Category: Cricket

The Second Tufty Stackpole v The Children’s Society Cricket Match, Much In Need Of Improved Memories, 4 August 2002

Another e-artists’ impression of village cricket by Dall-E and me

By way of contrast with the first Tufty Stackpole v The Children’s Society match, which I remember well and have documented in some detail…

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

…and even by way of contrast with the third match, which took place in 2004…

…the second match has almost totally evaded my memory. It existed. I have e-mail and diary evidence for it.

Here’s Charles “Charley the Gent Malloy” Bartlett’s shout out from 9 July 2002:

CRICKET MATCH – SUNDAY 4 AUGUST

I am delighted to say that we have arranged a cricket fixture a against a village cricket side called Tuffty Stackpole at their home ground in a village called North Crawley – it’s a 15 minute drive from the Milton Keynes turnoff on the M1 Motorway.

Some of you may remember we played them last Summer, it was a great day, great cricket, great food, great pubs and in beautiful surroundings – there is a small cover charge towards the food and refreshments.

I originally met members of Tufty Stackpole on TCS Treks in China and Peru, they are keen supporters of TCS, and monies from the cricket match will go towards sponsorship for other TCS Treks (sadly theirs not mine!).

The match will start around mid-day and be a 40 over match (that’s 40 overs
each!) – we will probably need a number of 12th men, for cover and substitutes, along with scorers as there is a full size scoreboard.

There will be a number of cars travelling, so transport should not be a problem, I expect everyone to be fixed up with a lift – there and back.

Please advise me on your availability ASAP.

This time around, Janie and I took the precaution of booking out the whole of the Monday following the match. We had a busy weekend ahead of the match, with a night at the Proms on the Saturday preceding.

Reflecting on my absence of memory for this fixture, I even wondered whether the match had been cancelled at the last minute due to an inability to get a team together or inclement weather.

But no.

Janie remembers attending one in which Tufty Stackpole soundly thrashed The Children’s Society – to such an extent that everyone agreed that it would not make sense to repeat the exercise unless or until the Children’s Society could muster a better eleven to give Tufty Stackpole a decent game.

That must have been this second match. The thrashing factor, together with the need to pull together a better squad, might at least in part explain why the fixture didn’t happen again until 2004.

We had no Biff this time around, no Martin Hinks and no Nigel “Father Barry”. “Big Papa Zambezi” Jeff Tye was there, as was Harish “Harsha Goble” Gohil. Janie thinks she remembers having a long and pleasant chat with Liz Tye on that surprisingly inclement August watching occasion, although that nice chat might have been another year of course.

The only other clues in my e-mail archive include a note from me to Chas on 31 July 2002 suggesting initials for some of us in a desperate attempt to make us sound more like real cricketers:

Perhaps

CPU Bartlett
JFDI Tye
ICT Harris
HTTP Gohil

Also an e-mail exchange between me and Chas after the event, on 16 August 2002, which shows we clearly had “strengthening the team for Tufty on our minds.

ME: Z/Yen is probably close to signing a lapsed but formerly decent club standard player, who would also be suitable and willing for the Tufty fixture.

CHAS: I think I am concerned at this remark by you – because I do not believe it. It is clearly designed to strengthen your team for the annual fixture at Regents Park against TCS!!. Will you stop at nothing to win that trophy?

ME: Nothing.

That hiring, I should say parenthetically, was Mark “Uncail Marcas” Yeandle, who did turn out for Z/Yen a good few times, but never did turn out for TCS against Tufty Stackpole. Probably, in Chas’s memory, Mark is best known for what he does best at cricket…watching. He has joined us several times, e.g. the never-to-be-forgotten 5th day of the 5th Test at the Oval in 2005 and the occasion at Lord’s in 2010 which Chas refers to as “The Day Of The Monster Strawberries” which came courtesy of Mark:

England v Bangladesh Day 2, Lord’s, 28 May 2010

Returning to August 2002, the other thing that will have weakened my memory for this Tufty match is that it was just a few days before we headed off for our Heavy Rollers adventure at Trent Bridge that year:

How Could We Sing The Heavy Rollers Song In A Strange Land? England v India At Trent Bridge, 8 & 9 August 2002

Despite what happened in the cricket at Tufty in 2002, I’m sure the tea and libations after the match were up to the usual Tufty standards – see the report on the first match for all those sorts of details.

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

In short, I need help from other people who were at this second ever Tufty Stackpole v The Children’s Society match if we are to pull together anything more authoritative about the match than this.

Perhaps some of the Tufty folk have better memories of it and might be encouraged to chime in with their thoughts. If there is a scorebook somewhere in the North Crawley archives, with the details of the Tufty Stackpole v The Children’s Society matches, scans of those pages would add greatly to the record here.

We have no pictures from 2002 either. So, as it is, I have had to collaborate sparsely with Dall-E to generate some sort of pictorial record of the two sides.

Tufty Stackpole cricketers in 2002

The Children’s Society cricketers in 2002

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

Village Cricket At the Turn Of The 21st Century – by Dall-E & Me

We interrupt The History of The Heavy Rollers to cover a related (and soon to be overlapping) activity: Tufty Stackpole v The Children’s Society cricket matches. In the same way that we cannot entirely separate the birth of Z/Yen charity cricket matches…

The Very First Z/Yen Charity Cricket Match, Barnardo’s, 22 July 1998

…from the early development of The Heavy Rollers…

The Day The Heavy Rollers Entered My Consciousness & Indeed When My Devotion To Cricket Entered Theirs, 23 July 1998

…several of the people involved in Heavy Rollers outings in the first decade of this century were friends from the Tufty Stackpole matches.

Much like the early Heavy Rollers outings, there is precious little actual evidence from the events. The odd e-mail but no photos and no contemporaneous match reports. Only memories, which might be flawed or partial. Strangely, I have very strong memories of the first Tufty match and almost none of the second. Hopefully others who participated can chime in with comments and help me to improve the pieces.

The initial shout out for the first Tufty Stackpole match came from Charles Bartlett on 29 May:

Game against ‘Tuffty Stackpole’ (I met members of this team on the TCS trek’s in China and Peru). They are a village side and take their cricket very seriously. So experience will be useful. The match is arranged to be played on Sunday 15 July at their ground at North Crawley which is near Milton Keynes

Students of historical research based on e-mail trawling will realise why this e-mail was hard to find in my archive 20+ years later – note Chas’s spelling of “Tufty”.

Anyway, I persuaded Janie that this event would make the perfect culmination for our planned mini break in Yorkshire – a couple of days at The White Swan Inn in Pickering, which we had enjoyed so much the previous year, followed by a night in Halifax seeing Mike Ward’s latest play, followed by dinner with Mike & Lottie.

The Pausanias Affair by Mike Ward, The Actor’s Workshop, Halifax, 14 July 2001

It was quite a late night for us on the Saturday night in Halifax. Mike and Lottie sure know how to make guests welcome. I’m sure some especially juicy red wine will have flowed to accompany excellent beef and other culinary delights late in the evening after the show.

But that didn’t really matter, as we knew that we had time in the morning to take a breakfast at the Imperial Crown and get most of the way back down the M1 in plenty of time.

Actually we half expected to be stopping only briefly on our way home, as the weather was poor and the forecast, on Saturday, for the next day, yet poorer.

But in the morning, when I turned on the Ceefax (this was back in the days before smart phones and internet access on the fly), the simple weather chart suggested that the shoddy weather was at its worst in the North of England…and in the South of England, with the Midlands, including Beds/Bucks/Northants borders villages such as North Crawley, spared the rain and expecting sunshine.

We motored through driving rain until just after Sheffield – thereafter the weather looked promising to the point of looking like cricket weather. When we got there, we learnt that those travelling from the south had experienced similar poor weather until they got a few miles north of the M25.

“Two Pubs!” Richard Schmidt / North Crawley – Wikimedia Commons

Lovely village. Lovely cricket ground in the village. Great bunch of local people too. Tufty Stackpole was basically the veterans side of a “proper” village team. These people could play.

The Children’s Society team had its own weapons for that first fixture. Nigel “Father Barry” Hinks was with us, along with his uber-enthusiastic brother Martin. “Big Papa Zambezi” Jeff Tye brought his mate Biff with him:

Probably the best batsman in the county never to have played for Northamptonshire…

…said Jeff…and you don’t argue with Jeff when he’s talking up his mate.

The Children’s Society also had Charley “The Gent Malloy” Bartlett, me and a few other enthusiasts of no fixed ability.

My abiding memories of the cricket that day are quite strong.

Most of the enduring Tufty folk were there that first time: Geoff Young, Glenn Young (I think), Ian Cooper, Trevor Cooper, Nick Cooper, Trevor Stapleton, Mike Archer, Nick Church (I think) plus the gentleman who sometimes kept wicket whose name I never learnt but whom we nicknamed “Builder’s Bum” because of his appearance when wicket-keeping.

With thanks to Dall-E, which couldn’t quite bring the troos down to builders’ level

  • We didn’t really have the bowling depth to put the Tufty batting line up under too much pressure. Nigel bowled well and took a couple of wickets, but in a 40 over match each bowler can only bowl 8 overs. Martin was quite useful with the ball too, but there were still 24 other overs to try and escape from;
  • It didn’t help to have several fielders of my “quality” in the long grass. I think it was at that first Tufty match that I juggled a couple of would-be catches but basically spilled them, much to the chagrin of my skipper and team mates – not that I was the only fielder to spill catches;
  • Martin kept encouraging his older brother, Nigel, to field closer and closer in the hope of snaffling a catch off his bowling. Frankly Martin’s bowling wasn’t really good enough to justify insanely close fielding. Eventually one came straight to Nigel at high speed, which he took, partly in self-defence but a clean catch. The bruise was visible at the back as well as the front of Nigel’s hand within seconds. Barely a wince. Brave lad;
  • Tufty Stackpole made plenty. Still, we had some weaponry in the batting department, so preserved an element of hope while everyone tucked in to one of the quintessentially English summer village cricket match teas, provided by, I’m pretty sure, the Merry Wives Of Tufty Stackpole. Derry Young was almost certainly involved in that aspect;

I asked Dall-E to help me reproduce the look of such a cricket tea – indeed there I am enjoying a cuppa in a virtual village hall before a lavish spread:

Me at tea, by Me and Dall-E.

  • I was scheduled to bat 7 or 8, so I umpired at the start of the resumption;
  • Biff was clearly a proper batsman, but he hadn’t played for ages and kept complaining to me bitterly, whenever he got down to my end, that he wasn’t timing it properly and that he was finding it all very difficult after all this time. I tried to boost Biff’s confidence by telling him, truthfully, that he was, relatively speaking, in the context of our game, batting extremely well. Also that he would get back into the swing of it as the innings progressed;
  • Chas was one of the earlier wickets to fall and took over from me umpiring when the third or fourth wicket fell;
  • Nigel batted one place ahead of me. Biff was still batting well and keeping us just about in the game when Nigel joined him at the crease. Nigel himself can tell you the extent to which he was able to bat normally with such a badly bruised hand. I do recall Nigel getting his eye in and then launching at least one big straight six. At that point, just for a very short while, some of us perhaps dreamt of victory. But Nigel’s attempt to replicate the six resulted in a clattering noise behind him and it was my turn to bat;
  • I joined Biff and again tried to boost his confidence, which, given that he had by then scored well north of 50 and might even have been thinking of 100, he was still chastising himself for not batting as well as he used to decades earlier when he batted regularly. “Problem is”, he said, “I’m completely exhausted now. Do we have to keep running ones and twos?” My problem, of course, is that I don’t really have shots at all, so ones is probably the best you can hope for unless I take absurd risks. Biff was by now so tired that his scoring shots were not quite making it to the boundary so we did run a few twos;
  • Eventually Biff played a tired shot and was out. It was an honour for me to have shared the crease with him for a while. We were still some way from the Tufty’s score and frankly we knew we didn’t have the batting to score at the requisite rate, which might have been something like 80 runs needed off 8 or 9 overs at that stage. Big Papa Zambezi Jeff joined me at the crease with the instruction, “we’re to bat for the draw”;
  • This instruction was playing to my extremely limited skills as a batsman – i.e. to prevent a competent but tiring bowling attack from getting me out. It transpired that Jeff had similar skills. We frustrated the Tufty Stackpole bowlers and managed to extract some honour from that first match by not being bowled out.
North Crawley pitch – “borrowed” from Facebook

Don’t ask me which North Crawley pub we all retired to after the match. It might have been The Cock Inn…

…but equally well might have been The Chequers…

…North Crawley has two pubs and the cricket club is honour bound to divide its business between the two. Over the years we certainly tried both.

We enjoyed the post-match conviviality for quite a while and revelled in raising a goodly sum for the charity. I remember that Janie and I got home quite late, ahead of punishingly early starts the next morning. We only made that mistake the once, opting to take the morning or even the whole Monday off after subsequent Tufty matches.

The Heavy Rollers Witness Ashes Cricket Together For The First Time, Edgbaston, 5 & 6 July 2001

Yes, the big fuss is for that little urn. Do you have a problem with this?

In November 2000, there will have been an outbreak of joy in several households, not least mine, when we received the following missive from Nigel Hinks:

Just to confirm that despite “unprecedented interest” (Warwickshire CC) TICKETS have been secured in usual places (Priory Stand Row A 12-17) for the above.

Cost of £67 (32 Thursday+35 Friday). Payable as soon as you like………

Haven’t yet spoken with David. No assumptions about Wadderton or indeed David as ‘catering manager’. Just book it in the diaries and look at it throughout the winter months!!!

Nigel

Needless to say, Wadderton & David Steed’s catering management came through.

The team of Heavy Rollers for those six seats reverted to the 1999 contingent, listed again here with the nicknames allocated some years later (apart from mine, which had been around for years):

  • Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett;
  • Nigel “Father Barry” Hinks;
  • “Big Papa Zambezi” Jeff Tye;
  • David “David Peel” Steed;
  • Nick “The Boy Malloy” Bartlett (like me, a 1999 initiate);
  • Me “Ged Ladd”.

The mists of time have left a mystery, nay even controversy, surrounding the absence of Nick Bartlett in 2000. I’ll leave that debate for others to argue out in articles other than this one…or possibly in court if the debate gets too adversarial.

Differently controversially, my team of mascots, which had included Henry The Duck & Hippity the Green Bunny in 2000, was increased by the addition of Bananarama Monkey-Face in 2001.

Bananarama Monkey-face in 2004, no doubt “in care” having been rescued from Jeff’s clutches

Daisy & I were adopted by Bananarama Monkey-Face in Pickering in July 2000.
This image from his post trauma writing phase in 2014.

In many ways this 2001 visit was the first true manifestation of Nigel Hinks’s curtains-induced vision of watching Ashes cricket at a regular meet with friends.

Guest Piece by Nigel Hinks: The Birth Of The Heavy Rollers Tradition, Edgbaston, June 1998, Including The Revelations And Acts That Led To The Birth

I don’t suppose that Nigel’s 1995 vision included duck, bunny & monkey mascots, but that simply shows that revelations of that kind only reveal part of the future story. It also shows that, to some extent, you should always beware what you wish for, even if it is something as wonderful and enduring as The Heavy Rollers.

Actually it was Jeff Tye who seemed least pleased with the mascot contingent and took some pains over the forthcoming years to ease them out of the picture.

Many of us had a sense of foreboding about the 2001 Ashes, despite the seeming opposite from some of us in the November 2000 e-mail bants:

Jeff: What a prospect – the tide has turned – England 480 for 8 after 2days in Pakistan – just imagine the score after 2 days against Australia at Edgbaston – the book is already open Charles !!!!

Me: I just hope those Aussies can last two whole days.

Chas: I do not wish to sound unpatriotic, but the Aussies will give us the most extreme test of our cricketing abilities!

Our sense of foreboding was more than justified. Here is the match scorecard. The sense that England might somehow be in with a shout dissipated soon after lunch on Day One.

I’m pretty sure this was the match at which Charles managed to persuade some autograph-hunting youngsters that Nick was Andrew Flintoff, watching with us from the front row of the Priory Stand.

Nick Bartlett

Freddie Flintoff

You can see for yourselves above that this must have been an easy scam to pull off, especially with Nick ‘s poker face showing no sign whatsoever that this was a lark.

Nevertheless, a few dopey kids lined up and collected Nick’s forgery of Freddie Flintoff’s autograph.

Frankly, I think Charles might easily have passed himself off as Freddie Flintoff at that time. Again, judge for yourselves.

Freddie Flintoff setting a field

Charles Bartlett setting a field

Joking apart, and despite the fact that the memories of these matches, writing them up more than 20 years later, are quite faded, I do recall that we had a superb time yet again.

I also recall that, on the Friday afternoon, I popped out to the loo, anticipating an hour or so more of play, but when I came out of the loo the heavens had opened and everyone was pouring out of the stands. Nigel very kindly gathered up my things, rescuing Henry, Hippity and Bananarama-Monkey-Face from what could have been a very soggy demise.

As well as rescuing “my boys”, Nigel must also have rescued Jeff Tye’s “betting sheets” for the prediction game, which ended up in my hands for computation that year – perhaps for the first time but certainly not the last. Those relics remain with me to this day – here they are:

Unmistakably you can see Jeff’s templates with Jeff’s writing all over them…until you get to the computations which are in my trademark scrawl. I note that the going rate at that time was just 20p per punter per line.

I think several people had brought cars with them to the church grounds near Edgbaston Stadium with a view to driving home from the ground on the second day. Nigel kindly took me to the railway station on his way out of town. Our correspondence that weekend (I peppered his e-mail with comments):

Nigel: Hope you got home ok. Friday. We experienced the most amazing flooding in suburban Harborne after we dropped you off.


Me: Hope it didn’t hold you up too much – I got home c20.40


Nigel: Ah well we got the best couple of days and possibly the day of the series.


Me: almost certainly


Nigel: Shame about the collapse today again. But what a knock from Gilchrist who you fancied….just as well he didn’t get in on Friday!

Me: Yup

By November 2001, though, we were lining up for a breach of tradition in 2002. Nigel again:

Dear Jeff, Ian, David, Charles and Nick,

We agreed, I think, unanimously that we won’t resume our traditional places at Edgbaston this coming year given that it is taking place in May.


However some mutterings abound for us to up sticks and try Trent Bridge.


This would be for 8th and 9th August, in Nottingham, against India (2nd Test) and it would mean adding in some accommodation costs if we do the 2 days.

So, before I do anything, could you let me know if you are interested.

How did that all pan out? Well, unless you can remember, you’ll simply have to await the next exciting episode to find out.

England v West Indies, 5th Test, Oval, 31 August 2000 but not 4 September 2000

Thursday 31 August 2000

I have documentary evidence to prove that I went to the Oval on the first day of the fifth test. Not much was arranged by e-mail in those days, but I wrote an e-mail to TMS. I was reminded of same, today (13 January 2017) as a result of some discussions about left and right-handedness on King Cricket – click here – which triggered a memory that I possess a great essay on the subject in The Boundary Book: Second Innings.

I found the book. Marking that very essay in my copy of The Boundary Book: Second Innings was a printout of the following e-mail, to TMS:

In the hope & expectation that Nagamootoo will be selected for the Oval, try this limerick for size.

There is a young man Nagamootoo,

Who the girls find it hard to stay true to;

He’s a little too shy,

Like the song by that guy,

Named Limahl from the group Kajagoogoo.

Do look out for us today, near the front of the Peter May North Stand. A monkey, a green rabbit, four chaps (including two American rookies trying test cricket for the first time) and a yellow duck named Henry.  Henry bears more than a passing resemblance to Henry Blofeld.

Ian

Earlier that same summer at the first test with the Heavy Rollers, plus Hippity the Green Bunny, Henry the Duck but no monkey. The monkey joined our household later.

We met Bananarama Monkey-Face in Pickering in early July 2000. This photo from 2014, after he’d established his own small-time writing career.

FALSE MEMORY PARAGRAPH

I have a feeling that the first day of the fifth test must be the occasion that Jeremy, Michael and I went together, with the additional American Rookie being a client or prospective client of Michael’s who turned out to have the attention span of a flea. He watched for about 5 or 10 minutes, got bored, wandered off and made us feel thoroughly irritated, as we knew loads of people who would have loved that hot ticket. As Michael said afterwards, “I’m not making that mistake again”.

CORRECTED MEMORY PARAGRAPH

Following an e-mail trawl for other summer 2000 matters, I realise that the above memory is false, or rather a memory from a later year/test match day. On 31 August 2000 the attendees were:

  • me
  • Michael “Timothy Tiberelli” Mainelli
  • Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett
  • Bob “Big Mac” Reitemeier (this pseudonym previously unused, but in the grand tradition of On The Waterfront characters as pseudonyms).

Both Michael and Bob were suitably interested in the cricket and indeed both have attended first class cricket and/or played several times since their initiation that day. Perhaps Charles also has some memories of that day. Big Mac e-mailed to say:

I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the day.  I must admit that I did follow the events on Friday, Saturday and Sunday with some interest following my induction on Thursday.  Great stuff.   The hook has been planted…

What about Monday?

But far more importantly, Aggers clearly liked my limerick a lot, because I heard him read it out at one point and learned that he broadcast it more than once during the day on that first day of the match.

I got very excited on the Friday, as Clean Business Cuisine (still available at all good bookshops, both on-line and real world) had just come out and we were promoting it heavily, so I got our book PR lass, Tanya, to bike a copy of the book to the TMS team at the Oval with a note of thanks re the limerick. I am now sure that such effort and expense is utterly futile. We live and learn.

That evening (the Friday) Janie and I saw Anthea and Mitchell. My diary says so. On the Saturday evening we saw Maz – my diary says so. I think it was her goodbye party ahead of going off to Malawi. A trawl of Janie’s diaries (and other people’s memories) at some stage in the future might well retrieve more stuff about those two evenings.

Monday 4 September 2000

Somehow, England, a shocking test match side at the time, had got itself ahead in a series against the (once) mighty West Indies (heck, they still had Walsh and Ambrose in those days, ageing though they might have been).

Going into the final test, England were 2-1 up. And now England were poised, in a great position to win the historic match and series on Day 5.

Click here to see the match scorecard.

I was reminded of all this 18 months ago (summer 2015) when King Cricket cricket wrote a piece about the summer of 2000 – click here.

Several of us recovered our memories for that piece and commented. Here’s my comment about 4 September 2000:

I remember taking an early call from Big “Papa Zambezi” Jeff on the final day of the series, wondering whether I wanted to join him on a walk-up expedition south of the river (Thames, not Zambezi) to the Oval. He reckoned we’d still get good seats walking up Day 5 and it turned out he was right. But I had unmovable client commitments that day (long since forgotten by me and probably the clients), so he walked up and got splendid seats for an historic day without me. I made amends by buying Day 5 seats for the Oval in 2005 as a precautionary measure; Big “Papa Zambezi” Jeff was one of the beneficiaries of that forethought.

Well I have now looked up my diary and can see exactly what I did that day. I was sort-of on a deadline with an important report. Plus lots of calls. But I did have some slack that week.

Could I have burned some midnight oil and caught up? Of course I could.

Should I have gone with Jeff that day? Of course I should.

Oh well.

The Children’s Society Cricket Match, Regent’s Park, 24 August 2000

I came across an entry in my diary for 24 August 2000 which had me completely…

…forgive the pun…

stumped.

17:00 Children’s Society, Regent’s Park

I couldn’t remember a thing about this event. It certainly wasn’t a Z/Yen thing.

Following some archaeology on the old e-mails, I ascertained that this was some sort of a match between The Children’s Society and Cable and Wireless; but still nothing came back to my memory.

It was clear from the e-mail trail that both Nigel and Chas had been involved with this match, so I wrote to both of them to see if they had any recollection of this event.

I needn’t have worried – yes they did.

Their replies were so comprehensive…

…and amusing…

…that with a little bit of sub-editing they made a very jolly two-hander for the King Cricket website, which published the piece in January 2018 – click here or below to read the piece.

Charity cricket in Regent’s Park – match report

If by any chance the King Cricket link doesn’t work, I have scraped the piece to here.

To my mind, this is one of the wonderful things about Ogblog – an opportunity to re-engage such memories. Sometimes an event that was not so memorable for me might have been, for some reason, especially memorable for someone else.

Nigel – still shouting from the rooftops about the August 2000 match, perhaps?

Following The Lord’s Test Match In The Car, Then Bach At The Wigmore Hall With The Duchess, 1 July 2000

This memory was triggered by this charming piece on the King Cricket website in late May 2020:

Watching (and missing) a dramatic day of England v West Indies in 2000 – a match report

Janie (Daisy) and I weren’t there for the tense ending of that match either. But we were nearby – there in spirit if not in body.

We had been eagerly following the match all day.

But that day was also the birthday of Daisy’s mother, The Duchess of Castlebar. I had bought tickets for the three of us to see a Bach concert at the Wigmore Hall for that evening.

Janie had quite recently acquired a taste for chamber concert halls and baroque music, perhaps a year or two earlier. The Duchess tended to prefer large scale concerts of the Proms variety; we mostly booked those for her. But the Proms don’t get going until a bit later in the summer and it was the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death that year. So Bach at The Wig it was to be.

Anyway, that afternoon the Lord’s Test Match was beautifully poised and/but for reasons I cannot recall – had there been a lot of overnight rain? – the day’s play had been delayed and was playing out until quite late.

The Duchess is an avid follower of the cricket as well as a music aficionado. We called her to let her know that we were on the way to collect her. We could all listen to the ending of the cricket match together on the car radio on our way to The Wig.

As we drove to the Duchess’s residence, England wickets fell and the match seemed to be drifting in The West Indies direction. Daisy and I anticipated a dark mood and we were not disappointed.

Thrown it away, they’ve thrown it away…

…said The Duchess. We set off for Marylebone (the southern end thereof).

The Duchess explained to us, as she had several times before, that Denis (Compton), Ted (Dexter), Colin (Cowdrey) Ken (Barrington), Geoffrey (Boycott) and players of that ilk – whom she had met together with her late husband in the good old days- would not have thrown it away like this.

We arrived at The Wigmore Hall. England hadn’t lost a wicket for a while. Was it possible that they could snatch victory from the very jaws of defeat?

Daisy parked up – it was a warm sunny evening so we sat in the car with the roof open and the car radio on, listening to the denouement of the cricket match.

The Duchess Of Castlebar

Try to imagine the scene, dear reader, as it must have looked to passing tourists who understand little or nothing about cricket. A distinguished-looking septuagenarian with her family sitting in a car leaping around in their seats, oohing and aahing every 45 seconds or so as the commentator spoke.

Then, those same seemingly dignified folk whooping for joy for a while, before sealing up the car and entering the Wigmore Hall. Tourists: meet the English.

Here’s a link to the scorecard and the Cricinfo bumf about the match.

Then the concert.

Basically it was an organ recital of JS Bach works by Jennifer Bate. When you click that preceding link you get some eye candy as well as the organist in question, as Jennifer Bate shares her name with a subsequent Miss England and sporting WAG.

Click the pic to read about the organist Jennifer Bate

It was a fine concert of mostly well-known Bach organ works. An example of one of the pieces (Bach after Vivaldi as it happens) can be seen and heard below.

A slightly sad coda to this Ogblog piece was the discovery that Jennifer Bate died in March 2020, just a few weeks before I wrote this piece.

Here’s another video of her playing one of the pieces we heard that night; Concerto in C BWV 595 (Ernst arr. Bach).

The Heavy Rollers Double-Up For The First Two Days Of The England v West Indies Edgbaston Test Match, 15 & 16 June 2000

The first ever picture of The Heavy Rollers, taken, quite brilliantly, by “that joker of a supervisor steward”, Paul Guppy. From left to right starting with, in the green shirt and shades: Nigel, Charles, Jeff, Me (with Hippity & Henry The Duck), David. I have often wondered about the person two seats to the right of David. Did he not want to be seen on camera? Was he having a Sneed-snooze? Had he existentially expired?…

…or perhaps the chap with his head down had just heard one of Paul’s terrible jokes

Following the resounding success of the 1999 Heavy Rollers visit to Edgbaston – my first one:

My First Taste Of The Great Cricket Tradition That Is The Heavy Rollers, England v New Zealand Test Day One, Edgbaston, 1 July 1999

…which itself was the sequel to the inaugural Heavy Rollers outing in 1998:

Guest Piece by Nigel Hinks: The Birth Of The Heavy Rollers Tradition, Edgbaston, June 1998, Including The Revelations And Acts That Led To The Birth

…at some point a decision was made to make it two days rather than one for 2000. That decision was as yet unmade in early December 1999, when Nigel wrote:

Whatever your reasoning-to see Charles take money off Jeff, Ian’s mascot/s, the cuisine, the cricket even….the time has come to believe in the future. Things can improve.

England v West Indies, same place, Thursday June 15th and possibly 16th too?

Let me know,soon.

Nigel

I cannot see my reply or even any e-mail replies on the e-mail trail, yet somehow we must have all communicated to Nigel our considered opinion on expanding the adventure to two days: YES PLEASE!

We were all working together a lot in late 1999, so my guess is that everyone had the opportunity to discuss the matter with Nigel and for all the arrangements to be communicated by means other than e-mail. An extraordinary thought 20+ years later.

In the absence of a swathe of photos and documentary evidence, memory evidence is thin. The traditions described in the above two pieces (1998 and 1999) would have been pursued without doubt. We will have stayed at Wadderton, certainly on the Wednesday and Thursday night. David will have done the honours with the picnic on both days. Jeff will have done Edgebaston [sic] betting sheets. I would have trained home on the Friday evening.

One strong memory I have of this episode was a moment of fame for one of my mascots, Henry the Duck.

Same location, same two teams, four years later

I’m pretty sure it was on the TV highlights we saw at Wadderton on the evening after the first day’s play. I’m guessing it was when Graeme Hick was out for a duck, the camera panned to Henry for a few moments and Michael Holding said, words to the effect of:

that just about sums it up.

Traditions take a while to settle, of course. Even The Heavy Rollers. So there was some fragmentation and controversy that summer.

No-one has ever managed to establish why Nick “The Boy Malloy” Bartlett wasn’t there. Nick is convinced he wasn’t invited. Nigel insists that he would only have needed the nod from Chas and Nick would have been an automatic pick. There are rumours that some indecision might have been involved. The truth will never be established.

Later in the summer, the fragmentation meant that Chas and I, together with Michael Mainelli and Bob “Big Mac” Reitemeier spent the day together at the Oval on Day One of The Fifth Test.

England v West Indies, 5th Test, Oval, 31 August 2000 but not 4 September 2000

That event might inadvertently have kicked off the short spate of ill-conceived attempts by senior Children’s Society folk to join The Heavy Rollers and the resulting accusations of elitism.

On Day Five of the fifth test, Jeff Tye called me in the morning and suggested that we “walk up” and see the day’s play together, as it promised to be potentially historic – indeed it turned out unquestionably so. As I explain in the above piece, to my regret since, I let work get in the way. Jeff was smarter and/but went to the Oval on his own that day.

But returning to Edgbaston in June 2000, here is a link to the scorecard for the match...then feast your eyes again on that early incarnation of The Heavy Rollers…

Janie’s First Taste Of Test Cricket, England v New Zealand, Day Three, Oval, 21 August 1999

Everything that needs to be said about this day at The Oval has been described beautifully by Daisy (aka Janie) on the King Cricket website, published a short while after the event (18 February 2025).

England v New Zealand at the Oval in 1999 – a match report

If anything ever befalls the King Cricket site, you can read that report here.

My only quibble with Daisy’s piece is her opening line – “I had never been to a professional cricket match before” – as I considered the world cup match, Zimbabwe v Australia, at Lord’s, a professional match:

Zimbabwe v Australia At Lord’s, World Cup Match, 9 June 1999

No doubt Daisy will try to blame me for feeding her a duff line, but I don’t suppose anyone who knows about anything will expect me to take that sort of blow on the chin.

Just in case anyone out there wants to know what actually happened cricket-wise in the England v New Zealand test at Lord’s, click here to read all about it.

My First Taste Of The Great Cricket Tradition That Is The Heavy Rollers, England v New Zealand Test Day One, Edgbaston, 1 July 1999

A Facsimile of David Steed’s 1999 spread, actually Jeff Tye’s 2003 spread, Photo by Charles Bartlett

I have written up the tale of the “aha” moment, in July 1998 (click here or below), when I learnt about The Heavy Rollers and they twigged that I shared their devotion to cricket.

The Day The Heavy Rollers Entered My Consciousness & Indeed When My Devotion To Cricket Entered Theirs, 23 July 1998

How or why they reached their decision to invite me to join them in 1999 is shrouded in mystery and secrecy, other than to say that I was working very closely with Charles, Nigel and Jeff at that time; I suspect cricket came into the casual conversation quite a few times.

My diary suggests that I originally planned to make it a day trip on that Thursday but reworked my plans into a three day visit to the West Midlands, the first two of which revolved around several meetings organised by Charles and (separately) Jeff and Nigel at The Children’s Society’s West Midlands Conference Centre, Wadderton.

Wadderton, The Spiritual Home Of the Heavy Rollers

Wadderton – Photo by Charles Bartlett

In the early years of The Heavy Rollers (and, heck, 1999 was only the second year of this great tradition) the overnight meal and chat at Wadderton before the match was a quintessential element of the experience. So was the enjoyment of a David Steed picnic at the cricket (see example in headline photo), lovingly prepared by David (who ran Wadderton) and schlepped by him and several others of us to Edgbaston.

Those who rolled in 1999 (and the nicknames I gave them all some years later) were the following:

  • Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett;
  • Nigel “Father Barry” Hinks;
  • “Big Papa Zambezi” Jeff Tye;
  • David “David Peel” Steed;
  • Nick “The Boy Malloy” Bartlett (like me, a 1999 initiate);
  • Me “Ged Ladd”.

Only one 1998 character was dropped from the original 1998 five; Paul “Fifth Beatle” Griffiths. The who, what and why of Paul’s “dismissal” should be told by someone far better able to explain than me (Nigel). One of the reasons, as I understand it, was Paul’s inability to engage realistically with the prediction betting game.

The Prediction Betting Game

Ah, the prediction game! One of the several traditions that appears to have emerged almost fully formed in the earliest incarnation of the Heavy Rollers. Jeff was the curator of that game originally, handing out sheets asking attendees to predict, at the start of the day, an array of different scores and match factors achieved at various intervals in the day. 50p per line, placing a theoretical five to seven pounds at risk, although most people would end up merely a pound or two up or down. It’s not about the money, it’s about the bragging rights. Actually, come to think of it, it’s not even about that. It’s traditional, so of course we do it each year.

Within two or three years, I had taken up the prediction game mantle from Jeff, as my mental arithmetic and precision in applying rules was deemed, by the majority, to be superior to that of Jeff; not the highest benchmark I have ever exceeded, but there we go. I think I might even have carried forward Jeff’s traditional mis-spelling of the word Edgbaston as Edgebaston the first time I did the sheets. Below is the earliest version that survives in electronic form – 2004 -but this e-template was created in 2002.

The Steed Picnic Followed By (As Night Follows Day) The Steed Snooze

The headline picture (one of Charles’s many superb efforts) depicts an example of a David Steed-style picnic (actually Jeff Tye brought this picnic, in 2003 as it happens), set out atop the fence at the front of the Priory Stand. In those days, the Priory Stand’s front row extended pretty much to the boundary, making those seats an excellent front row view and an opportunity to chat with unsuspecting fielders who might be standing very close indeed to us, guarding that part of the boundary.

The coloured clothing is kids playing Kwik Cricket during lunch

Beady-eyed observers and cricket historians will observe, to the right of the picture, a plastic cup filled with lightly coloured liquid that resembles, in look, white wine. It is white wine. David always ensured that there was plentiful wine for the picnic. In those early years, I think it was still permissible to bring alcohol into the ground. Latterly, when such permission was revoked, various “drinks muling” operations were devised. David’s best was un-shelling wine boxes and disguising quite large quantities of wine as picnic coolers at the bottom of his hamper.

Most would take some wine with the lunch. Some would also be partaking of beer; some would stick with beer, some would only drink wine.

Most of us, if we are being honest, would be a little hazy on the details of the sessions of play after lunch. But David could be relied upon to go a step or two further, having an extended snooze – sometimes dropping off even before the resumption of play after lunch. It was part of the Heavy Rollers tradition. It would have been rude of David not to snooze. It would have been even more rude of us not to observe the snooze and incorporate the only uncertain aspect of it (the exact timing) into the prediction game.

That Particular 1999 Heavy Rollers Event

I especially remember socialising at Wadderton on the evening before the event. It was possibly the first time that I had spent significant social time with Nigel and Jeff. I had got to know Charles a year or so earlier and therefore better – not only through work events at Wadderton that had required overnight stays and evening time together, but also through the early Z/Yen & Children’s Society sporty socials, including cricket, tennis & even ten-pin bowling (Ogblogs to follow).

One aspect of the night before which sticks in my mind is seeing a “big match build up” piece on the TV – I think it might have been on the local West Midlands news – but this was excitingly unusual for me as I had no TV in those days. I would sometimes see TV at Janie’s place but I don’t think I’d previously experienced that feeling of watching a news/magazine item on the TV and thinking “I’ll be there witnessing that tomorrow”.

I remember little, in truth, about the day itself, other than the impressionistic view that I had a superb time and very much hoped that the experience would be repeated…

…although I’m not sure that I would have imagined in my wildest dreams that the tradition would be sustained into a third decade.

I used to buy a programme in those days (I gave up on that some years ago as I tended barely to look at them after I while – I still have my 1999 one.

I do remember wanting and advocating for bowling changes far too frequently. Every time I said “I think they should have replaced so-and-so” – more than once Andy Caddick -that bowler would go on to take a wicket…or two.

I also recall wondering out loud whether Nasser Hussein was desperate bringing Mark Butcher on to bowl before lunch, only for Butch, naturally, to take a wicket. Jeff Tye in particular found my low-grade captaincy ideas hilarious.

Here’s a link to the cricinfo scorecard.

Below is a highlights reel for the series.

One tradition that was not formed from the outset, but which flowed from/after the 1999 gathering, was the idea that one day of Heavy Rolling at the test was insufficient for our cricketing appetites and that we should aim for two henceforward.

I suspect that most of the others stayed at Wadderton after that 1999 day at the test and I’m not too sure how I got my luggage and myself back to London. I suspect that David Steed had arranged a mini-bus of some sort to take the group back to Wadderton and arranged for my luggage to be brought on it. I vaguely remember being dropped at Five Ways and wending my way back to Birmingham New Street and then home from there.

When I say “home”, I was staying at Janie’s that summer while “The City Quarters” were being refurbished. That explains why I recall watching highlights on the TV at the end of that day – another rare treat for me at that time.

The Aftermath

I wrote to most of the Rollers at 9:00 the next morning:

To: HINKS NIGEL; BARTLETT CHARLES; TYE JEFF
Subject: 1 July 1999

also to David by post

Just a quick note to thank you all for the good company yesterday and especially to thank Nigel for organising it and David for making the splendid spread. It was a super day out.

Sun is shining today – easier wocket – here’s to 350+ for England. (Hope springs……..)

See you all soon.

Ian

Charles wrote the following response to all the e-mailees at lunchtime:

Having just heard that England are 45 for 6 I think 350 is a trifle optimistic!..

Charles

In a vain attempt to extricate myself with my dignity intact, I wrote the following missive at 7:30 a.m. on the Monday:

Gentlemen

Like I said – 350+ 1st innings (226 NZ + 126 Eng = 352 – which is more than 350) – there’s creative accounting for you. Anyway, England won and the naysayers were confounded.

Ian

Nigel responded pithily:

(Never)Trust an accountant!

The Heavy Rollers tradition of post-match e-mail bants was now well and truly formed. Although, given my dire prediction skills in 1999, the biggest surprise is that the elders of The Heavy Rollers didn’t give me “the Fifth Beatle treatment”, but instead, thank goodness, invited me back again…and again…and again…

The Day Charley The Gent And I Witnessed The Tied World Cup Cricket Semi Final At Edgbaston…On A Screen In Barcelona, 17 June 1999

Image “Diving For A Tie” produced in collaboration with Dall-E

The headline is a little deceptive, because Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett and I were not in Barcelona the City, but we were, along with a great many Z/Yen people and one or two other Children’s Society people, in Barcelona, the tapas and wine bar in The City.

Twenty years later, at the time of writing, Barcelona is still there – click the image for a link.

I had spent the whole day in the City. My diary says we had a PAYE inspection that day. I think it might have been that magnificent day that the inspector challenged us for claiming that we had an expenses procedure dispensation (which of course we did have) as he could find no record of us ever having been issued with such a dispensation. Linda Cook went to the archive files and dug out our dispensation letter which happened to have been issued by “Phil”, the very tax inspector who was before us that day. He almost apologised, claiming that files had been lost in an office move. He didn’t stay long after that.

But of course you don’t win tax inspections; the best you can hope for is an honourable draw or a tie.

Which brings me to the World Cup Semi Final.

But before that I need to explain why Charley The Gent was at our offices that day. You see, Teresa Bestard, who was one of Z/Yen’s first employees and who had done a great deal of work for The Children’s Society under Charley’s auspices, was leaving Z/Yen that day.

Teresa was (is) a Catalan with roots in Barcelona and Majorca. She chose the Barcelona tapas and wine bar as a suitable venue for her leaving do.

I arranged to meet Charley and Tony to go through some business stuff at Z/Yen around 16:00, so they could conveniently join the leaving do afterwards.

Nobody had been thinking about cricket at this juncture. Not even Teresa, who was good pals with Bob Willis, following a different wine bar incident (with me and others) in a different part of London – see relevant Ogblog piece by clicking here or below:

An Evening With Teresa Bestard, Bob Willis & Others, Albertine Wine Bar, 19 August 1997

On arrival, Chas did ask me if I was aware of the Australia v South Africa semi-final score. I wasn’t. He told me. I said it sounded close, but edging towards South Africa. Chas said he fancied Australia for the match. He wanted to bet. I said I don’t like to bet. He suggested a one pound stake. I accepted, with the proviso that if the match was a tie, both pounds would go to The Children’s Society.

Chas doing his Children’s Society cricket captain bit, back in 1998

We were not expecting to follow the latter stages of the World Cup Semi-Final, but Barcelona had other ideas. They were pumping the match out on big screens throughout the bar.

Great…

…said the cricket tragics, e.g. me and Charley. Teresa did not seem well pleased. She was already vocally irritated with us for a supposed slight; we had invited Mary O’Callaghan along to the event. Teresa saw this as Z/Yen inviting Teresa’s replacement to Teresa’s own leaving do. Actually we had hired Mary before we even knew that Teresa was leaving and had asked Mary along to several events to meet the team before she joined; this was the one she could make.

Some neutrals, such as Jacqueline Goldberg, Michael Mainelli and Linda Cook, used the language of indifference towards the cricket, but in truth couldn’t help but become more and more interested in the final overs of the match, as it became clear that the result was on a knife edge and the match was a real thriller.

Here is a link to the scorecard and Cricinfo resources.

I hope The Children’s Society made good use of the £2 it scored from that bet. The charity benefited from our subsequent charity matches to a much greater extent than this wager.

Below is a video of the highlights/denouement of that match:

Teresa’s leaving do went on for hours after the cricket finished and everyone relaxed into the wine and tapas. It was a very good leaving do for a very special member of the team.

But I’m afraid the cricket tragics amongst us will remember the evening primarily for that astonishing tied World Cup Semi Final, as we lived every moment on those big screens in Barcelona.