told me he wanted me to play again and have a proper go this time.
We have a solid opening batsman, Ian Herd, this year. I’d like you to open the batting with him.
Ian was on Somerset CCC’s youth books – i.e. he was way above “our” scratchy festival knock-about cricket pay grade. But I didn’t know that until later.
Several of my friends came along to watch this time around, not least because I knew more than 30 minutes before the start of the match that I’d be playing. Anyway, there were worse places on earth to spend a glorious summer afternoon than the Keele Festival Week Beer Tent.
We (The Players) fielded first. I neither distinguished myself nor embarrassed myself in the field – unlike 1982, during which my fielding had met triumph and disaster; naturally treating both of those imposters just the same.
I was mostly fielding in the long grass where I was able to nurse my pint of ale and seemingly play cricket at the same time. Who says men cannot multi-task?
The Gentlemen scored a little over 100 in their innings. A respectable but hopefully not insurmountable score for that fixture, based on previous experiences.
Then to bat. Sadly I have no pictures from the 1982, 1983 nor the 1984 event – if any are subsequently uncovered/scanned I shall add them. Here is the earliest photo of me going in to bat I can find; from 1998:
I still hadn’t picked up a cricket bat since school, unless you count the 1983 net and subsequent nought not out without facing a ball. But I was quite fit that summer, having played tennis regularly before (more or less during) and after my finals.
Anyway, Ian Herd could bat. We rattled along. I helped to see the shine off the new ball. I suspect that Ian made a greater contribution towards seeing off the shine by knocking the ball to all parts, but we’ll let that aspect pass.
The crowd was probably more heavily weighted towards Players’ supporters than Gentlemen’s supporters, but in any case by the second half of the match vocal chords were more lubricated.
In what seemed like next to no time, there was a cry from the crowd…
50-up
…allowing me and Ian a joyous moment of handshaking celebration in the middle.
“I think I’d better ‘hit out or get out’ to give some of the others a go this year”, I said.
“Good idea”, said t’other Ian
It didn’t take long (one ball) for me to loft one up in the air and get caught.
More tumultuous applause as I came off, with the score on 53/1.
“Fifty partnership – great stuff”, said Toby, ever the encouraging captain
I remember Bobbie Scully and Ashley Fletcher both being there. and both expressing joy in my performance and surprise that I could play. I’m pretty sure that several of my fellow Union Committee members, not least John White, Kate Fricker and Pady Jalali were around too.
Remember, folks, that everyone was quite well oiled by then and no-one was REALLY watching…
…apart from the scorer.
The scorer was Doreen Steele’s son. Doreen was the Students’ Union accountant and the NUPE shop steward for the union staff. Her son clearly aspired to similar careers.
“How many of the 53 did I score?”, I asked.
“Three”, said the lad.
“Are you sure it wasn’t four?” I asked, having counted to four in my head.
“You’re probably including a leg bye…”
“…I hit that ball onto my pad, actually…”
“…the umpire signalled leg bye. It was a leg bye…
…you scored three.”
You can’t argue with that schoolboy logic.
Nor can you argue with the fact that I had been part of a fifty partnership in a cricket match.
Nor can you argue with the fact that Toby Bourgein had pulled off a captaincy masterstroke…or at least a warm, generous gesture that meant a lot to me.
But did The Players win the match, I hear you cry? You bet your sweet pint of Marston’s Pedigree we won.
Toby Bourgein will be better remembered at Keele for many other things, not least his student activism. The one other picture I have of him, below, is from a protest we attended together in 1982. But I remember Toby especially fondly for these silly cricket matches, for which he was, O Captain! My Captain!
Me towards the right, in trope-inducing donkey jacket, holding diagonal corner of the campus model