One of the many wonderful things about real tennis is that every court is significantly different and each has an interesting history and prevailing culture.
Before this week, I had tried seven courts other than my home court at Lord’s. This week I lost my virginity on three more courts. That takes my tally up to eleven. There are fewer than 50 active courts in the world.
10th October 2019: The Hamsters v The Dedanists, Hampton Court Palace
I was honoured to be selected to debut for The Dedanists in this fixture. This selection could only possibly be to do with the progress I am making with my skills at tennis, so the request that came through shortly after my selection; “would you mind also being the match reporter for this match?” was clearly a coincidental, additional honour.
Me and Dedanist doubles partner James McDermott: with thanks to Carl Snitcher for several photographs from that day, not least those that depict me.
I arranged to give Dedanist team captain Carl Snitcher a lift to and from the match, which enabled Carl to concentrate on vital captaincy duties (such as enjoying some wine with the oppo) and gave us both a chance to have very pleasant conversations to and from the match.
Alastair Robson fizzes the ball over the net while Carl Snitcher guards Henry VIII
In true Harris match report style, you can learn vital details about the food and beverage, not just the tennis.
Iain Harvey larking aboutIan Harris marking a bout
I even got to mark the final rubber of the match; another first for me. I rather enjoyed that role. In fact, I enjoyed every bit of that day at Hampton Court Palace.
14 October 2019: Leamington Tennis Court Club
Janie and I had arranged a short trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon to see A Museum In Baghdad, so I put out some feelers to see if I could arrange some tennis at one or both of the clubs nearby. Real tennis folk are incredibly welcoming, so it was with great ease (on my own part) that I quickly had arrangements to try both.
On the Monday; Leamington, thanks to Alastair Robson.
Arriving at Leamington; thanks to Janie for the pictures and vidsPeter & I prepare to serve, Johnny looks on, Alastair is hazard-end bound
We had a very enjoyable game of doubles. Peter was an excellent partner to have on an alien court; full of praise when things went well for me and full of patience on the many occasions I ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. He, Alastair and Johnny clearly play for the enjoyment of the sport, the exercise and the social side of it.
All five of us enjoyed a good lunch at Gusto, about three minutes walk from the club. Between snapping and chomping, Janie did a bit of shopping in Leamington while waiting for us to finish playing. According to Janie, Monday lunchtime shopping in Leamington is currently an even more rarefied activity than real tennis.
15 October 2019: Moreton Morrell Tennis Court Club
John Franklin very kindly arranged for me to play at that other Midlands real tennis court/club; Moreton Morrell. So Janie and I diverted/stopped off there on the way home from Stratford.
Parking Up Dumbo Outside Moreton Morrell
Built in 1905, a wealthy American member of Leamington resolved his differences with that long-established club by building his own court and starting his own club on his country estate.
John welcomes me to MoretonMoreton’s variant of the Hampton Court scoring abacus
While the Leamington surface is as bouncy as I have encountered, the Moreton Morrell surface is even less bouncy than Lord’s…
…but if you hit one of the cracks on the surface anything might happen:
John and I had a very good game. We pretty much always have a very good game; the handicapping system doing its job with precision. A one-set-all draw, as indeed was the doubles fixture in Leamington the previous day.
John, Janie and I went on to the Lighthorne Pavilion Cafe for lunch; a charming place nearby, suitably based at a local cricket club but open all year round. A very pleasant environment in which to unwind, eat and chat after a game of tennis.
So there it went; my virginity on three real tennis courts, now lost for ever; but I didn’t lose any of the matches and I do very much hope to play on all three courts again.
This is not the first time I have won a quarter-final of something, but it is my first time getting through to a semi-final at real tennis. On this occasion, the H.D. Johns Doubles Tournament.
Sadly there is no video footage of the epic fives quarter-final battle between me and John Eltham, whereas the real tennis quarter-final has been videoed for all posterity…or at least until someone decides to clear down the MCC Real Tennis YouTube archive…
…that clear down must have happened quite soon after the match. I shall scrape the videos/highlights in future if I think they are worth preserving.
It resulted 6-1, 6-4.
Can Dominic and I progress on through the semi-final (next month) to finals day in December? That would be a unique achievement. We’ll try our very best.
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.
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.
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.
Photo of me on the East Court at The Queen’s Club with opponents (from a previous occasion) airbrushed out
Exile. The humiliation of it. Condemned to the role of real tennis supplicants for several weeks while the forces of global domination (cricket branch) took over Lord’s for the world cup.
We Lord’s real tennis players know how to suffer, so many of us have taken up the very generous offer of The Queen’s Club to play there for most of our weeks of exile. I say most, because the first of our wandering weeks coincided with The Queen’s Club ATP tournament for the modern variety of tennis.
But on this day, with the help of the kind professionals at Queen’s, three of us came in search of doubles practice. At one point, I think it was the day before, Ben Ronaldson e-mailed me to say he was having trouble finding us a fourth, but by the time I got to my e-mails he had e-mailed again to say that he had found us a suitable player.
So, Dominic (my doubles partner for this year’s Lord’s tournament) and Bill were joined by Chrissie for a two hour doubles slot. Ben said when I arrived:
I think this should be quite well matched. Try playing level and see what happens.
What happened was a five set epic. Dominic and I started strongly, with him facing Bill and me facing Chrissie. We won the first set 6-2. We tried the alternative server/receiver pairing on the next set, which led to Bill and Chrissie winning that set 2-6.
Dominic and I chose to persevere with the pairing of me facing Bill and Dominic facing Chrissie for the third set. We managed to turn things around and won that close set 6-4. We tried reversing again for the fourth, only to lose that set 1-6. Despite that loss, we chose to stick with that Ian facing Chrissie, Dominic facing Bill for the start of the fifth set; a set we didn’t expect to finish as we were now about 110 minutes into our two-hour slot.
But no-one came along to use the East Court at the end of our slot. Our sole (mostly sleeping) spectator from most of the match had been replaced by a keen scout who was 30 minutes early for his West Court contest. He encouraged us to continue. Or should I simply say that the crowd, as one, was baying for more and urging the metaphorical umpire not to suspend play.
So we saw through the whole of the fifth set, which turned out to be a cracker. Dominic and I got to 5-3 up, only to lose the next two games which (in real tennis, unlike the modern variety) leads to sudden death on the final game which was, as it happened, me and Chrissie doing the serving/receiving.
Somehow, at 2-sets-all, five-games-all, 30-30, with me on serve, I managed to conjure a couple of good-‘uns to seal the match. 6-2, 2-6, 6-4, 1-6, 6-5. Did that matter? Not really. Except that Dominic and I are trying to learn how to play as a pair, so the constant scoreboard pressure and trying to perform as a pair in that circumstance was just what we needed.
Great fun. Nearly two-and-a-half-hours in the end and oh boy did I feel it later in the day.
Coincidentally, much like my Keele experience described above, I developed a slight cold that evening which left me a bit husky for the next couple of days. That was not ideal preparation for a jam with DJ, except that DJ rather liked the variation it gave to my vocal range, despite that variation seeming, to me, rather restrictive.
Ged “Husky” Ladd sings sea shanties?
Still, DJ and I tried a few new ideas, sang a few of our favourites and had a good chat and a good meal. There are far worse ways to spend an evening even when you are a little husky.
Two very enjoyable activities with people who make excellent company.
Unusually this year, the first Lord’s County Championship match of the season didn’t work out for me and Charles “Charley the Gent Malloy” Bartlett to have our traditional early season meet, but this second match did, so we arranged to spend Day Two of the match together.
A Cunning Plan: Tuesday 14 May 2019
Actually I was able to attend for the latter part of the first day. My cunning plan was to get my work out of the way, drive over to St John’s Wood Road around 15:00 – it is almost always possible to find a Ringo parking place at that hour, drop off my tennis kit ahead of tomorrow, get some reading done and watch some cricket in the sunshine.
The cunning plan worked.
I briefly popped in to the pavilion and chatted for a brief while with Colin, before going in search of some warmth in the spring sunshine of the Mound Stand.
Barmy Kev joined me briefly in the Mound Stand that afternoon before going off to speak with more important folk than me:
Borrowed from Barmy Kev’s Facebook posting – Click the picture to see that posting.
As I left Lord’s that evening, I ran into John Lee from the Leicestershire committee, who was on his way to try to find his hotel on Sussex Gardens, so I was able to give him a lift there and have a chat along the way.
A Great Day Although The Picnic Partially Went Pear-Shaped: Wednesday 15 May 2019
I rose early to prepare the picnic and set off for Lord’s soon after 8:00 in order to play tennis at 9:00. I used the rucksack that DJ kindly gave me last year, as that is an ample size for a picnic for two…
…except that I didn’t think about relative softness and hardness of items in the various compartments and planted a bag containing Chas’s pears (Green Williams) towards the bottom of the rucksack.
Other Species Of Pears And Bagels From A Previous Visit To Lord’s
Charley’s fussiness about his pears is a matter of some legend and a yet unpublished piece that should appear on King Cricket at some point in the next few years.
Infuriatingly, I had procured and ripened the bag of pears to perfection for this visit, but they got badly bruised in the rucksack. Message to self: put pears in a protective fruit box next time.
Chas threatened to go public about my pear preparation going pear-shaped, but I decided that the best way to prevent the risk of blackmail was to come clean myself. Now Chas will have to decide how to deal with the other side of the “mutually assured destruction” information unholy bargain we had with each other. It could get as messy as that bag of bruised pears.
Anyway, I played quite a good game of tennis (won) and spotted, as soon as I got off court, that Chas had messaged me to say that he was in the vicinity ridiculously early. I suggested that he make haste to the gate where I could get him into the ground with his voucher before I showered and changed. This ploy worked well.
In the morning, we braved the traditional back/backside ache of the pavilion benches. John Freer from the visiting Leicestershire group spotted us on those benches and came out for a pleasant chat. Peter Moore also chatted with us for a while. Chas and I didn’t get around to the picnic (apart from nibbling some cashews) until we got around to the Mound Stand in the afternoon.
Apart from the pear debacle, the picnic was a great success. Poppy-seed bagels with Alaskan smoked salmon, Prosciutto and Parmesan cheese sandwiches on sourdough, a fruity Riesling and several sweet treats – the latter arranged by Chas.
There were some large school groups sitting quite close to us – very well behaved but autograph hunting like crazy – especially from Nick Gubbins who was fielding down our way and patiently worked his way through a long queue.
At one point in the afternoon Dawid Malan (out injured) wandered around the outfield and stopped to chat with us briefly. Some of the junior autograph hunters asked him who he was and/but seemed minimally impressed that he was the Captain of the team. Only some sought his autograph; still Dawid handled the matter with great dignity and willingness to please the junior crowd.
As always, the day just flew by and it seemed like a blink of an eye after meeting that Chas and I were parting company again.
I watched tennis for a few minutes to let the crowd and traffic die down before Ubering home.
A Random Ramble Around Lord’s: Thursday 16 May 2019
When arranging that visit, I mentioned in passing that Middlesex were playing at Lord’s that day and that I could show John around the place properly if he was interested. His previous visit had been to watch tennis only:
Anyway, John said he would really enjoy that, so after the concert we legged it to Lord’s, where John reckoned he could spare 90 minutes to two hours before heading back to do some work.
I gave John an informal tour of the pavilion, which I think he really enjoyed, stopping most of the way through the tour to take some refreshment and watch some cricket on the sun deck, at Janie’s favourite spot under one of the turrets.
While chomping and drinking coffee there, John informed me that, although he had no pedigree in cricket whatsoever, his grandfather, Hector Ireland, had been a leading light in Widnes Cricket Club in days of yore, to such an extent that a bar in the club is named the Hector Ireland Room:
I explained to John that, while I like to pretend that the Harris Garden at Lord’s is named after my grandfather, the truth of the matter is that I have no cricket in my ancestry at all, so I felt that John’s so-called remote cricketing pedigree was trumping mine big time.
We completed our informal tour in time for John to get away in a timely fashion, I hope.
After saying goodbye to John, I then returned to the pavilion to join the Leicestershire visitors in the Committee Room. John and Penny Freer were in there, as was John Lee and also new Chairman Roy Bent, together with a smattering of Middlesex hosting folk.
Postscript To John Random’s VISIT To LORD’S
In August 2021 John visited Widnes CC and reported the event to me with the following charming words and photographs:
…I finally managed my pilgrimage to the Hector Ireland Lounge of the Widnes Cricket Club, Hector Ireland being – as I think you know – my grandfather; as opposed to the one [George Corke] who had a honeymoon in London and Paris. That was a generation earlier. I was so proud and happy to see his name memorialized on the plaques and his photo still above the bar. I was shown such a warm welcome by men who knew him even though he died fully fifty years ago. I even watched some cricket.
The Match Was Poised, But…: Friday 17 May 2019
I returned to Lord’s again early that morning; a long-planned appointment with the tennis court. In fact, I ended up being press-ganged into playing two hours, from 9:00 to 11:00, which is a bit of a mad idea for playing singles at my age, but there you go.
John Lee had threatened to come and watch me play real tennis for a while before the cricket started and saw through that threat. Afterwards, he reported that he had been baffled by the tennis at first, then after a while decided that he understood it, then after a few more minutes realised that he hadn’t understood it.
Meanwhile, I played quite well that morning and then, after changing, joined the small remaining group in the Committee Room for the rest of the morning session. A few overs had been lost to bad light but the forecast was hopeful for the rest of the day.
Nevertheless, I realised that I needed to get some work out of the way to relieve the pressure from the first half of next week, so went home at lunch, resolving to return for the lasts session of the match.
Sadly, the drizzle started as I arrived back at Lord’s around 16:00 and that last session was much curtailed, turning an interestingly poised match into a draw. David Morgan joined us for a while during that stop-start session.
It was probably Leicestershire who had the most reason to feel aggrieved by the rain, although a couple of quick wickets would have turned the match back Middlesex’s way. Infuriating that a poised match ends that way, but that’s cricket.
It was nevertheless very enjoyable company with which to pass the time at the end a few days of cricket intermingled with work and other activities.
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 paraphrase the WhatsApp message I received from Carl Snitcher (Snitch) only 10 days before the match. I suspect I was one of quite a few people who got such a message from him that day.
The upshot was that Snitch was in the backveld of South Africa, doing valuable charitable works no doubt, while the far more crucial matter of arranging the MURTC v MCC real tennis match had slipped his mind.
I spotted an opportunity to get a bit of practice with my tournament doubles partner, Dominic Flint, if by chance Dominic was also available, which he was. Somehow, probably through methods and devices similarly arcane to my recruitment of Our Man Flint, Snitch managed to cobble together a team.
I have also represented the MCC in the home leg of this match a couple of times – a matter which went unreported on Ogblog a few months ago despite the nail-biting nature of the fixture, which (for once) the MCC won by the skin of its teeth.
No doubt the MURTC folk were hell-bent for revenge…
…except it isn’t actually that kind of fixture, as far as I can tell. The MURTC crowd are as convivial and friendly as any competitive sporting fixture can be. The eating, drinking and socialising seems to be a pretty important element.
To that end, step forward Catherine Hudson, who, together with John Harrington, put on a phenomenal spread for our fixture lunch, centred around several massive trays of The Pie Man’s phenomenal pies. A caterer well known to me – I think it was Angela Broad (coincidentally a former real tennis player from many years gone by) who put us in touch with the Pie Man himself, Murray Tollemache, when we first started catering Z/Yen events, 20 to 25 years ago.
The most difficult decision I had to make, soon after we arrived at about 12:15, was whether to eat before or after playing at 14:00. The smell and look of the food had my heart say “eat” , but my head said, “wait”. Head won.
Janie joined us, as she did last year, which helped with the congeniality of the day, not that these two teams need help. But Janie did take lots of video clips, through which I can show the progress of our rubber which was, if I might say so, a fine metaphor for the whole match, MCC-wise.
The little video below, titled “One For The Career Highlights Reel” is, um, one for the career highlights reel. Dominic with the magnificent winner.
The next video might need some explanation for the uninitiated. The call of “up” tells your partner that you believe the ball will go above the dedans gallery and onto the back penthouse. The call of “yours” means that you want your partner to take the ball. Only very rarely have I had the opportunity to sat “up yours” to my partner descriptively. Of course I would never use those words expletively… not on the tennis court anyway.
It was actually a very good game of tennis for most of the rubber, with the pendulum swinging one way and then the other.
But soon enough our rubber turned against us. Well played, Peter and Paul.
Were Dominic and I able to cope with our disappointment and rejoin the increasingly party-like atmosphere? Would we be able to digest our food after all of that excitement and the roller-coaster ride of sporting emotions?
Yes.
It really was a most enjoyable day. The teams get on really well, despite the fierceness of the competition on court, while the professionals (Chris Bray this time, Will Burns on my previous visits) make us visitors feel extremely welcome.
So I suspect that only two questions remain for the casual reader. Firstly, who won the fixture this time? Well, I think I planted enough clues in the text, but in any case, as they say in Las Vegas, “what happens in Hendon, stays in Hendon.”
The other question, normally delivered in song at sporting fixtures, is “who ate all the pies?” The answer, of course, “what happens in Hendon, stays in Hendon.”
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.
