Let’s be honest about this. Lancashire were already guaranteed promotion and Middlesex were already guaranteed to have missed out on promotion this year before I set off on this trip.
Lesser folk might have bailed out.
Not me. Nor Dumbo, The Suzuki Jimny.
Off we went, at about 7:30 on the Monday morning, arriving at Old Trafford around 11:30 after but one pit stop.
The main car parks were full, so Dumbo had to spend the day at the back of the largest temporary stand in Europe, still there after the Ashes test but decommissioned for this county match.
I then head off to the 1864 Suite to join the other green-bookers – very few from either county that day as it happens – perhaps because this day would have been Day Five of the Oval test, had it not ended in four days.
Splendid hospitality as always, not least from Keith Hayhurst.
I thought Middlesex bowled pretty well on a moderately responsive pitch – although I didn’t witness the first hour, new ball, bowling. But then Middlesex’s day one batting. Oy!
One Middlesex green-booker was so ashamed at the end of day one, he removed his Middlesex tie as he left…to walk the 20-30 yards to the Old Trafford on-campus hotel.
Me? I’d arranged a salubrious AirB’n’B at Stretford/Old Trafford borders:
“You have reached your destination…”Ah, the other side of the road; a bit better I suppose.
A session with Darren Long – very helpful in learning to aim at the tambour with my right arm from the service end and also how to respond to such a shot off the tambour with my left arm from the hazard end. This paragraph must mean a lot of nothing to those readers who are not real tennis aficionados, I do realise.
Rackets Court at Manchester – never tried itReal tennis court resplendent in the early morning light
After showering and changing, back to my digs to drop off Dumbo and then a 10 minute stroll to Old Trafford, to witness Middlesex score the highest ever 1st class score (anywhere by any team) after being 6-down for less than 40. Some comfort I suppose.
To add to my improving mood, I met Clive Lloyd along with Jack Simmons (the latter Janie and I had met at Southport); it’s always a big deal for me to meet one of my childhood cricketing heroes.
Then a chance to wander around the ground and chat with some of the Middlesex regulars.
After stumps, time to go home and freshen up before heading off to the Chorlton Tap to meet Alex (as planned) plus Sam (as arranged the day before) and Steve (who joined the party that very day). A very convivial gathering.
Wednesday morning, back to the tennis court, for an ill-fated match up with a big hitter named Jonathan. My injured right arm had reacted somewhat adversely to the drills the day before and I felt the overuse within 5-10 minutes. Fortunately he is a very friendly, nice chap so we had a good run-around with me playing left-handed off a high handicap and him getting the chance to practice his winners a lot. I donated my Thursday morning court to Jonathan which I thought was the least I could do to compensate him and the chap (a good friend and match for Jonathan) who had arranged an early slot, purportedly for me.
Good cricket on Wednesday, not least a decent second new ball spell late in the day that set up a good position for Middlesex overnight, subject to our boys batting decently Thursday (they didn’t).
A quite evening in with Benji the Baritone Ukulele again Wednesday (did I omit to mention Benji as Monday evening entertainment too)?
Image from Brighton a few years back
Thursday morning – with no tennis I made an early start back to London – dropping off stuff at the house and then passing through the flat on the way to the City for some work and a London Cricket Trust Trustees meeting.
Actually the story of this one starts a few weeks earlier; the Friday of the Lord’s test between England and Australia. 16 August. A rather wet day as it turned out.
Charley “The Gent” Malloy was my guest that day; our last visit to the Compton Stand prior to its demolition. In fact we got less than two hours of cricket before the rain came…then came and went for a while…then the rain came and made sure that those of us who had stuck it out for a while knew that it was time to go home.
In our rush to flee the mid August rain, Charley’s old faithful Heavy Rollers cap ended up in my bag.
We corresponded on the matter and I promised to put the cap in my “Lord’s bag” ahead of our next meeting; this 10 September date.
But come the morning of 10 September:
I was rushing around like a mad thing getting the picnic ready;
Life had intervened on countless matters to make “Charley’s cap” a little lower on my memory list than certain other things;
The weather forecast said that the day would be cloudy and possibly even a bit nippy.
So when the time came to load up the bags, I thought I could safely offload stuff I wouldn’t need, such as sun screen, sun glasses and what on earth did I need three caps for…one Middlesex cap might even be one to many but I’d retain just that one.
In short, I clean forgot that the Heavy Rollers cap in the bag was Chas’s, promised for return.
To add insult to injury, the morning turned out to be a gloriously sunny one, quite contrary to the weather forecast, rendering several of the rejected items desired items and naturally inducing Chas to enquire about his cap quite early in the day.
Neither of us bathed ourselves in glory during the ensuing post mortem.
Chas was bowling metaphorical googlies at me while I tried to maintain order
Chas was convinced that I was only teasing him and that I really did have the cap with me. I tried to get Chas to share the blame for the mistake, by suggesting that, if it really mattered that much to him, Chas might have sent me a reminder…
…we declared a truce, ironically after seeing Tom Helm receive his county cap, ahead of a lunchtime perambulation on a glorious early autumn day.
Chas, uncapped
Chas’s disposition continued to improve in the Warner, after perambulation, as we tucked in to the picnic of Alaskan salmon bagels, London sour sandwiches containing chicken with elderberry, lovage and lemon stuffing and a bottle of rather juicy Gewurtztraminer.
Middlesex bowled well to extinguish Durham for a modest score and then batted poorly to end the day behind the game.
I did offer Chas the opportunity to stop off at Clanricarde Gardens to collect his precious cap on the way home, which in many ways makes sense from Chas’s ease of journey home point of view. So that’s what we did at the end of a really enjoyable day at the cricket.
Next day selfie with old-style Heavy Rollers cap…MY Heavy Rollers cap
Anyway, fear not. I got a message from Durham fanatic Madz, otherwise known as 668, also otherwise known as Blackbird…wondering if I’d be around in the pavilion on Thursday for the climax of this match. She was planning on meeting up with some of the Durham regulars there.
As it happened, my meetings/scheduled calls all concertinaed into Wednesday enabling me to do that.
I assumed that Madz stands for Madeleine and thought that she might be amused by eponymous cakes as a peace offering. Which, in a way, she was.
Anyway, it took until just before lunch for Madz to find her way to the pavilion by which time I’d made almost no headway with my reading as I’d been chatting with a fine fellow in the writing room.
By the time I found Madz, she was sitting with a gentleman named Pelham who seemed astonished that I’d head of Pelham Humfrey as well as Pelham Warner. Even more astonished when I said that I’d witnessed some Pelham Humfrey recently:
Madz quizzed me about the nicknames Ged and Daisy for me and Janie, suggesting that it was all a bit confusing. I omitted to mention that Madz or do I mean 668 or do I mean Blackbird has (or at least had) plenty of on-line names of her own.
We half-agreed to regroup for the denouement after lunch, but by the time I’d taken some sun and finished reading my papers for tomorrow’s meeting, Middlesex had fallen apart yet again and crashed to defeat.
I walked home in glorious sunshine to find England in a relatively good position in the Oval test match…until they too collapsed before my eyes losing five wickets for diddly-squat on a flatty.
Perhaps I should give up watching my teams play cricket…until tomorrow.
Trent Bridge looked an absolute picture under lights
Regular Ogblog readers sometimes comment on the relentlessly positive light Ogblog sheds on life.
Some days make that task a little difficult. Take this day, for example. On the face of it, the focal point of the day was a trip to Nottingham and back to see my beloved Middlesex team being utterly thrashed in a quarter final cup tie. Soon after we set off for Nottingham, Janie called me to tell me she’d had her purse snatched with some cash and all of her credit cards stolen/ransacked. Meanwhile and throughout the day, England were having a pretty rotten second day in the Old Trafford Ashes test; a match England cannot lose if it is to retain hope of regaining the Ashes.
So, how do I take positives from such a day? I’ll try to draw up a list.
Also unlike last time, I didn’t need to drive to the match – Middlesex organised a coach trip for this fixture, which spared me a longer drive than I fancied and at least meant that I was in good company throughout the day;
We got to Trent Bridge some two hours ahead of the match. We strolled around that lovely ground making a close to full circuit (part outside, part inside) to our Radcliffe Road end hospitality. On the way, I met Mark Butcher and Rob Key who were kicking their heels prior to their commentary duties. King Cricket aficionados will be especially excited about the Rob Key encounter, I suspect;
The Trent Bridge hospitality was superb, as always. Several familiar Nottinghamshire faces and quite a substantial contingent from Middlesex. I met new Middlesex board member Edward Lord for the first time and Marilyn Smith, whom Janie and I met at Hove and whose son Ramon used to play tennis as an infant at Boston Manor, brought “little Ramon” with her, which showed that “little Ramon” ain’t so little any more. I had very enjoyable chats with all those people and plenty of others;
Clive Radley went back to the coach early, once the result was no longer in doubt, to finish off reading his book, which was about Auschwitz. As Clive and I agreed, that rather puts the idea of “having a bad day” into perspective;
Did I mention that Trent Bridge, which looks a picture at all times, looks especially so under lights? Worth saying and depicting again.
The County Ground Hove is a lovely setting for cricket, so Janie and I couldn’t resist the timing of Middlesex’s away match there this season, despite it overlapping with Day 5 of the Lord’s test and a need to be back in London later that week.
So, I arranged three nights in Brighton with a view to seeing most of Day Two and the remainder of the county match, plus an opportunity to visit cousins Sidney & Joan on the Tuesday, plus the likelihood of a bit of spare time in Brighton for once.
That likelihood of spare time was exacerbated while Janie and I sat at Lord’s watching the test match on the Sunday, by Middlesex’s rude ejection from the batting crease at Hove, en masse, for 75 in a mere 130 balls.
Daisy’s role as a visiting totem for Middlesex victories and/or close finishes is becoming a distant memory.
Still, we arrived at The County Ground Hove on Monday around 12:15/12:30, following the traditional difficult packing exercise (Daisy) and roadwork-enhanced drive (on this occasion, me).
John Barclay seemed genuinely chuffed when I told him how much I enjoyed reading that book.
John Barclay (furthest left, facing) and others at lunch
We also met Marilyn Smith, Middlesex’s new Board member.
Marilyn and Me
It turns out that Marilyn lives in Brentford and used to bring her son, Ramon, when he was very young, to the very Boston Manor tennis courts where Daisy and I play each week. She knows Linda Massey (of Friends of Boston Manor fame) very well.
Indeed, when we told Linda a few days later that we had spent some time with Marilyn in Hove, Linda pointed out to us, on the wall of the Boston Manor pavilion cafe, a picture that a very young Ramon had drawn for her, many years ago, as a thank you:
Monday was a glorious day for cricket at Hove, albeit not a glorious day’s play for Middlesex, who were coming very much second by stumps on that day.
Members seating areaPublic seating area
We had been well fed and well watered on the Monday, but still, after checking in and settling in to our AirBnB cottage, the old Toll Cottage on the junction of Regency Square and Russell Square, we thought we’d try the Regency Tavern across the way from our digs. I fancied a drink as I had stayed dry all day and, after all, how big a portion could the pie, mash, peas and gravy possibly be at that price? Massive, basically.
We wouldn’t get steak and kidney, if this match was playing in Sydney
We should have shared one between the two of us. Except it was yummy so we both made serious headway into our portions.
Tuesday morning, we walked (or should I say waddled) to The County Ground. Another glorious weather day.
Daisy, questioning all the “balls on the head” incidents that had occurred at Lord’s a few days earlier, asked Mike Selvey if he approved of such intimidatory bowling.
Selv and Me, both trying to do the “there’s no such thing as a dumb question” bit when tackling Daisy’s enquiry about short-pitched bowling.
Daisy had more success with her penetrating questions about corruption in cricket (and sport generally) from the previous day, as John Abbott brought her some interesting reading in partial answer to her questions on that subject:
We had a super sit-down lunch of casseroled chicken on the Tuesday; a different vibe from the less formal (but also excellent) buffet on the Monday. The hospitality at Hove is superb, both in terms of the catering and the friendly people.
We had a very interesting chat about television rights and national administration of football (about which I know almost nothing) and cricket (about which Ray claimed to know little). Ray is clearly a Sussex CCC fan as well as a Seagulls grandee. Based on his football experience, Ray had some fascinating opinions on how the new Hundred tournament might work…or not work.
Janie and I had arranged to visit cousin Sidney and Joan for tea that day, so we left The County Ground once Middlesex were bowled out a second time, which conveniently coincided with the umpires calling tea.
The result of the match wasn’t much in doubt; nor was there much doubt that the match would end that evening while we were at Sidney & Joan’s house, which is conveniently located half way between The County Ground and our AirBnB cottage.
Nevertheless, as we left, a friendly steward, James, asked if we were returning tomorrow. I explained that I didn’t think there’d be any cricket left in the match by then, but that we would return if there was. James then asked if we were coming to the T20 match on Thursday. I explained that we were Middlesex guests and that Middlesex were playing a T20 match at home on Thursday. “Come here anyway”, said James, “it’s nice to have you two here”. Now THAT’S welcoming stewarding!
It took us little more than 10 minutes stroll through Hove to get to Sidney and Joan’s house. There we enjoyed some tea and wonderful cake produced by a local baker who, it seems, produces really delicious home-made delicacies to order for local folk such as Sidney and Joan.
Sidney and Joan also cracked a bottle of wine to help the conversation flow. At one point Sidney noticed me look at one of the notifications that popped up on my screen, documenting Middlesex’s inevitable defeat.
Keeping in touch with the office?, asked Sidney.
No, just keeping in touch with the cricket score at Hove, I replied. Sorry, I can’t help myself.
Should’ve guessed, said Sidney with a smile.
It’s always a pleasure to see Sidney and Joan. After a couple of hours, we said our goodbyes, then Janie and I strolled back to our little toll cottage.
We only had one problem with hiring the Toll Cottage; we couldn’t work out how to take tolls from the passers-by, although we can see which window we should use and where the toll gate should be erected. But should we collect a farthing or a ha’penny from each passer-by?
Flummoxed by even the most basic questions with regard to our sinecure, we decided on an early night instead. We had plans for a busy day exploring Brighton the next day, now we knew there was to be no cricket.
Of late, I have been immersing myself in writing up the journal and some impression pieces about my visit to Mauritius, which was 40 years ago exactly. Devotees of Ogblog (i.e.subscribers) might well be aware of this; others not so.
Ahead of his latest visit, John Random e-mailed to say several things, including this about one of those journal pieces:
A Jew Hunt in Port Louis reminds me of something not very interesting I must tell you about next Thursday.
I had felt quite frustrated about the above piece since I realised that my mother had not only thrown away my article about the resulting great story I discovered once I hunted down the mystery man in Port Louis, but that she had also thrown away my journal notes for 10 and 11 August 1979, as part of the same inadvertently vandalistic act, in the name of “clearing out rubbish”.
Putting that to one side, John and I had a pleasant lunch and did some more fiddling around with his archive of writings. Less progress this session than the previous session, but the previous session had yielded plenty of unexpectedly retrievable data from his old collection. Actually even this day’s session seems to have yielded more than I thought it would.
Then I raised the matter of John’s “Jew Hunt anecdote”.
Oh, it’s nothing really. It’s just that, 20 or so years ago, Jenny and I went to a Mauritian community event in South-East London. There was a bookstall at that event, where I looked at a book called The Mauritian Shekel. It looked really interesting but in the end I didn’t buy it. Your headline, “A Jew Hunt In Port Louis” reminded me of that book.
I nearly left it at that, but my curiosity had been sparked, so I asked John if he remembered what the book was about.
It was a fascinating true story from the time of the Second World War, about a large ship full of Jewish refugees from Central Europe, who had been turned away in Palestine and who were eventually given refuge on Mauritius…
“Hold on!”, I yelled. “THAT’s the story the mystery Jewish man told me in Port Louis. THAT’s the very story I’m desperately trying to recall. The Mauritian Shekel, did you say?”…
…it might not have been cheap, but it was available as a rare second hand book on Amazon:
So the book is on its way and I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to reconstruct my missing article/story from it.
At about 17:00, John went off in the direction of the Proms while I went off in the direction of Lord’s. I bagsyed some seats for me and Jez Horne in the Warner Stand, then went for a quick meeting with Katie Berry for a briefing on participation cricket in Middlesex.
Jez messaged me to say he thought he was a little delayed but should only miss an over or so. In the end, he arrived just in time for the start of the match.
It was good to catch up with Jez again. I hope we can catch up again when Janie and I are in Hove and he also intends to join the Z/Yen party at the Hampshire game in a couple of week’s time.
This Middlesex v Surrey match always has some real frisson to it, though, being a local derby. More often than not we Middlesex fans end up disappointed at this fixture, but of late Middlesex have been doing better and tonight demonstrated that improvement.
AB deVilliers and Eoin Morgan were scintillating with the bat; Steve Finn magnificent with the ball.
Sort of three hours of doubles for me, as Neil at Queen’s asked me at the last minute to help make up a doubles the evening before, so I was still a little sore from trying to keep up with Bomber, The Saint and The Biscuit (all well above my handicap/pay grade).
For our two hour session, Dominic and Bill (as last time), but this time we were joined by Snitch for the first hour. After Snitch left, we played a real tennis form of Canadian Doubles, with the server/receiver from the doubles pair grabbing the “honour” of doing the hard work as the single player until defeated.
I worked up quite a sweat, especially as the single towards the end. Then picked up the message from Fletch at Middlesex CCC that Kevin Hand wanted to interview me this evening about the London Cricket Trust and AB de Villiers, for BBC Radio London and BBC Essex, so we arranged that between the sweats and the showers.
Soon after I set off in Dumbo for home, I felt a touch of cramp starting in my foot and tried to wriggle my foot while braking for the lights…but instead slipped my foot onto the accelerator, requiring me to switch to emergency stop braking which made one hell of a screech.
Better than half-a-yard…or more or less the nick. Phew.
I signalled an apology to the driver in front, who seemed to be apoplectic with rage, leaping about in his seat and waving his arms. Then I realised that he was car-seat-jiving while listening to loud music. Perhaps he hadn’t even noticed my near miss.
When the lights changed, the jiver/driver in front zoomed off ahead of me, as fast as I have ever seen someone zoom out of Palliser Road. Whether he was just that sort of driver or desperate to get away from me I’ll never know.
Then some work in the sweatshop that is my little office at home on a sunny afternoon.
So I had another shower before heading to Lord’s – not for the start of the match but in good time for my “over 18 of the first innings” appointment with Fletch.
As I got out of the shower, the phone was ringing. Fletch.
Can we meet a little earlier than I said – like over 15?…
…sure, I’m just getting ready to leave…
I’m sorry, it’s because I have other media to do on the pavilion side in the interval after dropping you off…Eoin Morgan…
…should be no problem, Fletch, but I need to get off the phone so I can put on some clothes and leave. I know its radio, but I figure I’ll still need to put on some clothes to get through the street, the gates and to the media centre?…
…yes, I think that would be for the best.
In fact I was making good time and got to the Maida Vale/St John’s Wood borders, where I knew I could park easily, bang on 18:30. So I was in the ground and able to watch cricket for about half-an-hour before wending my way round to the media centre, where I enjoyed the commentator’s view of the last few overs and could hear the radio commentary of course…in the commentary box.
Below is my interview, which runs for about eight minutes if you want to hear it all.
In the commentary box was the artefact pictured below. It seems that the media centre tea-time spread was adorned by this artefact for each of the world cup matches at Lord’s, with the badges of that day’s competing nations shown on the helmets. Left over from the world cup final on Sunday:
Kevin Hand was apologetic about the shortness of the interview and the fact that he sort-of had to leave me to it while he photographed and tweeted about Eoin Morgan. But Kevin owed me no apology for that; it was great and timely publicity for the London Cricket Trust charity.
In any case, it seems Kevin might want me to do the odd additional slot with him this season. If for no other reason, I think he’s keen to disambiguate Ian Harris and Ged for any listeners who might, understandably, be bemused and/or amused.
Kevin also apologised to me when he discovered that I came in especially for the interview as I hadn’t planned to attend the match. Again no apology needed as I live so close by and in fact I am so glad I was there for the post world cup afterglow. The Middlesex v Essex match was even played on the world cup pitch.
In fact I stayed for just the first few overs of the Middlesex innings before heading home and catching the end of the match on the broadcast.
One final anecdote. When I mentioned during my interview that AB de Villiers had come out to Deptford for us just a few hours after landing from South Africa, Kevin wondered whether we might have tired him out ahead of his first appearance for Middlesex. I think the scorecard and match reports attest that Kevin needn’t have worried.
Exile. Banishment. There are no polite words for it. We cannot play at Lord’s for several weeks because the ground is hosting four days of world cup matches during that time. This expatriation applies to real tennis players and cricketers alike.
And we love Lord’s. We’d like to sing the praises of the place, but…
…how can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?
On the bright side, of course, we have other places to go and in truth they are not such strange lands. For realists, there is The Queen’s Club and Middlesex University. For Middlesex cricketers, there is Radlett and Merchant Taylor’s School (MTS), amongst other places.
…Janie (aka Daisy) and I had hoped to arrange a similar day at MTS. But Fran and Simon had other commitments on the Sunday, while Janie couldn’t free up enough time on the Tuesday.
Luckily, I was able to get enough work done on the Monday to free up the Tuesday for cricket.
So I arranged a game of real tennis at Middlesex University in the morning, with a view to getting from The Burroughs to MTS soon after 11:00. Here is a very short clip depicting real tennis at Middlesex University – actually taken by Janie on the Radlett day:
I liaised with Fran and Simon, working out that I was due to arrive a few minutes ahead of them, so I wandered around and grabbed some excellent seats alongside the Middlesex diehards, such as Barmy Kev, Andy Biggs, Keith Roberts, along with several others.
By the time I arrived, Middlesex had already lost a couple more wickets and the position looked very precarious indeed. By the time Fran and Simon arrived, the position was looking even more precarious.
This picture, taken by Janie, from Radlett a few weeks earlier
In that early part of the day, we all three thought we might well be about to witness a Middlesex loss and that we might not be around for too long. Nevertheless, Fran and I had both learnt our lesson ar Radlett and resolved to stroll around at regular intervals.
We set off for our first stroll around 12:30 and took a good 30 minutes to complete the circuit.
One of the wonderful things about outground cricket at Middlesex is that the players and club officials really do wander around and mingle with the spectators, giving the matches a festival feel.
We soon encountered Dawid Malan and James Keatley, gaining some interesting insight into Dawid’s perception of how many runs Middlesex might need to have a chance to defend a total (a lead of 160 to 180 he said).
A little further on, Steve Finn similarly suggested that a lead of 170 would be enough, although Sam Robson alongside him was more nuanced with his answer…
…as long as Gloucestershire don’t manage a big partnership or two.
But at that stage, thoughts of such a lead were still hope not expectation, with Middlesex 7-down, and the lead crawling up to, then just past, 100. By the end of our stroll and lunch the lead had crept up to around 140.
Fran and Simon were surprised at how cosy and friendly the atmosphere is, perhaps attributing it to my involvement with Middlesex. While that is the case to some extent, I have found the outground atmosphere relentlessly friendly since long before I was involved with the club.
Putting ancient tales of Greek tragedy to one side, the mood at lunch amongst the Middlesex supporters was a real mixture of sanguine and resigned. As the afternoon went on, the clouds and the mood lifted to increasing brightness. With increased hope, of course, came some nerves.
Then when Middlesex were all out and had some 11 overs to bowl before tea, discussion of how many wickets we might “need” before tea to establish a foothold and to have a chance of completing the match that day. Two or three was the wisdom of the crowd. It looked as though we’d have to make do with two until the last ball before tea, which made three.
Tim Murtagh bowled beautifully that day and in so doing overtook Wayne Daniel’s record tally of wickets for Middlesex, which was a pretty impressive statistic to hear announced on the tannoy.
Richard Goatley and Angus Fraser held an impromptu members’ forum in the beer tent, at which they were apparently being bombarded with difficult questions about Middlesex’s tough start to the season. It was meant to be a tea interval thing but went on some time after that, during which time Middlesex continued to take wickets.
As one wag put it, there were some grumpy members in the beer tent complaining about Middlesex’s poor performance, while the team was turning around and looking like winning a tough match.
Richard Goatley is one of the world’s worst watchers of a cricket match when he has emotional skin in the game, so there was no consoling him with talk of 40/6…40/7 probably meaning that Middlesex was heading for a win.
In fact, Gloucestershire, in an echo of Middlesex’s innings, put on a bit of a rearguard at 7-down, so much so that the Middlesex regulars encouraged me and Fran to go for another long walk, as our previous walk had been so successful from a Middlesex point of view.
Don’t come back until Middlesex have taken another wicket…or two…
…was the message from the welcoming regulars.
A mini exile. But in any case, we were ready for another stroll and sure enough, we’d only got about 100 yards into our circuit when another wicket and then another fell.
When we got to the pavilion, at 9-down, I saw Angus sitting with his serious game face on.
Surely you can break a smile now, Gus?…
…I asked…
…not yet…
…snarled Gus, who then broke into that rare, full Gus smile.
Fran and I got back to our seats with the Gloucestershire final wicket pair holding on for grim death, but in truth the only remaining issue was whether they could survive the extra half hour or not.
Not. A splendid Middlesex win by the end of the day, having turned around a seemingly losing position an hour into Day Three.
I normally write more about the conversations than the cricket, but the cricket and ground vibe was so special this day. In any case Fran asked to redact several of the conversations. The non-redacted topics of conversation included:
Roy Hudd
Rod Hull
Barry Wood
Benny Howell
Benny Hill
Merchant Taylors’ School
cashew nuts
New Zealand v India at Old Trafford
rain in Manchester
the possible death of the adverb.
It really had been a very exciting and enjoyable day amongst friends. What with the real tennis at Middlesex University and the Middlesex cricket win at MTS, I had conducted myself very Middlesexly indeed, I feel.
Daisy and I thought we’d take in a bit of out-ground cricket and/but the dates haven’t been working out great for the two of us.
But this particular Monday did work well for us and also suited Fran & Simon. The only issue, as I saw it, was the unseasonably wet weather we were experiencing.
True, the forecast suggested that our day was set fair, but then the forecast had looked fair for the two preceding days and had brought plenty more rain.
Anyway, we took stock on the very morning and all agreed that set fair it was. So we agreed to meet up roughly at the end of the lunch interval.
Daisy and I had a “game of lawners” first thing; quite a rigorous workout ahead of my game of “realers” scheduled at Middlesex University later.
Daisy and I got to Radlett just as the umpire’s called lunch. This enabled us to snap up some good front row seats during the lunch interval – perhaps abandoned after the first session or perhaps not yet used that day.
Soon after we grabbed those seats we saw Posh Margaret and chatted with her for a while. She’s very pessimistic about Middlesex’s position this season – I’m still reserving judgement on the whole season as I feel there is still time for Middlesex to improve and get promoted.
The weather really was smiling on us – as evidenced by this picture of Daisy.
…so it was easy to give Fran and Simon directions to the seats.
Before Fran and Simon arrived, I led Janie to believe that she was going to see the England One-Day Captain, Eoin Morgan, playing in this match. This seemed extraordinary, as Eoin was also scheduled to appear for England in the world cup fixture the next day, in what turned out to be a record-breaking innings of his.
Here we all are.
Soon after Fran and Simon arrived, I made the same announcement with regard to Mr Morgan. Fran seemed surprised/pleased but Simon was onto it straight away; “Oh yes”, said Simon, “a Welsh chap named Owen Morgan plays for Glamorgan“.
We then went in search of Morgan on the field, discovered that he was number 29 and then tried to get a suitable photo of him.
Janie thought she had succeeded in getting an action shot of him, but then numbers is not what Janie does best:
Nick Selman is neither Eoin Morgan nor is he Owen Morgan
In the end, after several rather poor attempts, I finally snapped this:
Incontrovertible evidence that we saw Morgan play that day
Daisy is convinced that Owen Morgan has the body language and rear-view appearance of Eoin Morgan.
So much were we enjoying ourselves that I clean forgot to get up and walk around at all – which is a bit of a mistake when a three hour session is the order of the day.
So when we parted company just before five, Fran suggested, gently, that I was not moving quite as a tennis player should. That accurate observation might explain my tennis results for the next few days, until I got to see Michael Durtnall (the chiropractor).
I saw several bits of cricket matches in the first 10 days of May, squeezed between lots of work, real tennis and other activities.
Wednesday 1 May 2019: Radlett & Lord’s
Originally, I had planned to block out that day for cricket, but I needed to fit a client meeting in mid to late morning, so had all-but abandoned the idea of seeing cricket that day.
Then I got a message from Fran to say that she and Simon were packing their sun cream, tee-shirts, thick winter coats, galoshes and brollies with every intention of going to the match come what may.
It also turned out to be a week for me being press-ganged into extra real tennis at Lord’s, so after I had stayed on court for an extra hour the day before to get some doubles experience, one of the pros asked if I could be a late stand-in at 20:00 on 1 May for a tough singles.
So the combination of the Fran message, the timing of that tennis press-ganging, together with some favourable weather and an interesting match position…
…persuaded me to jump into Dumbo to join Fran and Simon for a few hours at Radlett, where Middlesex were hosting Somerset, before driving home via Lord’s.
So, I got home from my client meeting, had a quick bite to eat while watching the closing overs of the Middlesex innings on the Chromecast/TV and then jumped into Dumbo who “rode like the wind” to Radlett. We arrived just after 15:00.
Dumbo wasn’t very impressed with the large public field in which he had to park – his previous visit, to a second team match, enabled him a parking space with a bit of a view.
I, on the other hand, was pretty impressed by the scale of the enterprise and how well organised the outground team seemed to be on a match day. Very friendly and helpful.
Having learnt from our rather chilly experience in the shade last time, Fran and Simon had grabbed some excellent seats on the sunny side. It was one of those “layers of clothes” days, on which I ended up in rolled up shirtsleeves when the sun came out and then donning my thick jacket, scarf and hat by the end of the match after the sun had gone in.
It was really pleasant to sit watching cricket with Fran and Simon again – they are very knowledgeable cricket followers; there was plenty to discuss in the matter of county and international cricket since we’d last met. Oh, plus catching up on our other news of course.
Middlesex took its time to take the last wicket and I had almost decided to give up on waiting to be sure to get out of the car park and back down to Lord’s in good time, but the trusty satnav kept insisting that the journey wouldn’t take long against the main flow of rush hour traffic.
So I did stick it out to the final ball and we did find it surprisingly easy and relatively quick to get out of the car field – the stewards operating very efficiently to keep the funnelling out of the ground decorous.
So Dumbo and I got to Lord’s nice and early. Moreover, as a special treat for Dumbo, it transpired that there were no functions on that evening so he was allowed to park in the Allen Stand gap and look out onto the field of play.
Don’t tell Dumbo that there was no cricket on; I’m not sure he noticed.
Dumbo and I returned to Lord’s for tennis on the Friday morning (3rd) when, very unusually, Dumbo was again allowed to park in the Allen Stand gap, as a result of works vehicles blocking the way to his regular Car Park No 6 spot. Actually the above photo was taken on the Friday morning.
I had long-since pre-arranged a tennis lesson on this morning, so rumours that I was having the equivalent of a “naughty boy net” after our somewhat bruising visit to Middlesex University at the weekend are simply not true. Fake news. Perhaps I shouldn’t have spread those rumours myself in the first place.
Anyway, I found myself at two major cricket grounds on the same day for the first time ever, I think, as a result of being asked to attend a somewhat last-minute ad hoc London Cricket Trust meeting with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), for which the only convenient venue was the Oval, where England were supposed to be playing a one-day-international against Pakistan.
It was a horribly rainy day and I thought it unlikely that there would be any cricket at all, but heck, I wasn’t really there for cricket, I was there for a meeting. Still, the way to get us in to the ground on a big match day was to provide us with comps, so I did have an OCS stand ticket for a rather good balcony seat.
Strangely, as there were no rooms available for the meeting, we ended up on the top level of the OCS stand having the meeting on outdoor (albeit covered area) tables and chairs. Even more strangely, the rain stopped and some play was possible for just over an hour, which coincided almost exactly with the hour we spent meeting.
Some people in the meeting must have been making very profound points, because as soon as they had finished their sentence the crowd oohed and aahed – especially if the speaker was talking during one of Jofra Archer’s overs. I didn’t manage to time any of my pearls of wisdom to coincide with an ejaculation of crowd noise, sadly. Perhaps my pearls of wisdom are not so spectacular after all.
After the meeting, AccuWeather told me that there might be 15 minutes or so before the next short but heavy rain storm, so I thought I might as well make full use of my comp for three or four overs before heading home.
A rare glimpse of sunshine on a very wet dayAs seen from the OCS Stand 2nd tier balcony
I did well, thanks to AccuWeather, as I managed to get home between showers too.
Friday 10th May 2019: Lord’s…Just Lord’s
Just one cricket ground that day? What was the matter with me?
Still, one ground, two purposes; real tennis and cricket. I had arranged to play real tennis on the Friday afternoon long since, with no expectation that Middlesex might have a home draw at Lord’s in a knockout tournament. After all, it is several decades since Middlesex has had one of those, so it hardly falls into the “expectation” category.
I watched the start of the Middlesex v Lancashire match on the TV at home, while having lunch. My plan, which worked well, was to head off for Lord’s in Dumbo at around 14:30, enabling me to put Dumbo onto a four-hour meter near the ground and then not have to worry about him for the rest of the afternoon/evening. Plan worked.
So I watched about 30-40 minutes of cricket before getting changed for tennis. Janie (Daisy) informed me that she’d probably arrive while I was playing tennis, which she did.
Daisy tried very hard to distract my opponent, Stuart, with sledging and left-field questions, but seemed better able to distract my concentration than Stuart’s. All the more so when she was joined in the dedans gallery by Dominic and Pamela…followed soon enough by John Thirlwell. The more they tried to help me with their crowd noise, the more they seemed to help Stuart.
Actually it was a very good, close game of tennis, which I lost very narrowly and felt I’d done well to stay that close, given how well Stuart was playing.
Meanwhile, by the time I got changed, Middlesex were in all sorts of trouble and it looked as though our evening watching cricket might be severely foreshortened.
Still, Janie hunkered down with some wine and nibbles up on the top deck…
…then soon after John Thirlwell joined us.
“And how are you today?”“Better than half-a-yard”
James Harris (no relation) got Middlesex infeasibly close to the 300+ target having been 24-5 at one point, but (as I had suspected throughout the innings) it wasn’t quite enough to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Still, it was a very pleasant couple of hours of cricket watching and chat. Janie and I rounded off the evening by picking up some of our favourite Chinese grub from Four Seasons, Queensway on the way home.
I very often take in the whole of the first day of the cricket season at Lord’s, most often with Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett, e.g. last year…
…but this year the date didn’t work for either of us – in my case because I needed to be in Westminster until about 14:30 that day.
I thought that Escamillo Escapillo might be able to join me for a couple of hours later that day, not least because his beloved Lancashire would be at play, but he too was committed elsewhere all day.
But I had arranged to play tennis at Lord’s that evening, so I packed a good book along with my tennis kit and work necessities and headed off to the ground as soon as my work commitments allowed me. I got to Lord’s just before 15:00; with some 45 overs still to play, that would be nearly half a day of cricket before my tennis.
Result…
…by which I mean, a result for me.
Not a result in the match, obviously, which is designed to last four days (he says for the less cricket aware who might have stumbled across this piece in search of enlightenment).
I dropped my tennis things in the dressing room and took to the middle balcony for a while, but I was wicked cold in the shade there and enviously eyed up the sunny spot at the junction of the Grandstand and the Compton Stand, where I had re-read The Price Of Fish last season, as reported on King Cricket:
From that very spot, in the bright, chilly-yet-tolerable sunshine, I was able to take a picture of Jimmy Anderson bowling to Eoin Morgan. Not bad, I thought at the time, for a second division fixture in April.
Jimmy Bowling To Eoin
For the uninitiated, I should point out that the pitch was located on the northern side of the square, so the southern stands (pictured) were unpopulated, whereas there was a fair crowd in the Grandstand and its fellow north-side stands.
When the sun cruelly abandoned my sunny spot, it immediately went from feeling bearably chilly to unbearably chilly, so I relocated back to the pavilion, taking up a seat in the unusually but unsurprisingly crowded Writing Room (north side, behind glass).
There I read a bit and bumped into some friends/acquaintances, not least Phil. I would previously have described Phil as an Australian with whom I occasionally play real tennis, but he turns out to be a Lancashire supporter who was born in Jimmy Anderson’s home town of Burnley. Phil went to Australia as a child and relocated to the UK some years ago. Phil kindly bought me a soft drink and we chatted cricket for the first time – our previous conversations having been diverse but, in the matter of sport, solely real tennis related.
Phil will henceforth become known as “The Burnley Bradman” for Ogblog and King Cricket pseudonym purposes.
After stumps, I needed to warm up a bit – we had taken our soft drinks on the balcony of the Bowlers’ Bar. So I read inside for a while and then did a long stretching session before playing tennis.
I had, perhaps foolishly, consented to play an additional hour after my 19:00 scheduled hour, as one of the 20:00 fellows had pulled out at short notice. Two hours of singles is a bit much at my age, especially as the 20:00 dude turned out to be a 29 year-old who had played to a pretty decent level when at University.
Actually the two hour slot worked out pretty well for me. The first hour was against a relative newbie to whom I had to give an infeasibly large handicap. He is clearly very able, just inexperienced, so it made for a fascinating battle which ended up just about even-stevens, with him pipping the first set 6-5 and me just ahead 2-1 in the second when we stopped. The second match, against the youngster, I thought I did surprisingly well, given his age, provenance and the meagre handicap I was allowed; I won 6-2 6-5, the second set being a real nail-biter.
Hopefully my technique has come on since this picture was taken in autumn 2016.
