Why did one of the greatest cricketers of all time, AB de Villiers, pop along to Deptford Park, more or less hot off the plane from South Africa, to help the London Cricket Trust (LCT) put cricket back into London’s parks?
Because AB de Villers is a very decent chap, that’s why.
The LCT is a joint venture between the four counties with a London presence: Essex, Kent, Middlesex & Surrey. I am the Middlesex Trustee.
Exile. Banishment. There are no polite words for it. We cannot play at Lord’s for several weeks because the ground is hosting four days of world cup matches during that time. This expatriation applies to real tennis players and cricketers alike.
And we love Lord’s. We’d like to sing the praises of the place, but…
…how can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?
On the bright side, of course, we have other places to go and in truth they are not such strange lands. For realists, there is The Queen’s Club and Middlesex University. For Middlesex cricketers, there is Radlett and Merchant Taylor’s School (MTS), amongst other places.
…Janie (aka Daisy) and I had hoped to arrange a similar day at MTS. But Fran and Simon had other commitments on the Sunday, while Janie couldn’t free up enough time on the Tuesday.
Luckily, I was able to get enough work done on the Monday to free up the Tuesday for cricket.
So I arranged a game of real tennis at Middlesex University in the morning, with a view to getting from The Burroughs to MTS soon after 11:00. Here is a very short clip depicting real tennis at Middlesex University – actually taken by Janie on the Radlett day:
I liaised with Fran and Simon, working out that I was due to arrive a few minutes ahead of them, so I wandered around and grabbed some excellent seats alongside the Middlesex diehards, such as Barmy Kev, Andy Biggs, Keith Roberts, along with several others.
By the time I arrived, Middlesex had already lost a couple more wickets and the position looked very precarious indeed. By the time Fran and Simon arrived, the position was looking even more precarious.
This picture, taken by Janie, from Radlett a few weeks earlier
In that early part of the day, we all three thought we might well be about to witness a Middlesex loss and that we might not be around for too long. Nevertheless, Fran and I had both learnt our lesson ar Radlett and resolved to stroll around at regular intervals.
We set off for our first stroll around 12:30 and took a good 30 minutes to complete the circuit.
One of the wonderful things about outground cricket at Middlesex is that the players and club officials really do wander around and mingle with the spectators, giving the matches a festival feel.
We soon encountered Dawid Malan and James Keatley, gaining some interesting insight into Dawid’s perception of how many runs Middlesex might need to have a chance to defend a total (a lead of 160 to 180 he said).
A little further on, Steve Finn similarly suggested that a lead of 170 would be enough, although Sam Robson alongside him was more nuanced with his answer…
…as long as Gloucestershire don’t manage a big partnership or two.
But at that stage, thoughts of such a lead were still hope not expectation, with Middlesex 7-down, and the lead crawling up to, then just past, 100. By the end of our stroll and lunch the lead had crept up to around 140.
Fran and Simon were surprised at how cosy and friendly the atmosphere is, perhaps attributing it to my involvement with Middlesex. While that is the case to some extent, I have found the outground atmosphere relentlessly friendly since long before I was involved with the club.
Putting ancient tales of Greek tragedy to one side, the mood at lunch amongst the Middlesex supporters was a real mixture of sanguine and resigned. As the afternoon went on, the clouds and the mood lifted to increasing brightness. With increased hope, of course, came some nerves.
Then when Middlesex were all out and had some 11 overs to bowl before tea, discussion of how many wickets we might “need” before tea to establish a foothold and to have a chance of completing the match that day. Two or three was the wisdom of the crowd. It looked as though we’d have to make do with two until the last ball before tea, which made three.
Tim Murtagh bowled beautifully that day and in so doing overtook Wayne Daniel’s record tally of wickets for Middlesex, which was a pretty impressive statistic to hear announced on the tannoy.
Richard Goatley and Angus Fraser held an impromptu members’ forum in the beer tent, at which they were apparently being bombarded with difficult questions about Middlesex’s tough start to the season. It was meant to be a tea interval thing but went on some time after that, during which time Middlesex continued to take wickets.
As one wag put it, there were some grumpy members in the beer tent complaining about Middlesex’s poor performance, while the team was turning around and looking like winning a tough match.
Richard Goatley is one of the world’s worst watchers of a cricket match when he has emotional skin in the game, so there was no consoling him with talk of 40/6…40/7 probably meaning that Middlesex was heading for a win.
In fact, Gloucestershire, in an echo of Middlesex’s innings, put on a bit of a rearguard at 7-down, so much so that the Middlesex regulars encouraged me and Fran to go for another long walk, as our previous walk had been so successful from a Middlesex point of view.
Don’t come back until Middlesex have taken another wicket…or two…
…was the message from the welcoming regulars.
A mini exile. But in any case, we were ready for another stroll and sure enough, we’d only got about 100 yards into our circuit when another wicket and then another fell.
When we got to the pavilion, at 9-down, I saw Angus sitting with his serious game face on.
Surely you can break a smile now, Gus?…
…I asked…
…not yet…
…snarled Gus, who then broke into that rare, full Gus smile.
Fran and I got back to our seats with the Gloucestershire final wicket pair holding on for grim death, but in truth the only remaining issue was whether they could survive the extra half hour or not.
Not. A splendid Middlesex win by the end of the day, having turned around a seemingly losing position an hour into Day Three.
I normally write more about the conversations than the cricket, but the cricket and ground vibe was so special this day. In any case Fran asked to redact several of the conversations. The non-redacted topics of conversation included:
Roy Hudd
Rod Hull
Barry Wood
Benny Howell
Benny Hill
Merchant Taylors’ School
cashew nuts
New Zealand v India at Old Trafford
rain in Manchester
the possible death of the adverb.
It really had been a very exciting and enjoyable day amongst friends. What with the real tennis at Middlesex University and the Middlesex cricket win at MTS, I had conducted myself very Middlesexly indeed, I feel.
I wanted to see a world cup match from the wonderful vantage point of the Lord’s pavilion. I figured that this particular match would be a decent opportunity so to do and I was right; I scored a pavilion ticket on application.
Of course, the only thing about international matches and the pavilion is that only members are allowed. Strictly no guests. That’s why most of us choose not to go to the pavilion on a major match day even when we can – because we normally choose to go with partners, friends etc.
By coincidence, I had a conversation about this matter on the Tuesday, with John Thirlwell, with whom I play real tennis, normally at Lord’s but on this occasion, while we are in exile for the world cup, at Queen’s.
John Thirlwell to the left of me, this picture from a battle at Queen’s in 2018
John had similarly, uncharacteristically, bagged a pavilion place for the Pakistan v Bangladesh game. We hatched a plan to watch the match together.
This proved to be a great plan from my point of view, as John:
was getting to the ground really early for a breakfast, so could bag some especially good middle balcony seats for us both;
John kindly sent me a message describing the location of the seats and the precise look of the bagsying materials. I got to said seats about 25 minutes before the start of play – John got back from his breakfast about 5 minutes after I arrived.
I got this stunning picture of the anthems and the ground from our splendid seats
I very much enjoyed watching cricket with John, who is knowledgeable about the game and/but wears his cricket knowledge lightly. We also chatted a bit with the gentleman next to us, who is a member who now lives in New Zealand but is, coincidentally, like us, a real tennis tragic. Not much chance of feeding his real tennis addiction in Wellington. He was a little peeved that he couldn’t feed that addiction at Lord’s on this visit – he usually does when he comes over for cricket.
Despite the cushions, I have learnt my lesson and made sure to take several walks rather than sit through the whole match. In any case, those walks were a real treat because there was such a festival atmosphere around the ground. Noisy, but in a very good-spirited way, with the Pakistan and Bangladesh fans competing to make celebratory noise.
In particular, on my walk during the innings break, the heave of people taking advantage of the many Asian food stands in the food village and picnicing on the lawns was a wonderful mixture of sights, sounds and smells. I could only try to capture some of the sights:
During the Bangladesh innings, John came for one of the ground circuits with me, which I think he also enjoyed. On our way out of the pavilion, we spied a sample of a new-style pavilion bench made of a padded material that ought to reduce or even eliminate the worst excesses of rump ire.
Change…don’t want it…
…said John. I chimed in…
what’ll we do for aggravation if we have comfortable seats? The grumpy MCC member will lose his entire raison d’être on a comfy chair.
They’ll need to do a heck of a lot of persuading to get that idea through the members at a general meeting.
I’m pleased to report that the ICC seemed to have ironed out some of the worst excesses for this match, although I still found many of the marketing messages inappropriate and unhelpful within the ground, however much it might make sense for those advertisers to have their colours shown on the TV screens around the world. But at least we could see the score on the scoreboards most of the time during this match.
I was also really impressed by the MCC’s decision to allow 250 schoolkids to witness this match from the pavilion, as it had been under-subscribed. This was a wonderful opportunity for those schools and seemed to motivate MCC staff and members – at least certainly those I spoke to about it.
It wasn’t the best or most exciting match I have ever seen, but it was a great advert for the game and for the ability of a place like Lord’s to stage a glorious day out for all manner of people who don’t normally get a chance to enjoy the Lord’s experience. I thought it was a great success and was so glad to have been there on this day.
Thanks once again, John, for your company, the choice of seats and the pain-diminishing cushions.
**SPOILER ALERT** This piece does not end well if you are an England cricket fan.
The day seemed to start well enough. OK, our cab seemed to take an age to get to us, but basically we got through security at Lord’s and to our seats with a good 10 minutes to spare – enough time to “enjoy” the reverence of the national anthems and stuff.
Aussie anthem first; then the UK one. I’m no fan of either tune, frankly……but I can look suitably reverent.
Daisy was trigger happy at first with her iPhone camera…
Ball caught in mid air roughly half way down the track
…but soon tired of doing that.
Daisy had many bugbears about today, most of which I shared. The first was the high volume music whenever a boundary was scored. Irritating not least because the Aussies were batting and scoring boundaries.
But her main bugbear was the fact that the scoreboards were showing advertising messages for the vast majority of the time; just occasionally showing the score and/or a replay. Indeed, sometimes even the replays were cut off at the vital moment to return to some banal advertising message.
Some beer I have never heard of – on principle I now won’t try it
That beer ad was one of the less banal messages – some were simply the names of firms we had never heard of; we couldn’t even work out what they might do for a living.
Then even louder noise for drinks intervals, injury breaks and/or when a wicket fell. The cricket bat-shaped electric guitar is amusing at first but after a while the riffs are simply ear-drum piercing.
Worse, the cameras zooming around the crowd as a proxy for yet more advertising – such as the cab-firm turned food delivery company giving away a hamper of food to someone in the crowd who waves appropriately.
Worst of all, the utterly vapid on-ground commentators-come-crowd-chatters trying to describe the match position and/or ask people in the crowd what they think.
Daisy described the inane chatter as unbelievably amateurish and intrusive to the cricket. The nadir was a vacuous conversation about a crowd-member’s loud shirt which had to be cut off in mid stream because the bowler was about to deliver the ball.
We walked several circuits on which, as usual, we ran into a great many people we know. That’s what happens when doing the circuit at Lord’s.
I saw several of my real tennis pals and one or two other folk I know from outside cricket/Lord’s.
Madz Prangley (well known in various guises to several cricket web sites, someone who is oft-seen at Lord’s) told me off for ignoring her Facebook friend request some time ago. That might have had something to do with the fact that I didn’t, until today, know her real name. The matter has already been corrected.
Daisy took a shine to the look of the Harris Garden set up for corporate hospitality:
The stewards politely explained that it was for invited guests only.
Daisy tried to explain that we ARE Mr & Mrs Harris, so the place, basically, is our garden.
We got no closer than this.
We had a splendid lunch anyway, despite being turned down ever so gently by the Harris Garden steward. Daisy had made some smoked salmon and prawn sandwiches (that’s hedging your bets, isn’t it?) as the centrepiece. We also had a nice drop of Gewurtztraminer to wash that down.
I did one circuit on my own, during which I ran into Alan Curtis who said he was desperately looking for someone…but apparently not for me. That’s OK, Alan. Really, that’s OK. I hope you found someone.
But by the time I was circuiting solo and running into Alan, it was clear that England were coming second in this match.
Charley The Gent sent me an e-mail message to inform me that Essex had beaten Somerset. I hesitate to use the term bragging, as Chas would not approve of that term, but the e-mail read…
Great win for Essex over current leaders – Somerset!
…before setting out the summary final score of the match. As it happens, the gentleman sitting next to us in the Mound Stand was an Essex fan who was delighted with the news, despite England’s travails. He and I then discussed Essex, outground cricket and matters of that kind for a while.
Chas then said he had turned off the TV as he couldn’t bear to look any more. Daisy told me to instruct Charley not to be a wuss and to keep the faith. Chas promised to try.
But in the end – once England were 8 down – even Daisy and I couldn’t keep the faith, so we nipped out through the East Gate and ordered our cab before the throng might make such cab-ordering an impossibility.
Our driver, Alex, turned out to be a local lad full of good recommendations for restaurants around Ealing, which helped lift our rather diminished spirits.
My riffs are well subtle compared with those of the cricket bat guitarist, eh?
Daisy is now done with World Cup live action and says she is delighted to be following the rest of the World Cup from the comfort and relative peace of her own home. I understand her point. The “thumping bollocks” atmosphere of a T20 match can be a bit much for three-to-fours hours of a T20. For the eight-plus hours of an ODI it is insanely too much.
Me? I’ll be doing it all again at Lord’s in 10 days time when Pakistan take on Bangladesh. And unless England pull up their socks big time, that match might be the one that decides who takes that final semi-final spot and eliminates England.
Daisy and I thought we’d take in a bit of out-ground cricket and/but the dates haven’t been working out great for the two of us.
But this particular Monday did work well for us and also suited Fran & Simon. The only issue, as I saw it, was the unseasonably wet weather we were experiencing.
True, the forecast suggested that our day was set fair, but then the forecast had looked fair for the two preceding days and had brought plenty more rain.
Anyway, we took stock on the very morning and all agreed that set fair it was. So we agreed to meet up roughly at the end of the lunch interval.
Daisy and I had a “game of lawners” first thing; quite a rigorous workout ahead of my game of “realers” scheduled at Middlesex University later.
Daisy and I got to Radlett just as the umpire’s called lunch. This enabled us to snap up some good front row seats during the lunch interval – perhaps abandoned after the first session or perhaps not yet used that day.
Soon after we grabbed those seats we saw Posh Margaret and chatted with her for a while. She’s very pessimistic about Middlesex’s position this season – I’m still reserving judgement on the whole season as I feel there is still time for Middlesex to improve and get promoted.
The weather really was smiling on us – as evidenced by this picture of Daisy.
…so it was easy to give Fran and Simon directions to the seats.
Before Fran and Simon arrived, I led Janie to believe that she was going to see the England One-Day Captain, Eoin Morgan, playing in this match. This seemed extraordinary, as Eoin was also scheduled to appear for England in the world cup fixture the next day, in what turned out to be a record-breaking innings of his.
Here we all are.
Soon after Fran and Simon arrived, I made the same announcement with regard to Mr Morgan. Fran seemed surprised/pleased but Simon was onto it straight away; “Oh yes”, said Simon, “a Welsh chap named Owen Morgan plays for Glamorgan“.
We then went in search of Morgan on the field, discovered that he was number 29 and then tried to get a suitable photo of him.
Janie thought she had succeeded in getting an action shot of him, but then numbers is not what Janie does best:
Nick Selman is neither Eoin Morgan nor is he Owen Morgan
In the end, after several rather poor attempts, I finally snapped this:
Incontrovertible evidence that we saw Morgan play that day
Daisy is convinced that Owen Morgan has the body language and rear-view appearance of Eoin Morgan.
So much were we enjoying ourselves that I clean forgot to get up and walk around at all – which is a bit of a mistake when a three hour session is the order of the day.
So when we parted company just before five, Fran suggested, gently, that I was not moving quite as a tennis player should. That accurate observation might explain my tennis results for the next few days, until I got to see Michael Durtnall (the chiropractor).
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 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.
I first came across Janet Davis on the Middlesex Till We Die (MTWD) website around 2004, when I started reading and then contributing to the site.
In those days I would sometimes comment on a group of people I would describe as “The Allen Stand Gossips” – a devoted collection of Middlesex CCC fans who mostly sat in that stand and nearly always had some gossip to impart about the players and/or the club. I soon learnt who Janet Davis was amongst that loosely-associated group.
As I became more heavily involved in the MTWD site, I ascertained that Janet was one of the first Middlesex fans to use MTWD regularly. I also learnt that Janet’s relationship with the site administrators – back then David Slater, Jez Horne and Barmy Kev – was less than harmonious at times. I soon came to understand why.
Janet’s devotion to the club could sometimes bubble over into seemingly one-sided comments. For example, Middlesex would “recruit” players from other counties, while other counties would “poach” our players. Janet was keen to find out the gossip and would quiz players and their loved ones quite relentlessly. Then sometimes she would state on the MTWD board that she knew something about a player but “couldn’t say” what it was. Sometimes she would report a false rumour – no doubt in good faith – but the result might be problematic for the site administrators and the site.
When I became an MTWD administrator and took on most of the editorial side, at the start of the 2006 season, I suggested that we widen the base of people to provide editorial material. I suggested Janet as one of the people who could and should contribute that way. Thus Janet became a major contributor of match reports for a few years.
In fact, my research has uncovered that Janet had previously contributed a piece of winter editorial – in the winter of 2002/2003 – very early in the days of the MTWD site. Before my time. Here is a link to that piece. It is very insightful for this tribute article, as it has Janet saying, in her own words, how her lifetime of Middlesex fandom started and progressed. Here is the intro to that piece, which was published in early April 2003:
I have been a cricket fan since my school days (I will not tell you when as that will give my age away). In 1975 whilst watching cricket on tv, Middlesex got to two one day finals and lost. One of the commentators said what a good side they were and that they would challenge for a trophy in 1976. 1976 turned out to be the year of the drought, with no rain during the major part of the cricket season. I work as a Pharmacist, so I worked as a locum, taking time off every so often to go to various matches.
That was the year that I kept a scrap book, which has been given to Vinny [Codrington – former Chief Executive] for Middlesex archives.
I remember hot sunny days at Lords and making a new set of friends. I went to many of the away matches, some by train, some by car and some by coach. I will try and say a bit on the matches that I remember…
In the period that Janet regularly reported matches for MTWD, between 2006 and 2009, she provided a great many match reports and photographs. As the MTWD team had advised me, Janet wasn’t the easiest contributor on our books.
During the season, Janet would write to me and send me stuff most days – sometimes several times a day. Janet had latched on to me for this element of her life, although she didn’t know my true identity until 2008. My e-mail trawl for this tribute piece needed to be seen to be believed – I had forgotten how frequent the correspondence had been. Janet took lots of photos, but always landscape, even if taking a portrait.
Here is an example Janet sent me in July 2006, together with the full text of the accompanying e-mail, all of which might make Middlesex’s current captain (Dawid Malan, for ’tis he), blush:
” This is our new signing if anyone is interested. He’d compete with Nick Compton in the ‘pretty boy’ stakes “
Yes, Janet certainly had her favourites. Chad Keegan, I recall in particular. She also had a soft spot for Chris Wright – I remember Janet was devastated when Chris left Middlesex (or should I say, in Janet style, “was poached by Essex”?).
Janet’s match reports were often brimming with details about her life…details of her journey, her lousy neighbours, every aspect of the lunch she had brought with her, the posse of Allen Stand gossips who attended that day. Astonishingly, MTWD match report readers learnt more about Janet’s pussy (indeed several cats over the years) than the UK public ever learnt about Mrs Slocombe’s pussy, Tiddles, in Are You being Served.
Soon after Janet started reporting matches, I coined the byline “Auntie Janet” for her, rather than Janet Davis, although some pieces continued to go up under the more conventional byline. I thought “Auntie Janet” was appropriate for her and it seemed to stick.
One particular report of Auntie Janet’s from 2009, linked below, made me feel especially sad when skimming for this tribute piece. It is quintessentially Auntie Janet, with much talk about her knitting circle. In cricketing terms, it is primarily about a Phil Hughes performance for Middlesex in early 2009. The thought that both of those protagonists, Janet and Phil, are sadly/tragically no longer with us, brought quite a lump to my throat – click here for that 2009 piece…
Sadly, Janet became beset with health problems from 2010 onwards, so her visits to Lord’s became a rarity and her reporting ceased. I had in any case retired from all formats of MTWD by that time.
I am told that Janet continued to follow Middlesex avidly despite her ill health, so she must have been thrilled when we won the County Championship in such exciting circumstances in 2016. Goodness knows what Janet’s medical team must have needed to do at the climax of that epic season!
I have no photographs of Janet as an adult; she photographed players but didn’t send in pictures with her own image. Except for one winter, when we ran a baby photo competition. For some reason, Janet sent me two pictures; one of her as a baby (as requested) and the other from 1953 when she was nine years old. I have used the latter as the main photo for this feature. It’s all I have but also I think it is appropriate. Janet retained her childlike qualities throughout her life. Her manner could be frustrating for others at times, but Janet’s simple, unworldly demeanour was genuine and her devotion to Middlesex County Cricket Club unconditional.
Janet was one of the most dedicated fans of Middlesex County Cricket Club for many decades. She was, in every way, Middlesex Till She Died. Janet Davis 1944 to 2019; rest in peace.
