Tag: Australia

The Heavy Rollers, Together With “Daisy The Light Roller”, Venture To Durham For An Ashes Test, 8 to 12 August 2013

Chas & Nigel, snapped brilliantly by Daisy

The Journey & The Night Before The Match; 8 August 2013

This adventure was very nearly stillborn for me and Janie, as she was very poorly in the couple of days leading up to our trip up to Durham for the fourth Ashes test of 2013. Indeed, Janie, who is normally very averse to taking antibiotics, had almost bullied her doctor into prescribing same, as her throat was so sore from whatever summer bug/flu she had caught.

Janie said she felt a bit better on the morning we were setting off; I agreed to do most if not all of the driving as long as we had breaks. Soon after we started our drive north, Janie started coughing like (in retrospect, writing this in 2022) a Covid-19 victim. I suggested that we turn around, but Janie insisted that we persevere.

I recall that I had bought/brought some Prefab Sprout and Kane Gang music to get us into the County Durham spirit and that we were listening to The King Of Rock ‘N’ Roll at that juncture.

But I digress.

It was a relatively small and diffuse gathering of Heavy Rollers that year. Nigel “Father Barry” Hinks had Viv (“Mrs Father Barry”) with him but she was seeing friends and didn’t want to join us for any cricket. They had arranged to stay in a “bijou but entirely satisfactory, and generously-equipped, terraced-cottage on Gilesgate”, in Durham, which is just a few miles away from Chester-le-Street.

Not wishing to be outdone by “bijou” in Durham, I had found a well-reviewed “boutique-style” place at a similar distance to the ground, in Seaham, The Seaton Lane Inn. In the end there were just the three of us staying there, me, Daisy and Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett; Dot (Mrs Malloy) originally planned to join us, but withdrew a few weeks before the event.

Chas was very kind and concerned about Daisy the night we arrived. She didn’t want to eat dinner – we had brought a few “easy to swallow snacks” with us. But in the end she did come down and join us for a while. Chas and I enjoyed a good meal at that place – Chas especially being taken with the Villa Wolf Riesling I well remember.

Chas took a picture of me and Daisy in the restaurant – I must say she looks healthier than me – but perhaps I had slightly overindulged in the Villa Wolf by then…or perhaps this picture was taken a little later in the trip, when Daisy was feeling much better.

Three Days Of Cricket At Chester-le-Street, 9 to 11 August 2013

The cricket was excellent throughout the match, as of course was the company. Chas had secured us front row seats in a temporary stand, which turned out to be a good location with an excellent view.

We felt safe/”protected”, for much of the match, by a fairly sizeable group of “Knights Templar”, who got louder and more tipsy as each day went on. It’s just as well they were never called upon to defend our lives towards the end of the day.

Daisy was still not feeling very well on the first morning, but I persuaded her to join us on the basis that we could always get her cabbed home within 15-20 minutes if she felt she needed to lie down. Access to and from that Chester-le-Street ground is excellent, despite it being a little out of town.

Fortunately the fresh air, good weather and good cricket started to make Daisy feel better pretty quickly.

One of the evenings (I think possibly the evening after the second day’s play) all five of us (including Viv) dined, I think it was at Oldfields in Durham – pretty good but now gone.

I wrote up Day Three for the King Cricket website at the time:

England v Australia, fourth Test match report from Chester-le-Street

If anything ever goes awry with the King Cricket website, click here for a scrape of that piece. The tale of Nigel’s interaction with Jonathan Agnew for a personally-signed book and Chas’s attempt to obtain similar for no good reason is worth the price of admission alone. (There is no price of admission, btw). To quote Nigel reflecting, nearly 10 years later, on his visit to that shop with Chas…

Most [memorable]: “Boycott bingo “ and protestations to some innocent shop staff, possibly seeking a little supplementation to mounting student loans? I am certain I heard one say something along the lines of “that induction morning had precious little about this sort of thing, did it?” The other one appeared to slowly mouth “stick-of-rhubarb?” as she sought the exit.

While on the topic of King Cricket, you can hear King Cricket and Dan Liebke review the whole test match (indeed the entire series if you wish) on The Ridiculous Ashes Podcast – click here.

We had such a good time

You can also see the scorecard and read all about it on Cricinfo if the match interests you enough – click here.

Day Four – The Journey Home And Witnessing The Denouement On The TV

A small tinge of regret that we hadn’t booked to see four days, but still Janie and I enjoyed the last day as “driving home entertainment” on the radio and we were fortunate enough to get home in time to see the ending on the telly.

I wrote the following in an e-mail to the lads to summarise that day and the experience:

Janie really enjoyed the experience, despite her bad luck getting poorly a few days before the off. She is feeling so much better now.

What a win. We listened to the thrilling morning session and much of the frustrating afternoon session on the road.

Hippity points out that England didn’t get a wicket until he and Monkey-Face had been placed in front of the TV again, along with Hippity’s lucky ball.

Broad’s bowling once he got his hackles up again was extraordinary, especially as he did the damage with the old ball. And Bresnan’s ball to nip out Warner was possibly his finest yet.

2014 we host Sri Lanka and India. Too soon to start thinking seriously about it, I know!!

Thanks to you especially, Charles, for organising those amazing seats.

As the Kane Gang put it – “…this could be the closest thing to heaven…”

England v Australia Day Two, Lord’s, 19 July 2013

Photo from September 2016, when the despised Lower Compton was empty

Almost everything that needed to be said about this wonderful day was included in my King Cricket match report at the time:

England v Australia at Lord’s, day two match report

(If anything should ever go awry with the above links, click here instead).

Except, of course, that King Cricket match reports cannot talk about the cricket itself.

Whereas King Cricket himself is allowed to waffle on, with his mates, for hours, in excruciating detail about the ridiculous aspect of cricket matches – and three cheers for that ability, because The Ridiculous Ashes is a fun listen.

Here is a link to The Ridiculous Ashes podcast for this match.

The following link is to the recent King Cricket posting about this match which includes some text and vids about the most ridiculous bits:

Shane Watson’s legendary front pad, the worst piece of cricket in Test history + more

If that is too much clicking for you but you are desperate for some vids, here is Geoff Lemon’s seminal vlog rant about Shane Watson from the Lord’s East Gate (now renamed the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Gate. One of the things I love about it is the passers by noticing and/or feigning not to notice this ranting Aussie holding forth. I recognise several of the faces as Lord’s regulars:

Or, if seeing Chris Rogers’s freak dismissal is more your bag, the following vid will feed your desirous eyeballs:

I remember being especially taken with THAT ball from Graeme Swann, not least because I did once take a hat trick with balls that were not too dissimilar to that one…except that at least two of mine were definitely hitting the stumps:

The Day I Took A Hat Trick At Cricket, Alleyn’s School, 9 July 1975

If you actually want to know about the actual score in the match (by which I mean Lord’s Ashes Test 2013, not Alleyn’s 9 July 1975) and the sort of details that official professional sites publish about matches of this kind, then click here.

The thing that stands out the most about all this for me, in reflective Ogblog mode, is the enormity of the picnic that I took for just me and Daisy (Janie) for one day at Lord’s. I’m sure King Cricket won’t mind me scraping my own words:

Naturally, I had prepared the picnic. We made early headway into assorted delights of my picnic bag – some mini croissants from the artisanal bakery that kindly opened a couple of years ago no more than 50 yards from my front door. Then on to the smoked trout bagels I had lovingly made, with my own special recipe horseradish butter and lemon. The fishy delight needed white wine; I brought a very interesting little Austrian Riesling. Some readers might already know that Ged and Daisy abstain from all forms of Australian wine for the duration of Ashes series. I thought the choice of Austrian was a little edgy, but safe enough.

After the smoked trout, smoked eel bagels – embellished in similar fashion to the trout. Daisy found the eel a little rich for her taste. Bags of pork scratchings and some portions of soft fruit kept the afternoon interesting enough in the food department…

…home made shortbread (not home made by me, you understand)…

…later, the ham sandwiches on tomato bread encouraged us to launch into the bottle of red – a jolly little Tuscan number.

Blooming heck!

A Day Of Neutral Test Cricket At Lord’s, Australia v Pakistan Day Three, With Paul Deacon, Mat & Tim, 15 July 2010

Paul Deacon, taken a few week’s earlier at England v Bangladesh

The Pakistan cricket team had just started their 10+ year sojourn following a terror incident in their homeland. England hosted a couple of neutral tests and I was keen to sample the delights at Lord’s.

To join me that day, Paul Deacon (this was to be his last hurrah of test cricket before he and his family went into self-imposed exile to Canada) along with Mat and Tim from the gym.

This was the second of two farewell treats for Paul, the first being England v Bangladesh a few week’s earlier:

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

Paul clearly enjoyed himself at the neutral match but did not take (or at least did not post) any photos on the second visit. The headline picture and the one below are from the Bangladesh day.

But Paul did write this:

Hi Ian


just to say another big thank you for a fantastic day at Lord’s.
Thoroughly enjoyed it. A nice tumble of wickets today!

Will fix a time for us + partners to meet up for a meal. Do you like Indian? Chinese? Thai? Or all 3 on one plate even?

Paul

In the end it took us some years to get together family-wise but it was worth the wait when we did:

A Day With The Deacons, Music Exchange & Lord’s, 8 August 2017

If by any chance you want to know what happened in that particular cricket match – here is the scorecard. Day Three had left the match poised.

Heavy Rollers 2009, England v Australia At Edgbaston, 30 to 31 July 2009

Big Papa Zambezi Jeff Tye presenting me with my Heavy Roller shirt – thanks to Charley The Gent Malloy for the image – grabbed from his vid.

I have been encouraged to write up this particular Heavy Rollers visit now, in December 2021, as King Cricket and his partner in crime Dan Liebke have arrived at this test match in their podcast series, The Ridiculous Ashes. This test is Series Three, Episode Three – click here or below:

The 2009 Ridiculous Ashes

I haven’t listened to that podcast yet – my plan is to write up The Heavy Rollers experience and then listen.

For reasons I don’t quite understand, I have no photographs from 2009 in the “Charley The Gent” collection – just a video of Big Papa Zambezi Jeff Tye handing out the Heavy Rollers shirts on the morning of the first day:

It might just be that the photos from that year never reached me and therefore are omitted from what I thought was a canonical collection. If Charley furnishes me with photos in the fulness of time, have no fear, they will find there way to this piece.

My log records that it was a bumper year for Heavy Rollers, attendance-wise. Ashes years tended to be like that. Here is the Heavy Roll call (did you see what I did there?):

  • Big “Papa Zambezi” Jeff Tye;
  • Nigel “Father Barry”;
  • Charley The Gent Malloy;
  • The Boy Malloy;
  • Harsha Ghoble;
  • Biff;
  • Tufty Geoff Young;
  • David “Peel” Steed;
  • Dan “Peel” Steed;
  • Ged Ladd.

Others might well be able to chip in with additional memories, but my recollections of this one are slight and a bit idiosyncratic.

The Night Before – 29 July 2009

On arrival the night before (29th July), I recall that there was a bit of a scramble for the “better rooms” at Harborne Hall, although by that year (our second at the venue) I had concluded that the larger rooms at the top of the old building had some disadvantages to them such that my own preference was for a well-located slightly smaller room. I thus avoided the potentially contentious debate by deferring to my elders while still getting what I wanted.

I’m fairly sure it was this year, 2009, when I ran into my friend Maz (Marianne Tudor-Craig) at Harborne Hall, which, at that time, was still a VSO training & conference venue and Maz was still a VSO-nik at that time. It was strange seeing her in that setting while I was having a cricket break with my mates.

Day One – 30 July 2009

Obviously the single most important event of the day is captured on video for all to see – here’s the link again if you missed it above:

The rest of Day One was a bit of an anti-climax, certainly cricket-wise, as it rained for much of the day. I’m pretty sure that The Steeds would have smuggled in some wine boxes disguised as picnic-bag chillers and a fine picnic to go with it too.

I recall that nephew Paul “Belmonte” was at the ground that day and joined us for a while during one of the many rain breaks.

I also recall that, at one point, I was so “mentally unoccupied” while wandering around in a rain break that I allowed a young blond Npower saleswoman persuade me to change energy suppliers on a promise of, I blush to admit it, £200 off my energy bills for switching. Npower retained my business for several years after that.

In the absence of a 2009 photo in our maroon-coloured shirts, here is a picture of eight of us (only Biff and Tufty Geoff missing) from the previous year in the same place (Priory Stand front row) in our dark-coloured shirts:

Day Two – 31 July 2009 – Ridiculous Moment Of The Match

Forget whatever Alex “King Cricket” Bowden and Dan Liebke tell you in Series 3, Episode 3 of The Ridiculous Ashes, the most ridiculous moment of the match was around our seats at the start of Day Two.

By this stage of our proceedings, Charley “The Gent” was curating a fair bit of the Day Two picnic. As is Chas’s way, he was busying himself sorting out the contents of several bags of goodies at the start of play.

Despite several of us saying to Chas that the day’s play was about to begin, Chas was looking down in his bags when Graham Onions took a wicket with the first ball of the day.

Chas was disappointed missing that ball, but then returned to busying himself with his bags.

Despite several of us warning Chas that Onions was running up to bowl his second delivery, Chas continued busying himself, eyes down inside the bags…

…missing the fall of Michael Hussey for a primary – the second ball of the day.

Naturally Chas then gave the game his undivided attention for the attempted hat-trick ball and several subsequent deliveries of the ordinary variety.

We got plenty of play to see on the second day, although the mood of excitement was lessened because the weather forecast for Day Three was shocking, so (even during the exciting Day Two) there was a sense that the match was inevitably destined to be a draw.

Here is a link to the scorecard.

I do hope I can supplement this piece with memories from other Heavy Rollers.

Where did we eat the night before the match? And the evening after Day One? I don’t think we played at all that year, but maybe we did. Hopefully the hive mind of the Heavy Rollers will help.

A Tied Final To An International One-Day Cricket Tournament, At Lord’s, Janie And I Were There, 2 July 2005

Writing on 21 July 2019, I have been thinking about close and tied matches a lot lately. The cricket world cup was decided on the finest of margins last week, as was the Wimbledon Gentleman’s Final – the first ever to go to tie break:

The Day England Won The Cricket World Cup, England v New Zealand, 14 July 2019

Today, Janie and I were battling out the tightest of sets of tennis, as oft we do. We ended the match at 5-5 as a tie. We tend to do that if the scores are level at 5-5 or 6-6. Janie and I believe in ties.

Of course there is a huge difference between amateur sport and professional sport. But Janie also felt strongly that the 2019 world cup should similarly have been determined as a tie and shared between England and New Zealand. I’m not 100% sure; it certainly isn’t the modern way for tournaments.

But on the way home from our epic tennis tied match today, my mind wandered to a match that Janie and I witnessed in that glorious and exciting summer of cricket that was 2005. We went to Lord’s to see the final of the one day international (ODI) tri-series between Australia, Bangladesh and England; a final between England and Australia that ended as a tie.

How was that tie resolved, I wondered. I couldn’t remember. So I looked it up.

Here is a link to the scorecard and Cricinfo resources on that 2005 tied match.

In fact, back in 2005, the playing conditions for that tri-series – presumably agreed between the three nations but ultimately under the auspices of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) rather than the International Cricket Council (ICC) – determined that final as a tie if the scores were level after 50 overs.

England and Australia shared the trophy.

No super over (I don’t recall ever seeing those back then), no boundaries count back (I don’t recall seeing that until this most recent ICC World Cup), no priority to the team with the most wickets remaining at the end of their innings (that method had been discredited quite early in the Duckworth- Lewis era as anathema to the mathematical logic of wickets and overs as being algorithmic-equivalent resources that can become exhausted).

It had been a great match, that 2005 ODI final. At first we thought England were way ahead…

…even when Australia crawled back to post 196 runs…

…until England ended up 33/5 and we thought England had blown it…

…until England somehow managed to crawl back to 196/9, securing a couple of leg byes off the last ball to tie the match.

Perhaps others in the crowd thought differently, but Janie and I left the ground feeling thoroughly satisfied with our day’s entertainment, the thrills and spills of the ebb and flow…

…and a feeling that justice had been done to a hard-fought match when the trophy was shared for a tie.

Who would have won on a super over? We’ll never know.

Who would have won on boundary count-backs? Australia.

Who would have won on the basis of fewer wickets lost? England.

Who gives a fig how the match would have been determined if the playing conditions had been different? Only a pedant, really, as either or both teams might have played the final few balls differently if other playing conditions were being applied.

It was a summer of fine margins, really. England prevailed in the tournament that really mattered, the Ashes…

Later that summer… (thanks to Charles Bartlett for the picture)

…we were there that day too – the final day of the 2005 Ashes series – to be Ogblogged in the fullness of time. But that Ashes win came as a result of a drawn match at the end and a couple of really tight finishes, especially the Edgbaston test (also to be Ogblogged in the fullness).

But in early July, the excitement was that tied ODI. In fact, that tied ODI match at Lord’s was not the only tie I witnessed that season…indeed not even the only tie I witnessed that month, July 2005 – I even participated in one:

Far And Away The Most Exciting Game Of Cricket I Have Ever Played, Tufty Stackpole v The Children’s Society, North Crawley, 31 July 2005

What a season that 2005 season was. Not least because of the tied matches.

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.

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

This was the first time that Janie (Daisy) ever visited Lord’s.

It was my second ever, and last, visit to Lord’s in the 20th century. It was also the only time I actually bought tickets for Lord’s that century, having been taken as a guest on my sole previous visit there:

My First Visit To Lord’s, England v Pakistan Day Two, 26 July 1996

Unaccustomed as I was to buying tickets for Lord’s back then…oh boy have I made up for it since…and probably a bit slow of the mark for the World Cup to boot, I ended up getting Lower Compton seats some rows back. All has changed since (he says, 25 years later), but back then the Lower Compton was a wind tunnel affair through which you got a somewhat restricted view and in particular had no clear view on a scoreboard.

Who knew that it can be really cold in London at a cricket match in June? Who failed to learn from this 1999 experience?

Middlesex v Australians, Lord’s, 19 June 2010

Once I became better acquainted with Lord’s for a while I would book the Lower Compton front row, which avoided the wind tunnel and tended to have a decent view. But never again did I make the mistake of buying tickets in the middle or rear of that stand. The new Lower Compton is SO much better.

Returning to 1999, we nevertheless had a great day, despite the ordinary seats. It is so difficult not to have a good day at Lord’s. It was even, somewhat surprisingly, a good match, with Neil Johnson & Murray Goodwin keeping Zimbabwe in the hunt for most of the match. All the Cricinfo resources for this match can be found here.

Testing Times: Working, Seeing Alleyn’s & BBYO Friends, Then The Headingley Cricket, 5 to 21 July 1981

A Few Weeks Earlier: John Sutton / Trent Bridge Test Match, 1981: Alderman to Gower

Once my placement in the Far East (Braintree) had been curtailed, I was able to resume my more habitual holiday job routine, which seemed to have more to do with seeing friends for lunch and evening get togethers than head down graft in the audit and accounts factory that was Newman Harris.

A Social Whirl, 5 to 19 July 1981

A few mentions of busy days and hard work, but mostly a catalogue of non-work events:

  • Sunday 5 July – “visited grandma [Anne]”
  • Tuesday 7 July – “popped in to see Andrew [Andy Levinson] in evening”
  • Wednesday 8 July – “met Helen [Lewis] for lunch. Met Anil [Biltoo] and Jim [Bateman] for drinks in evening”
  • Thursday 9 July – “met Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch”
  • Friday 10 July – “Wendies [sic – Wendy Robbins’s] ->Grannies [Wendy’s granny] for dinner -> Wendies [sic] for night”
  • Sunday 12 July – “met Jilly [Black] in town early evening
  • Tuesday 14 July – “-> Hillel [House] -> Streatham [BBYO}’s installations -> Lauren [Sterling] & Jenny [Council] coffee”
  • Wednesday 15 July – “met Caroline [Freeman, now Curtis] for lunch”
  • Saturday 18 July – “Mays [George and Winifred] came in evening”
  • Sunday 19 July – “visited Grandma [Anne] in afternoon”

A few local/Alleyn’s School friends at the start of this period. Andy Levinson lived in our street, so “popped in” really did mean walking two minutes up the road. Anil Biltoo & Jim Bateman for drinks was probably at UCL (where Jim did his summer jobs) and/or The Sun, as described in earlier articles.

Helen Lewis, a couple of years earlier

I’m pretty sure that lunch with Helen Lewis was the occasion that she presented me with Schubert The Sheep. He was named Schubert because there was some classical music playing in the restaurant where we took lunch. Neither Helen nor I could identify the piece but we both agreed that it was not Schubert.

Schubert still lives with me forty years on…in the depicted cupboard

Schubert’s 15 minutes of fame came a few years later, when he appeared on University Challenge as the Keele Mascot. A story for another time.

Visiting Wendy would have been in part as a fun catch up but also probably to help her plan the impending Streatham BBYO installations. I think she must have been outgoing President at that time. With apologies, I cannot recall who succeeded Wendy, but someone might well be able to help jog my memory.

Wendy, a couple of years earlier, at Nightingale

Lauren Sterling and Jenny Council will have attended that Streatham event in their capacities as Regional Grandees. I would have been there in my capacity as a local elder and former National Grandee, now so far past it, I can’t have offered much insight to the local club.

The Grandma Anne visits on Sundays at that time would have been to Nightingale. She had taken the death of Uncle Manny very badly and I think, from memory, that her cleaner/informal carer went away for a few weeks, so she arranged a temporary stay at Nightingale for respite and also as a bit of a tester for possible future need. The latter didn’t materialise as Grandma Anne died later that summer, but I do have an amusing tale from the end of her respite stay at Nightingale – watch this space for the next “forty years on” piece.

And So To Headingley, 20 & 21 July 1981

Hundreds of thousands of people claim to have been at Headingley for the dramatic turnaround and conclusion to the 1981 Ashes test match there, even though only a few thousand people actually witnessed the events.

I am not one of the people making false claims about my attendance…nor am I one of the people who actually attended Headingley on that Monday or Tuesday.

In fact my diary reads as follows:

Monday 20 July 1981 – Work OK did nothing in evening

Tuesday 21 July 1981 – OK Day. Lazy evening.

But I do remember following the cricket at work very clearly, especially on the Tuesday.

I was working in the large, high-ceilinged, “open plan”, Dickensian-look office at the front of 19 Cavendish Square. In that office, there was always a senior whose role it was to supervise/keep order amongst the junior clerks therein.

By the summer of 1981, Newman Harris had replaced Roy Patel (who I think had been promoted to a more interesting role) and hired instead a bespectacled, middle-aged chap, I think he was named John, who spoke with deep-voiced, nasal tones. I don’t think he much liked the idea of summer students – I remember him taking great pains to let us know that he was, “a graduate from the University of Life” and (although not a qualified accountant) he was “qualified by experience”. His management and mentoring style reminded me of Blakey from On The Buses:

Several people in our office were cricket lovers, but in truth there was little interest in the match for most of the Monday. I think word reached us that Botham was scoring runs for fun towards the end of the Monday, but it wasn’t until the Tuesday, after people had seen the highlights on Monday evening, that the interest levels really kicked off.

There were 10 or 12 of us in the office that day – perhaps half of us were interested in the cricket. John was one of the cricket lovers but was also there to maintain order.

Terry, the errand boy, did not reside in our office and I think he kept a small transistor radio in the cubby-hole where he did reside. Terry kept us appraised of the score a couple of times during the morning.

In those days, there was a telephone number you could call to hear the cricket score. It was a sort-of premium rate line. “Dial The Score On 154”.

As the match started to build to a climax, one or two clerks, unable to control their impulses, dialled the score. As a summer lackey, I was too timid to do that but grateful to the others for the news.

John berated the diallers. He explained that there was expense involved in making those calls and that we should all be concentrating on our work. John said that he would dial the score at suitably-spaced intervals and keep us all informed. I think he had 15 or 20 minute intervals in mind.

But as the match came to its climax, John was “Dialling The Score” compulsively, giving us close to ball-by-ball commentary in terms of the score as it progressed. We cheered when John announced that England had won the match. Then he told us all to put our heads down and concentrate on our work for the rest of the day. Goodness knows what John’s dialling did to the Newman Harris phone bill.

My lazy evening will have included watching the test match highlights…probably in black and white on the spare room TV, as neither of my parents cared a fig for cricket.

In case you are wondering, the denouement of that match looked like this.

This is what it looks like as a scorecard and Cricinfo match resources (lots of super pictures).

Below is the Guardian’s take on the matter the next day – a very rare “front page news” day for cricket.

Brearley Bounces CriticsBrearley Bounces Critics 22 Jul 1981, Wed The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

My First Ever Day At A Test Match, With Graham Majin, England v Australia Day 3, Oval, 27 August 1977

Bob Willis, photo by Brittle heaven~commonswiki, CC BY-SA 4.0

The diary entry is pretty blasé about this momentous day:

Went to test match. Mostly rained off etc. V good what we saw (Graham and I).

I’m pretty sure this was my first ever day at the test. But it seems that I was so laid back in those days, perhaps my first one entirely passed me by.

Graham Majin and I had spent a great deal of that summer together making our second animated film, Speare Trek. More on Speare Trek will appear on Ogblog in the fullness of time. (Including a link to the film once I work out a way of digitally patching it back together again). We’d finished filming earlier in August and I think (reading between the lines of the diary) the last of the rushes had returned to us from the processing lab earlier in the week of this test. Younger readers will need a glossary and a book on the history of film to understand what on earth I’m on about.

Anyway, one of Graham’s uncles was a journalist who tended to be given test match tickets for the Oval. A pair of hot test tickets for the Saturday filtered down to us.

The only problem that day was the rain. Lots of it. I suspect we got about an hour of cricket the whole day – here’s the scorecard.

I have a few good memories of the day. I remember the Australian players wandering around and chatting to the few hardy souls (which included me and Graham) who stuck around in the hope of cricket.

The Aussies had been beaten up in the test series (they were an insurmountable 3-0 down before this test started). They were also, unbeknown to us, riven by the Kerry Packer business, news of which was soon to break. Yet still they did their bit for the attendees. Respect.

I especially remember Kim Hughes as part of that wandering, sociable pack; I also remember some young women, near us, drooling over Hughes. Graham and I wondered what he had that we lacked.

Graham late summer the year before
Me late summer the year before: trophy but no cigar

Despite our extreme youth, the crowd-deprived bar folk of the Oval seemed only too happy to serve us beer. Thems was different times. I do not recommend that 14/15 year old readers try to emulate our behaviour.

But the central character of the day was Bob Willis. Renowned as a terrible batsman (he famously once went out to bat without a bat), he scored 24 not out in this innings, almost his personal best. After the innings break, he then took a wicket before stumps were drawn.

Graham and I still had beers in our hands when stumps were drawn and certainly weren’t inclined to drink quickly or rush away from the ground, so we stuck around a while before wandering down to the Oval tube station.

When we got down to that southbound platform, there, with his cricket coffin, was Bob Willis. We asked him where he was going. Bob explained that he had friends in Streatham and was going to stay with them for the Sunday – a rest day back then.

I don’t remember where the conversation went after that, nor indeed exactly how we all went our separate ways, each to subtly different parts of Streatham.

Graham might remember, but I doubt it. Bob’s even less likely to remember.

Meanwhile, that sighting of Bob Willis on the underground has gone down in King Cricket/Cricket Badger folk lore as the very pinnacle of “cricketer spotted” activity – click here for recent (at the time of writing) validation – an accolade indeed.

The Very First Cricket World Cup Final, Australia v West Indies, 21 June 1975

I made three mentions of the very first cricket world cup (which was billed as the Prudential Cup) in my 1975 diary. I have already Ogblogged the very first match…

The Very First Match Of The Very First Cricket World Cup: I Was There (In Our Living Room), As Were Tom And Jerry, 7 June 1975

…and also the day that England made an untimely semi-final exit:

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

Here is my diary entry for the final:

Even I have had to do some Photoshop forensics on that 21 June entry:

West Indies won first P Cup by 17 runs. Had a day off school for founders day. TV: Cannon, That’s Life. Still swotting.

I’m not sure why I got a Saturday off on Alleyn’s School Founders Day. Perhaps it was because my year was still swatting for exams so we were exempted. Perhaps I was exempted on religious grounds, as that Saturday was just a few weeks before my barmitzvah.

In any case, I can’t imagine when I did the swotting boasted in the diary entry. I don’t have any recollection of swotting that day. I only recall being glued to the telly, not least for most if not all of that cricket match.

I certainly recall seeing Roy Fredericks getting out hit wicket, which was very early in the match…and seeing that partnership between Clive Lloyd and Rohan Kanhai…and seeing the Aussies struggle against that West indies bowling attack…

I do also recall the match going on late…indeed past the time that dinner was normally served in the Harris household. There was a golden rule that meal times took precedence over ANYTHING on television.

I remember arguing my corner. This was the first ever cricket world cup final and there would never, ever be another “first ever” and it was building up to a really exciting ending.

I managed to get a temporary stay of execution for the family dinner, much against my mother’s better judgement.

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

Below is a highlights package of the match – I especially dig the floppy hats donned by Fredericks and Greenidge at the start of the innings:

Beyond the final, I know that first cricket world cup had a profound effect on me.

I saved newspaper clippings of the scorecards from the various matches and I remember replaying the world cup with my friends (and on my own) in various formats over the summer:

I especially remember looking at the names of players and trying to understand what the different types of names meant for those different places. The mixture of Portuguese and Southern Asian names from Sri Lanka especially sparked my interest.

I wondered whether I would visit some of those exotic-seeming (judging by the cricketers’ names) places. I have now visited most.

Writing this article on the eve of the 2019 Cricket World Cup Final, I am still wondering when England will win the tournament.