Another Works Outing To Lord’s Within A Few Days, Middlesex v Surrey, 16 June 2008

Another day, another works outing to Lord’s.

Hot on the heels of our visit the previous Thursday to see Middlesex beat Essex – click here, another group to see the Middlesex v Surrey game. Clearly there was that much demand for these tickets that Jez Horne and I organised two goes. Such hardship.

Meanwhile, Middlesex had won it’s third game on the trot the previous day, doing the double against Essex that season. Click here for the scorecard. And/or, if you are collecting MTWD match reports from that tournament, here is an away match special by Auntie Janet, a stalwart Middlesex supporter of epic proportions – click here.

But I digress.

Our visit to the Lord’s match against Surrey had been fraught with ticket difficulty. I had no problem getting a ticket to Alan Cooke and arranging to give him an informal pavilion tour before the match, but one other guest, Sean from the Salvation Army, was left potentially ticket-less when his ticket got held up in the post. The kind folk at Lord’s took our word for it and issued us with a replacement Members and Friends ticket for him – problem solved.

I can’t remember who else joined us that day, but I think it was mostly Z/Yen staff for the Surrey match and we did our normal thing of bringing our own drinks and a bit of collective picnic but basically everyone chipping in for an informal sharing evening.

We don’t seem to have any pictures from that evening. Oh well. Jez might remember better.

It was hard to believe it, but Middlesex beat Surrey well that evening to make it four out of four. It was a good game too. Middlesex always seemed on top but it was not a foregone conclusion until right at the end. Here’s the scorecard – click here.

The MTWD report is a classic by Southgate Emerald – linking to his own Irish roots, those of Ed Joyce and the fact that 16 June is Bloomsday, named after that great Joycean character Leopold Bloom. Click here.

 

 

England v New Zealand at Lord’s, 15 and 17 May 2008

With grateful thanks to Alan Cooke for this photo.

I think this test match might well have been my first sighting of live cricket that season, given the scheduling at Lord’s and the timing of our trip to France in late April.

My companions for the Thursday were Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett, Heinrich “The Gangmaster” Groenewald and Alan Cooke, the latter more famous on Ogblog for tales of derring do with me at fives than for cricket – click here for a link to such a tale.

The weather was less than special for that match. I recall having been disappointed to get some rather ordinary-sounding seats (Grandstand I think) in the county members’ ballot, only eventually to be pleased for the cover given the weather.

We got best part of two sessions of cricket on the Thursday, which was better than we had expected given the forecast on the day itself. We witnessed Brendon McCullum batting better than anyone else and Jimmy Anderson bowling better than anyone else.

I didn’t write up that day, but King Cricket (which I had just started to read occasionally at that time) did write up McCullum’s doings – click here.

I made up one of my bagel-based picnics for that Thursday – I know that because Cookie mentioned them in his thank you note:

In particular, I enjoyed the bagels (a decision at last) and the Lords ambience. Hope you get a decent amount of play with your second Lords sitting.

By second sitting, Alan meant that he knew that Janie (Daisy) and I were due to go on the Saturday. Unfortunately, Saturday it pretty much rained all day. I don’t think we even left the flat, secure in the knowledge that any break in the rain would be very temporary, so I’m pretty sure Daisy and I witnessed the half hour or so of play that day on the TV, ate the picnic food in the comfort of the apartment and found other ways to amuse ourselves. One of those rare occasions I got my money back for a day of cricket that didn’t happen.

It seems that Chas was luckier and got to see play on the Sunday. He sent me this photo to prove that he had been there:

Vaughan caressing the ball to the boundary, taken by Charles Bartlett

The match scorecard can be found here – unsurprisingly a draw given all the weather. Which is a shame, as it looked as though it would have been a good match had there been enough cricket possible.

King Cricket’s other pieces during the match were:

Seems strange now to think there was a time when I was only skimming King Cricket and very occasionally chiming in with a comment.

Singer by Peter Flannery, The Pit, 9 June 1990

I saw this one with Bobbie and I recall we both found it very powerful, although a bit long for its relatively slight story.

What fine acting. Antony Sher & Malcolm Storrey in particular, but a fine supporting cast and Terry Hands directing.

The Theatricalia entry for this one can be found here.

Nicholas de Jongh gave it a good but not ecstatic review in The Guardian:

de Jongh on Singerde Jongh on Singer Sat, Mar 31, 1990 – 21 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

An Uneventful Day Playing Fives, 9 June 1975

Phil Bishop & Dave Fox playing Rugby Fives, RFA Website, GPL

Without doubt my favourite game in the early days at Alleyn’s was fives. Specifically at Alleyn’s we played Rugby Fives.

It was the only sport at which I was good enough to represent the school and no doubt that selection only came through my comparative ability with the left-hand as well as the right. Let’s not call this ambidextrous, in my case more like ambiclumsy. In any case, my doubles partner was Alan Cooke and he was good. I probably got my team berth more on the back of Alan’s skills than my own.

Still, I wasn’t bad and there are lots of references to my successes and failures throughout my diaries, especially 1974 & the first half of 1975.

But looking back today, early February 2016, I thought I should write a short piece about this simple entry I found for 9 June 1975.

Uneventful day.  Beat Eltham 11-5, 11-5 in Q-Finals.

Now in my book, John Eltham was good at sport. Really good at sport. I’m not sure John played fives much, but he was generally good at sport.

I was not good at sport. Really, really, really not good at sport. There was the occasional success, of course, not least one goalkeeping tale of derring-do that I have promised not to blog about…

…for the time being…

…until I can find the reference and/or unless the promised hush money proves not to be forthcoming…

…but my point is, looking back, I don’t see how the two sentences in the above quote could possibly be talking about the same day. Beating John Eltham at any sport made it an eventful day. Heck, just having got to the Q-Finals of any sport made it an eventful day for me.

But perhaps my young mind, turned by some fleeting success, was by then looking beyond a semi-final appearance to greater glory than that achieved.

The diary is silent on fives for the rest of the term apart from a fleeting mention of my semi-final loss a week-or-so later, with no mention of the score or the opponent – click here or below – clearly I couldn’t even bear to write down that particular losing result.

A Truly Thrice Awful Day In My School/Sporting Life, 18 June 1975

Anyone care/dare to own up to ruining this poor kid’s day by destroying his one chance at glory in the internal fives competition? I fancy a rematch.

Postscript One

John Eltham, on seeing this posting, e-mailed me the next day to say:

You modestly left out the fact that we had at least two national Rugby Fives champions in our year ! Hodson & Stendall.

Indeed we did, John. And indeed Jumbo Jennings latterly. I’d forgotten about Neil Hodson in that context.

I have a strange feeling that it might well have been Hodson who beat me in the semis – I have always had a sense of unfinished business with him and I probably would have been too gutted to report the loss. Whereas Chris Stendall was, like Alan Cooke, an old mate from primary school; I took my (more often than not) losses against them on the chin and regularly recorded those in the diary.

Postscript Two

After writing the above line “I fancy a rematch” and posting this piece, I then knelt down to put the 1975 diary back in the box under the bed and then…felt my left hammy twinge when I got up again. Perhaps a fives rematch at the age of 53 is not such a good idea after all.

Postscript Three

For reasons of his own, Rohan Candappa presented me with a trophy commemorating this historic fives victory, in December 2018, described here:

From left to right: John Eltham (just in picture), Rohan Candappa, Paul Driscoll & Ollie Goodwin

Three Weeks Of Easter Holiday During My Second Year At Alleyn’s School, Including Football, Violence On The Terraces, Tennis, Snooker & Even The “B” Word, April 1975

The Thinker, 1975

I didn’t much use the B word (“boring”) in my teenage diaries, but that word does crop up more than once during the first three weeks of April 1975, deployed recklessly, as I shall point out later in this piece.

Tuesday, 1 April 1975 played on my own. TV Flintstones, Edward VII. Made model plane.

Wednesday 2 April 1975 – went to Andrew’s [Levinson] in afternoon. Played snooker etc. TV 20th Century Fox Presents, Fight Against Slavery.

Thursday, 3 April 1975 – played tennis and football in morning with Andy [Levinson] and Stuart [Harris]. TV man about the house, are you being served, Dave Allen.

Friday 4 April 1975 – played with Andy in afternoon. In morning got record missing from library [?].

Saturday 5 April 1975 – went to Spurs in afternoon. TV Pot Black, Canon.

I cannot fathom what I am trying to tell my diary about the record library. I do recall borrowing a lot of records from the library over the years, probably starting around then.

I can convincingly report through the power of memory that Stanley Benjamin took me to see that match. My memory (as enhanced by Google) can also report that a star-studded Spurs beat Luton Town 2-1 that day.

Picture from e-Bay listing – click here.

Sunday, 6 April 1975 – classes morning. Kalooki in afternoon and evening. All square!? Times seven.

Monday, 7 April 1975 – played with Andy. TV Likely Lads, Alias Smith and Jones, Goodies, Horizon.

Tuesday, 8 April 1975 – went shopping. Classes, grammar, whole book!! TV High Society, Edward The Seventh.

Wednesday, 9 April 1975 – Paul Deacon came over for day. Nice time.

Thursday, 10 April 1975 – classes! Andrew in the afternoon. TV Man About The House, Are You Being Served?

Friday, 11 April 1975 – another boring day! Tennis Stuart Harris. TV Caribe, The Good Life, Within These Walls, ? by 10!

I can only apologise to my friends whose names are juxtaposed with the word boring. I am quite sure I meant to say, “boring day apart from…” rather than suggest that my activities with friends were boring.

Saturday, 12 April 1975 – went to Chelsea V Man City. Lost 0–1. Good match though.

That match will have been with Andy Levinson and his dad Norman. Asa Hartford scored the solitary goal. Here’s a link to a report with pictures.

Sunday, 13 April 1975 – Kalooki 4p. Classes pretty boring as usual. Benjahair turned up! Mini squidge joined.

I cannot work out exactly where those nicknames came from, or even in the case of the first one whose nickname it was. Benjahair might have been Alison Benjamin‘s nickname at that time. Mini Squidge was Graham Laikin, younger brother of “Squidge” who was Richard Laikin. I’m sure these lovely people will be thrilled to have their teenage nicknames dug out of the archives for posterity. This is what happens when information treasure troves are opened under the fifty year rule. 🤪

Monday 14 April 1975 morning uneventful. Afternoon Andrew and Henry. TV Likely Lads, Alias Smith & Jones, Goodies – goody goody yum yum!

Tuesday, 15 April 1975 – Andrew afternoon snooker 7-6 to me after 5-1 to him. Molivers [Josh & Sadie] came in evening. Nice day!

Wednesday, 16 April 1975 – hospital mum in within three weeks. Taken by Marjorie and Wendy [Levinson]. Brixton haircut. TV Survivors, Fight Against Slavery.

Coincidentally, a few days after writing this piece, I spotted “Auntie Marjorie’s car” in Waitrose, Ealing. The proud owner, who had recently acquired the car, was delighted that I wanted to photograph it:

I cannot recall who Henry was. If it was someone from Alleyn’s School, Henry is a nickname which has slipped my memory. Apologies. Perhaps a friend of Andy’s from his previous school, Dulwich Prep. Sadie Moliver was mum’s cousin, although a generation older than mum in fact. Sadie was one of the few people on the planet who terrified my mum. It might have been on this occasion that I helped make the tea and mum demanded in a trembling voice that I ensure that Sadie’s cuppa was strong or else she would denounce it…

“this tea tastes like piss”.

Sadie when much younger. Thanks to Sidney Pizan for the picture.

Thursday 17 April 1975. I’ve – went to Alan’s [Cooke] for day. Lovely time. Went to classes. TV Love Thy Neighbour, Are You Being Served.

Friday, 18 April 1975 – had diarrhoea! Went shopping. In afternoon saw film on TV: The Village, Husband of the Year, The Good Life.

I’m sure that many of my readers are appreciating this level of detail in my juvenile diary, especially the many readers who like to use Ogblog as mealtime reading. [Please insert your own joke along the lines of “verbal diarrhoea diary” here]

Saturday, 19 April 1975 went to see Chelsea V Spurs. Fighting on terraces. Lost 0-2. Boo. TV Pot Black final, G[raham] Miles won. Canon.

Regarding THAT football match, I remember the occasion quite clearly. Again I was with Stanley Benjamin & some other members of the Benjamin family in their season ticket seats. The scrappiness of the football can be seen in this “classic match” video:

The match, the violence and the long tail of resentment between the two sides is captured in this article – click here -one of many I could have chosen.

I didn’t feel any sense of danger, as my hosts knew (or at least held themselves out to be knowing) how and when to leave the ground to avoid trouble.

My parents, however, were unnerved by the fact that I was on my way home from a football match while they were seeing scenes of violence from the ground on the news.

It might have been that occasion, more than anything else, that made my parents a little more reluctant to let me go off to football matches, while being quite relaxed about me toddling off to see county cricket at The Oval.

Friends who have shown concern about my football allegiances at that time (Perry Harley – you might be one of many) will spot the clarity of my express emotions in the April 1975 diary – my heart at that time was with Chelsea. Whereas I can now honestly say that my heart is not with (or against) any football team.

For those who find snooker more to their taste than football, I have found that Pot Black final on YouTube too:

You might sense that I was becoming a little skittish for the last two days of that school holiday. Dig the final two holiday entries:

Sunday, 20 April 1975 – found snail (Sydney). Kalooki, won 22p. Nice day in all!

Monday, 21 April 1975 – went to Tooting. Played around. TV Likely Lads, Alias Smith and Jones, Goodies – a goody goody yum Yum.

What I did in Tooting and with whom I played around on that last day of the holidays is lost in the mists of time. Andy Levinson and/or Stuart Harris most likely.

The ultra violence of those London derby football matches was clearly starting to have an effect on us youngsters! 🤪

A Highly Representative Fortnight For Alleyn’s School While In My Second Year, Early March 1975

Trevor Tindale – an excellent judge of character

Quite early in this fortnight, my mother emerged from hospital following her pre-op (plate removal I think) ahead of her hip replacement, grumping at home on crutches during that period. This element gets little mention in my diary after her escape.

Grumpy? Me?

Sunday 2 March 1975 – classes good. Visited mum today [in Kings College Hospital] great improvement – TV Cat Ballou.

Monday 3 March 1975 – mum came out of hospital. Adam’s ribs. TV Smith and Jones, Goodies.

Tuesday 4 March 1975 – classes very good. Kentucky chicken. TV The Great Match.

Wednesday, 5 March 1975 – hockey good. Worked on practical. TV Pioneers of Photography, Worldwide, Rhoda, The Evacuees.

Thursday, 6 March 1975 – classes good. TV The Roman Way, Dave Allen, Controversy.

Friday, 7 March 1975 – uneventful school. Went to Doreen and co [Benjamin family] for dinner. TV Porridge, MASH.

Saturday, 8 March 1975 uneventful. TV Doctor Who, Walt Disney, Pot Black, film: Elephant Walk.

Sunday, 9 March 1975 – classes/parents. Went to Pam and Michael’s fish!?!?!? TV Ice Skating, The Great War, The Golden Shot.

Pam & Michael (my aunt and uncle) a few month’s later

Mum was still temporarily unable to cook and dad was not the cooking type – hence the myriad of take-aways and kind invitations by neighbours and family. I remember that there was something memorable about Auntie Pam’s fish dish that Sunday. Dad’s verdict went beyond colourful punctuation.

Monday 10 March 1975 – fives good. TV Likely Lads, Alias Smith and Jones, Goodies (goody goody yum yum).

Tuesday 11 March 1975 fives match v Rutlish, Loftus etc. Tea nice. TV McMillan and wife.

Wednesday, 12 March 1975 yet more fives v Henry Thornton. Cookie and me, 89–64 and all – 13 points Tea nice. TV Rhoda/Mary Tyler Moore.

Thursday 13 March 1975 Psalm 150 practice good. TV Man About The House, Taste For Adventure, Dave Allen At Large.

Friday, 14 March 1975 form dito from PE. TV Porridge v good.

Saturday 15 March 1975 exeat, shule, Gabriel’s bar [bar mitzvah?]. TV Doctor Who, Walt Disney, Pop Black.

A lot of fives there, at the start of the week, including two representative matches; the first against Rutlish School, the second against Henry Thornton. I am pretty sure that these matches were both played at home. Hence, the consistent verdict of “tea nice” is surely a big thumbs-up for the Alleyn’s dinner ladies.

I’m sure there are many readers who would like more detail on the contents of that tea. Sadly, my diary is silent on those details. Alan “Cookie” Cooke might remember the vital tea details. I’ll hazard a guess that white bread with butter and jelly-type jam utterly devoid of solid fruit content would have qualified as “nice” in my book, especially if some sort of spongy cake was also involved. Tea would have been served in the buttery, I’m pretty sure.

I remember taking great pride in representing the school at fives and I also remember getting few chances as a junior to do so. I was a bit surprised to see that we played two representative matches in as many days.

I’m not sure what “Loftus” means in the context of the Rutish game, but I suspect we nicknamed one of the Rutish players for his height and I suspect that he and his mates got the better of us, especially as I document in great detail our superior points tally against Henry Thornton.

Cookie – please chime in if you remember anything about these matches. I do recall thinking that we paired well in doubles, both in internal matches and these representative ones.

Trevor Tindale oversaw proceedings and wrote a small paragraph about lower school fives in Scribblerus that year.

I’ll leave it to you, dear reader, to decide whether Trevor was a fine judge of character with regard to my sporting maturity.

In truth my memory of these 50 years ago events is weak. I don’t remember who Gabriel was, on that Saturday; apologies to him.

But I must warn everyone that I not only remember a fair bit about the Psalm 150 “performance”, but the diary, Scribblerus and even my archive of reel-to-reel tapes preserves plenty of…arguably too much…information. To be reported in more detail next time.

After Alleyn’s Advent Term: Comic Capers, Jolly Japes, Marathon Mania, Tempos & Timpos, 15 to 21 December 1974

Although sparse and almost illegible, the notes in my diary from that week bring back a flood of memories.

Here is the page for that week in its glorious technicolour sparseness and illegibility:

I was going through a “coloured tempo pen” phase at that time. I think the Saturday entry was written in invisible ink, which I then remedied with the “antidote” stuff that makes invisible ink visible. That is not conventional diarist method, I now realise, but that idea must have made sense to me at the time…probably because I had bought invisible ink from the joke shop that week.

Let me start deciphering diary entries:

Sunday, 15 December 1974 – Hanukkah party at classes. Dined at Feld’s. [Visited] Jacksons to teach backgammon. TV Planet of the Apes v good

Monday, 16 December 1974 – Played at Andrew’s all day. TV Likely Lads, Waltons and Carry On Christmas very good indeed.

Aficionados of Motown music will be disappointed to learn that I did not visit nor teach backgammon to The Jackson Five.

Just to be clear, I did not teach any of these people backgammon. Not Jackie, not Tito, not Jermaine, not Marlon and not Michael.

The Jacksons, in this instance, were Doreen Benjamin’s parents. Doreen’s mum, Jessie Jackson…yes, I know…was a very close friend of Grandma Jenny and Doreen was a very close friend of mum’s.

For the avoidance of doubt, I neither visited nor taught backgammon to the Reverend Jesse Jackson either

Tuesday, 17 December 1974 – Andrew and I went to “Bossils”? and Hamleys. Classes v good. Mum and dad went to [Angela and John’s] wedding. Fooled all with joke shop hot sweets.

With Hanukkah well before Christmas that year, I suspect that I had already received some seasonal gift money, as had Andy Levinson no doubt, so we were both in a position to treat ourselves on a big day out during the school holidays.

We probably knew where to go (e.g. Hamleys) because of a tradition we were lucky enough to be conjoined in when we were a bit smaller. Mrs Garrett, grandmother of our friend from the street, Bernard Garrett (no, not the Bernard Garrett depicted in the film The Banker), took us up to Hamleys with Bernard a couple of times in the early 1970s as a Christmas treat.

I’m not sure where the joke shop was – I recall visiting Davenports near The British Museum with Andy, but that must have been a different trip I think. I think the source of our joke shop sweets, stinkeroos and invisible ink was a joke shop at the Carnaby end of Soho.

“Fooled all with joke shop sweets” makes me think of the comics we used to read when we were little. I was allowed one a week; my comic of choice was Whizzer and Chips.

I’m sure the conceit that two comics had merged into one made me think I was getting as BOGOF by choosing Whizzer and Chips. Someone else in the street (possibly Andy Levinson) or maybe at Primary School (Alan Cooke?) was more the Beano type, so I would sometimes swap and get to see more than one comic in a week.

I think I had outgrown such comics by the age of 12, but I had clearly not completely outgrown the language I learnt from them. Yaroo!

Wednesday, 18 December 1974 – Dentist in the morning first thing. Essential filling. Andrew in afternoon. “Enhanced”? stinkeroo from the joke shop worked. Went to Fairfield Hall with Paul Deacon – very nice time there.

Mum and dad’s evening at Angela and John’s wedding feast had not been a total success, as I recall. Dad had rather overindulged and mum felt he had embarrassed her. This combination of mum berating and dad hungover was quite clear to me that next morning. Meanwhile I was suffering from my own collywobbles ahead of that trip to the dentist for an “essential filling”.

I have had very few fillings in my lifetime – this might have been my first one or possibly the second.

Our dentist was Harry Wachtel, a gentleman of n Austrian origin, who had been a refugee from the Nazis. He spoke with a thick Germanic accent and did not suffer fools gladly.

I didn’t think that Mr Wachtel had CCTV cameras in his surgery. Yet, a couple of years later, John Schlesinger recreated, in Marathon Man, the scene of that filling, with such exceptional accuracy…I’m now thinking that Harry Wachtel must have filmed that filling event and sent the rushes to John Schlesinger. There is no other possible explanation for the following movie scene:

I cannot remember what Paul Deacon and I went to see at The Fairfield Hall on 18 December 1974. Do you remember, Paul? In any case, many thanks to you, Paul, (or should I say, thanks to your folks) for treating me along with you. My diary suggests that we had a great time.

Thursday, 19 December 1974 – morning Andrews. Lunch at Andrews. Afternoon at home with Andrew -> Classes – TV Mastermind and Xmas Oneupmanship v good.

Friday, 20 December 1974 – Alan [Cooke] here all day – very nice indeed. TV Goodies and the Beanstalk very good. G Anne’s v good got lots of presents.

Saturday, 21 December 1974 – Made a start on model Auntie Pam gave me. TV “something clover v good”?

I’m going to guess that Cookie and I spent a fair part of that day playing the bespoke game we invented with my Hot Wheels car track and a rather motley collection of Timpo Wild West buildings, which we would half-heartedly construct at the end of the Hot Wheels run and then demolish with the Hot Wheels cars.

Maybe you had to be there…or maybe you had to be 10-12 to appreciate this activity, but Alan and I would spend hours at this activity. Hey, Alan – look at those e-bay links – it wouldn’t cost THAT much to recreate the scene. I’m sure Janie would understand and I’m sure we could make space here for yet more clutter.

Sadly, my terrible handwriting, together with the effluxion of time makes the TV element of my log illegible. Happily, BBC Genome comes to the rescue, enabling me to confirm that I rated Doctor In Clover “v good”.

A Marathon Day Of Court Sport; Fives At Alleyn’s School And Fridge Ball At Woodfield Avenue, 4 December 1974

diary-december-1974-smaller

What a sporty day Wednesday 4 December 1974 must have been for me. Just in case you cannot read what the day’s entry says:

11th in chemistry.

Fives lost 15-3 to Wrightson & Weber, beat Mason & Candappa 15-7 and beat Pavasi & I Goodwin 15-3, 15-0.

Fridge ball 533.

Some of this perhaps needs explaining. “11th in chemistry” is and perhaps will remain a bit of a mystery. 11th in the year would be quite good; whereas 11th in the class more predictably mediocre in that subject. It’s not well explained in the diary; much like my answers in the chemistry test, no doubt.

No, it is the fives and the fridge ball that caught my eye for further exposition.

Four Sets Of Fives 

I have already written up a bit about fives – in a piece about a so-called uneventful day the following June – click here. But if you cannot be bothered to click, you should simply be aware that, at Alleyn’s, we played Rugby Fives and you should also be aware that Alan Cooke became my regular doubles partner, so I’m sure those doubles matches were teamed with him.

Looks as though Cookie and I warmed up as the afternoon went on; perhaps this was a breakthrough afternoon for our nascent doubles pairing. Earlier references to fives in my diary seem to be singles games.

Apologies to David Pavesi – firstly for the surprising mis-spelling of his name, as we knew each other well from primary school as well as at Alleyn’s. But also apologies to him and Ian “Milk” Goodwin for the drubbing. Why we played a second set against those two after a convincing first set I really cannot imagine. Perhaps they requested another chance. Perhaps we four wanted to play some more and everyone else had disappeared.

Fridge Ball

I suppose I do need to explain the magnificent and extraordinary sport of fridge ball, just in case the reader is unfamiliar with the game.

I realise at the time of writing (2016) that fridge ball has rather a lot in common with my current passion, the ancient game of real tennis – click here for one of my pieces and links on that game. 

In short, fridge ball is to table tennis what real tennis is to modern (lawn) tennis, but instead of a medieval courtyard, which is the theatre of play for real tennis, the theatre of play for fridge ball is a modern kitchen. Fridge ball is played with a ping-pong bat and a ping-pong ball.

Sadly, there are no photographs of the 3 Woodfield Avenue, London, SW16 fridge ball court as it looked in 1974, but there is a photograph of the court from 2012, when the house was being refurbished in preparation for letting – see below.

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In front of the visible wall (to the left of the picture) stood a large 1960’s-style fridge-freezer; the surface against which the ball has to be hit. The floor surface back then was linoleum of a rather insipid hue. In the photograph you can actually see a layer of blue glue awaiting some fancy modern flooring substance, the suitability of which for fridge ball was not even tested.

The game, simply, is to hit the ball against the fridge door as many times as possible, ideally getting some interesting bouncy business off the floor and/or the jauntily angled pantry door (shown open in the photo but naturally closed for play) and/or the panel doors below the sink,and/or divider doors (just out of shot at the bottom of the photo, which at the time had helpfully unobtrusive recess slots rather than potentially rally-ruining handles).

If the ball is accidentally hit to the left of the fridge (to the kitchen entrance), the ball is out and the rally is over. If the ball is hit to the the right of the fridge (an entrance that leads to a little laundry area and side door to the house), the ball is out and the rally is over. If the ball is hit above the fridge, gawd help you because the ball will probably get stuck behind the fridge and is the devil’s own job to retrieve. Needless to say the rally is over but also, almost certainly, your enjoyment for the evening, as mum and dad take matters into their own hands to terminate the game at that juncture.

If you hit the ball hard enough for it to get some action off the back surface or the cooker, the ball is still in play but that is a dangerous tactic given the strange bounces you might get back there. Aficionados of real tennis might enjoy the idea of hitting the grill/grille – a winning shot in realers but merely part of the ongoing fun/difficulty in fridgers.

Where you can see drawers at the back of the court/right hand side of the photograph, in my day there was a recess under a surface there and a stool kept in that space.  If the ball went into that recess it was out and the rally was over, making the back of the court even more treacherous than it would be today.

A second bounce does not necessarily terminate the point, although most second bounce situations tend to lead to the ball not bouncing at all and ending up dead, which thus ends the rally.

It really is a magnificent game, full of skill and playable as an addictive solo game, not entirely unlike the pinball addiction that subsequently grabbed me for some time. Indeed given the size of our family kitchen, it worked best as a solo game.

But here’s the thing.

Fridge ball 533.

Just think about that for a moment. A 533 stroke rally. That is a remarkable score.

I think there was also a playing condition that allowed for externalities (such as mum wanting to do the washing up or dad wanting a cup of tea), such that the player could catch the ball in the non-bat hand (not scoring a stroke for the catch, btw) and then continue the rally once the interruption was over. Frankly, I can’t imagine having had the run of the kitchen for long enough to score 533 without such a playing condition. Not on a midweek evening after playing four sets of fives at school.

What a marathon sporting day.

Does anyone reading this piece remember playing fridge ball with me or similar games in their own (or other people’s) homes? I’d love to hear all about it if you did.

Back When I Didn’t Know My Asif From My Sarfraz, Cricket On Tooting Bec Common, Summer 1974

Although I started keeping a diary at the beginning of 1974, after just four months of that daily routine I then took a sabbatical for nearly seven months. I must have been exhausted from all that scribbling.

So May to November 1974 is a bit of an unrecorded blur, which is a shame.

But my memory tells me that much of that blur revolved around cricket. Further, my chance encounter with a charming chap named Michael at Lord’s on the second day of the Pakistan Test in May 2018…

Three Days On The Trot At Lord’s For England v Pakistan, 24 to 26 May 2018

…triggered a flurry of memories.

Michael, like me, had grown up around Tooting Bec Common. Lord’s might be our field of dreams now, but back then, the only cricket pitch we were likely in any way to experience live once school was out for the summer, could be found on that common:

Open-air exercise class, Tooting Bec Common - geograph.org.uk - 1316311
Tooting Bec Common – our field of dreams back then

1974 was the second summer of my proper cricket awareness – avidly following the major games on the TV and/or radio, wanting to catch a bit of the Sunday League match on telly if I could…

…but probably was the first summer that I and my entourage summoned the courage and sufficient equipment to venture onto the common to play.

If some of the bigger, older teenagers wanted the pitch, at that age it meant game over for us little-uns. I recall us challenging this pecking order once and returning home with bruises for our trouble. So our lot was sometimes reduced to trying to play on a relatively flat, well-shaved but ordinary patch of grass on the playground side of the common.

Tooting Bec Common (1) - geograph.org.uk - 285916
Just beyond the right hand side of this photo. I fancy a bowl on that.

I don’t suppose the pitch (or lack thereof) made much difference to our games back then, when we were 11 on 12. We weren’t yet physically equipped to use the full length of a pitch properly, nor were we playing with a proper cricket ball. I seem to recall using a rubber ball – heavier than a lawn tennis ball but nowhere near the weight and hardness of a cricket ball…mercifully.

I have a very clear memory of trying to emulate the players who had captured our imagination that summer; the players of England and Pakistan in 1974. The commentators had made much of Sarfraz Nawaz and the prodigious swing he was able to achieve with his bowling. We wanted to do that. Here’s a clip of one of his finest hours, the following year, against the West Indies:

My strongest memory, though, does not involve using any technique that the cricket coaches might deem helpful in making the ball swing…or for that matter in bowling with any form of accuracy or purpose.

No.

My strongest memory involves doing a little sideways jig at the start of the run up and then lolloping towards the crease to bowl. False memory had combined this unusual approach with Sarfraz Nawaz. His was a most memorable name; by the early 1980s expert marketeers were naming pop groups in similar rhyming style because such couplets are so memorable.

But I digress.

My research for this piece reveals that it was another Pakistan bowler whose run up had us “class of 1974” kids jigging hither and yon before bowling: Asif Masood. Here’s a clip of him bowling that year (at 2’56” and possibly other places) – dig the jig:

I would like to analyse Asif Masood’s run up a bit more. Wikipedia describes it thus:

a backward step before a loping approach to the wicket which John Arlott likened to “Groucho Marx chasing a pretty waitress”.

Whereas his Cricinfo entry describes it differently:

a bizarre start to his run-up in which he turned sideways to the wickets and leaned backwards before starting his approach.

You can judge for yourselves, dear readers, by watching the above clip. I am reminded of a Lancashire expression, which Asif Masood himself would no doubt understand now, as he married and settled in Bury after his cricket career:

‘Ere’s mi yed, mi arse is cummin.

The premature arrival of my upper torso and limbs does nothing but harm to my performance at ball sports – I’m pretty sure that the same applied to my friends on the common – but that didn’t stop us from becoming convinced that the secret of success was to emulate that run up. I’m here to tell you that we were mistaken.

Of course we didn’t want to BE these Pakistan stars; we wanted to BE the England stars. Geoff Arnold, for example, with his furtive look of teeth-gritted concentration as he ran up – we emulated that too. I cannot find a clip of Geoff Arnold bowling, but he is still hanging around at Surrey, would you believe, so you can find recent interviews and all sorts by clicking here.

Chris Old was my England bowling hero at that time. Not least because he was part of the Yorkshire team that I met five years earlier

A Short Holiday In Brighton, During Which I Met Geoffrey Boycott & The Yorkshire Cricket Team, 3 September 1969

Chris Old’s days of glory against Pakistan came four years later – this was the only fairly relevant clip of him bowling I could find – don’t blink or you’ll miss it:

https://youtu.be/j9KgmiGBWA8

Quite lollopy too, Chris Old’s run up. Not as lollopy as Asif’s, obviously, but enough lollop to enable the 11 year old impersonator to switch from being Asif to Old by the simple expedient of eliminating the sideways jig.

So who were the heroes of that summer of 1974? I’m not talking about the actual test match and ODI heroes – you can look them up through the above links for pity’s sake – no, I mean the Tooting Bec Common heroes. The 11/12 year olds who were performing far more exciting feats of glory. No “three test matches – all drawn” for us.

I’m struggling to remember, so will simply brain dump what little remains in my brain in the hope that it triggers some memories in others. Apologies to those forgotten or misrepresented through inclusion.

Andrew (now Andy) Levinson lived in our street and was a perennial companion in those games. Stuart Harris (no relation; one of the “Naff Harris’s” from the posh end of the road) would sometimes join us, for sure, although my diary has more to say about Stuart in the context of tennis than cricket:

I recall getting into a scrape with David Pavesi, Andy and others, when some bigger boys thought we were on their patch, but I think that might have been Clapham Common nearer to the Pavesi house, as I recall Mrs Pavesi nursing our bruises and egos after the incident. I don’t recall David venturing to join us at Tooting Bec but he might have done.

Alan Cooke would often come around to my place and I suspect that some of those games involved him.

Other Alleyn’s folk, such as Paul Deacon and Jonathan Barnett, were certainly cricket lovers with whom I watched and talked cricket, but I don’t recall playing cricket with them in the holidays. I also remember talking cricket a lot with Richard Hollingshead that summer term (another story for another day), but I don’t recall playing with him.

Lloyd Green might have joined us occasionally, as might Stuart and Jeremy Starkin, Richard and Graham Laikin…although I remember those lads for football on the common, not cricket.

I don’t ever remember playing cricket with girls, not since Mandy Goldberg got hit accidentally by Richard Dennis in the primary school playground the previous year, which led to cricket being banned at Rosemead for the rest of the school year.  Click here to see the scene of the crime – that former Rosemead site now n. Family Club Balham.

What better way to get a kid like me enthused about a sport than to give it a sense of danger and prohibition. Thank you, Miss Plumridge.

To summarise, in the summer of 1974 we wanted to play cricket and we wanted to look the part. Roll the clock forward several decades and I think the following photo proves that I did indeed acquire a fair chunk of that “look the part” skill, without acquiring much, if anything, else that could be described as skill.

With thanks to Charles Bartlett for this deceptive picture of me circa 2004

But a love for a game like cricket is also a gift. I might not have been born with talent, nor could I acquire very much skill through graft or imitation, but the love of the game is certainly also a gift. And part of that love for cricket was formed as a kid, playing those silly games, emulating our heroes, on Tooting Bec Common.

Two Weeks Of Easter Holidays In My First Year At Alleyn’s, Mid April 1974

Escaping from the Colditz prisoner of war camp…but only for fun

Tennis continued to loom large in my Easter holidays story, although it is clear from my diary entries that others were losing interest, making the visits to the tennis club rarer:

OK, OK, I’ll translate it. Just hold on a tick.

Sunday, 7 April 1974 – Yomtov [Pesach, aka Passover], so no [Hebrew] classes. Not a good day.

Monday, 8 April 1974 – Bought paints. Painted soldiers. Another bad day!!!!

Tuesday, 9 April 1974 – The Black Arrow [1973] cartoon in morn. Afternoon tennis coaching. No classes, so later tennis.

Wednesday, 10 April 1974 – A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court cartoon. Tennis very good Gary and Mark were there only -people are losing interest.

Thursday, 11 April 1974 – very uneventful.

Friday, 12 April 1974 – Good Friday – Dad home. Good fun. Dad had fun too! Shopped for suits.

Saturday, 13 April 1974 – took a rest. Uneventful day.

I managed to find the Connecticut Yankee film on YouTube, but not The Black Arrow one from the 1970s:

I’m trying to work out who Gary and Mark (the last lads standing with me playing tennis) might have been. I’ll guess that Gary was Gary Sugarman who lived in our road. Gary did have a brother whose name escapes me – possibly Mark. I don’t remember a Mark in our street or entourage from thereabouts.

Stuart Harris (my partner in crime from the glory of the tennis tournament the week before) might remember.

I love my note for Good Friday that I had fun and that dad had fun too. There is something rather charming about that, though I say so myself.

Let’s move on to the next week:

Sunday, 14 April 1974 – No classes. G[randma] Anne afternoon. Pesach over – bread delicious.

Monday, 16 April 1974 – Easter Monday. Morning dull. Afternoon British Museum. Elgin Marbles – sound guided.

“Hey you – frieze!”

Tuesday, 16 April 1974 – tennis morning. Afternoon uneventful.

Wednesday 17th April 1974 – nothing much at all. World At War good.

Thursday, 18 April 1974 – G[randma] Jenny afternoon. Nothing else.

Friday, 19 April 1974 – tennis morn. Afternoon barber. Timeslip, I Dream of Jeannie, good.

Saturday 20 April 1974 – Alan [Cooke] for day, Sinbad, played Colditz, Andrew [Levinson] too, v good day.

My guess is that the Sinbad we saw must have been this one – click here.

https://youtu.be/B6F3VpHXfic

I certainly didn’t own the Colditz game, so that must have entered our house with Alan or Andrew. Either of you care to own up to owning it? Escape From Colditz was its full name – click here to read all about it. I vaguely remember the game.

“V good day” is a rave review. Thanks, fellas!

Postscript: Cookie Confesses

A message from Alan Cooke which I think unequivocally solves the “source of Escape From Colditz” query:

The Cooke household certainly owned ‘Escape from Colditz’. It was an unusual board game as it required one player to be the German Security Officer who essentially had to thwart all the others.

The rules were a bit vague in some areas allowing vibrant ‘discussion’ in family play ?

Alan Cooke, 22 April 2024