Month: July 2004

Photographs thanks to Charles Bartlett, but this one was taken by a complete stranger in the Warwickshire CCC (Edgbaston) car park

I have written up the preliminaries, including the slapstick events of the night before, in a separate piece, click here or below:

The Time That The Heavy Rollers Started To Get Big On Us, Yet Also Went Downhill: Build Up To The 2004 Event

Ever true to his word, David Steed indeed booked a minibus for our transport that year, in the light of our increased size of group. Here is the picture, presumably taken by Anita, of us all dressed up and ready to go first thing on that first morning, at Wadderton:

Of course there would have been many bants about drinks muling, as had been the case in previous years, but I think the consensus by 2004 was that most muling was likely to get caught. Thus only the expert did the muling – a wine box (outer removed of course) disguised as a cool bag bottom.

I suspect this trick doesn’t work any more, but here are photos of the operation in process:

Jeff took on the role of mastermind rather than implementer in the matter of the prediction game too. I remember getting a call from him early in the morning of 28th, while I was getting ready to leave the flat.

JEFF: Ian, it’s Jeff here. I’ve screwed up. I cannot lay my hands on a prediction game template and need to go out now. I know you did one for Trent Bridge – any chance you could print it out for Edgbaston this year? It’ll be the devil’s job to try and get it done at Wadderton.

ME: I’m rushing to set off this morning too…but leave it with me…

…which Jeff did…for the rest of all time.

By 9:02 on 28 July (according to the meta-data), I had produced this masterpiece, which became the base template for all subsequent Edgbaston trips. Please note the correct spelling of Edgbaston & everything:

The next picture was taken just over an hour into the match. Note that our regular seats in the Priory Stand had a splendid view of the notorious Eric Hollies Stand while being a very safe distance from it. Even the 12th man seemed to be eyeing the Hollies with suspicion, while Bananarama Monkey-Face tried to sneak into any photo he possibly could photo bomb.

At lunch we peruaded a friendly steward, quite possibly Paul Guppy, to take a group photo of us:

Later in the lunch hour, Chas must have gone for one of his traditional lunchtime strolls, observing some cultural appropriation of Caribbean music:

My memory and the official record is silent on the delights that David served up to us for dinner on the Thursday evening. We won’t have been all that hungry because a David Steed Wadderton picnic left little room for dinner. It will have been very tasty, whatever it was. Everyone will have been in excellent spirits – England was doing extremely well.

Here is a link to the Cricinfo scorecard and stuff for that match.

Chas took a few more pictures on the second day.

At lunchtime Chas must have wandered over to the book signing, but whether he commissioned a private message about London buses and pigeons from Blowers, or simply took a photo of him plying his trade in audiobooks, I suspect is lost in the mists of time.

Following the coup with Nigel and Jeff the previous year, getting into the pavilion for a session or so (click here or below)…

Heavy Rollers Meet Saffers, Their Comeuppance And The Elements At The Edgbaston Test, 24 & 25 July 2003

…Chas couldn’t resist trying the same wheeze again – seemingly with some success.

If you look very closely at the above photo, you can see, in the distance, the number ten batsman striding towards the crease. That is a young James Anderson and this was our first (but far from our last) sighting of him as Heavy Rollers.

We had a wonderful time in 2004, as always, but I do recall a sense that 2004 was an especially good one. I don’t think any of us realised at the time that we were at the dawn of a golden era for England as a cricket team and The Heavy Rollers as a motley band of visiting enthusiasts.

If you want to see all the pictures, including scans of the prediction game results sheets (surely everyone will want to know, as much as anything else, how I cunningly accounted for nine players on an eight-column template), you can see it all in the Flickr album linked here and below:

…and then there were nine…

I’m not sure why The Heavy Rollers became, for a few years, a significantly bigger and bolder event. Part of a natural life cycle for such things, perhaps. Possibly something to do with the England cricket team’s partial revival, prompting a bit more realistic optimism (rather than the “hope against hope” optimism of the 1990s and early years of the new century) in England’s potential performances.

Or possibly it was due to our spiritual leader, Nigel, adopting a policy of suggesting that our journey would soon reach an end.

Here’s the 19 November 2003 note from Nigel to us Rollers:

Subject: Heavy Rollers 2004-the penultimate tour

Dear Heavy Rollers , Associate and Junior members

Despite phone bookings not being available until January (Warwicks. CCC staff are so bribable) have just heard that our allocation sorted, usual places, although on Friday 2 of the group (now 9- what an evening game that should be) will be directly behind (Just in case this all sounds too far off and you are thinking I am a sad git for even considering booking it when Rugby is the game, they told me that the row we occupy is now sold out for the second day!). I am a sad git but that’s another matter.

Tickets are 30.25 x 2 each = £60.50 (I got stung for a second booking fee as I added more on!).

Payable between now and end of the year to avoid serious surcharges applying.

The nine for that year were, as depicted in the headline picture (left to right seated, then left to right standing):

• David “David Peel” Steed;
• Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett;
• Harish “Harsha Goble” Gohil;
• Me;
• Nick “The Boy Malloy” Bartlett;
• Dan “Dan Peel” Steed;
• Nigel “Father Barry” Hinks;
• “Big Papa Zambezi” Jeff Tye;
• Biff.

Biff was the only “new boy” for The Heavy Rollers that year, having been a star player for The Children’s Society in the inaugural match against Tufty Stackpole a few years previously:

The First Tufty Stackpole v The Children’s Society Cricket Match, 15 July 2001

In 2004, the core group seemed to solidify. Most who had attended previously in earnest wanted to attend.

David Steed sprang into action immediately, sealing the deal on the Wadderton element of our trip within a couple of days of Nigel’s missive. David’s reply on 23 November 02003:

Dear Heavy Rollers (all grades),

Suitable accommodation now reserved for the Wednesday and Thursday. I wonder if we can persuade her indoors (scuse me it’s her that’s doing this typing!!!) to repeat the lasagne?

We have actually found a REAL Heavy Roller deep in the undergrowth at the back of Wadderton, so if I slip Peter a couple of cans of Banks Original we may even attempt to roll out a strip!

Nigel – cheque in the post in couple of days – and thanks for being a sad git!

Sadly, our 2004 exploits proved to be a final hurrah for Wadderton, as far as the Heavy Rollers were concerned – Wadderton was gone by the summer of 2005. Mercifully, those 2004 exploits were wonderfully memorable, not least thanks to Charles Bartlett’s trusty Canon PowerShot camera.

No sign of Peter having cut a strip by the time we got there in July 2004, quite possibly because the bribe of Banks’s Original didn’t make it from the Steed quarters into Peter’s hands. [I must admit that Banks’s Mild was always my personal Banks’s beer of choice, but I was not even faintly likely to cut a strip. I digress].

Observant readers will note, from the headline picture, that the Heavy Rollers were all wearing a Heavy Rollers Edgbaston 2004 shirt. This was the first of several years for which shirts were commissioned. Jeff and Chas were the brains behind the idea.

I vaguely heard a story about consternation over the production of this first shirt. Something to do with Chas taking the lead, a deal done down Romford market and Jeff’s dissatisfaction with the combination of quality and price. The upshot was that subsequent shirts were produced elsewhere under Jeff’s auspices. I cannot comment on that debate but I can, nearly 20 years later, still model the very shirt:

Frankly, in my case, nearly 20 years later, the shirt appears to be maintaining its look better than the wearer.

Downhill From Here: The Night Before The Test, 28 July 2004

Frankly I’m not sure a cut strip would have much enhanced our game the night before, but I am sure that the nine of us had a splendid early evening game.

I suspect that all who were present remember one particular detail of this game of yard cricket…probably to the exclusion of all other details. Certainly in my case, the one pivotal moment of the evening – one ball – has extinguished all and any other memories of the game.

I cannot remember who bowled it (it might even have been me), nor can I remember who struck the ball (certainly not me given the quality of the strike – probably Nigel or Biff), but I do remember who sought to field the ball. Charley.

The ball hurtled off in the direction of the lower slopes below the garden which was, in effect, our pitch. Coincidentally, Charley, who is a photographer extraordinaire as well as a fielder extraordinaire, had photographed those lower slopes earlier that afternoon:

I don’t think Chas leapt over the fence, I think there was a strategic gap through which the ball, then Chas following the ball, went.

It took everyone (including Chas) a few seconds to realise that running as fast as you can down a hill to try to stop a ball has certain consequences in the matter of how the momentum of that run comes to an end. For an excruciating few moments it became obvious to everyone, probably including Chas, that his run would have to end with either an inadvisable dive or an involuntary tumble.

We could debate at great length the exact nature of the concluding moment. Suffice it to say that it looked extremely comical and yet at the same time, in the moment, I suspect we were all genuinely concerned for Chas.

I have asked Dall-E to help me depict this moment, both in cartoon form and in photograph form, by explaining the matter in words to the AI tool. Here are the results:

Once it became clear that Chas’s moans were the result mostly of bruised ego rather than serious physical harm, the incident became a matter of much mirth, for the rest of that evening…and the rest of that Heavy Rollers 2004 event…indeed for the rest of all time amongst those who witnessed it.

Other reports on the incident or other aspects of that evening’s game will be gratefully received.

I have no idea whether the evening meal was indeed centred around the ever-popular lasagne, but I strongly suspect that it was.

We sat around after dinner for quite some time that year, reminiscing about Heavy Rollers events past, the earlier events of the evening and of course looking ahead with eager anticipation to two days of test cricket between England and West Indies.

I shall write up the Edgbaston element of the 2004 Heavy Rollers event separately.

Charles Bartlett’s wonderful pictures of the events described in this piece and of the 2004 Edgbaston trip can be found in the Flickr album linked here and below:

Postscript: Indeed We Did Eat Lasagne

I have just discovered one more e-mail – this one from Anita to Nigel the weekend before the event. Proof positive that we had lasagne and also that we already knew that this stay would be Wadderton’s last hurrah, Heavy Roller-wise:

Subject: Re: Nearly time……

Hi Nigel,

David’s working this evening but I thought I’d reply anyway and if he wants to get back to you tomorrow then I am sure he will.

He and Dan are really looking forward to next Thursday and Friday. David is off work Wednesday too to prepare!!

I think everything is fine about people staying here but you will need to bring sheets or sleeping bags, pillow slips and towels, as the laundry contract has finished and I don’t think I have enough!

I have been commissioned to make another lasagne for one of the evenings and I think David has plans for food for the other one. He said he would book a minibus for Thursday but, if there are fewer of you needing to come back here after the cricket on Friday I can be chauffeur!

Looking forward to seeing you again.

Best wishes,

Love Anita