I needed to be back in London reasonably early on the 8th, so this time I went up the night before the start of my two days of cricket and drove back to London at the end of day two.
A couple of men in suits saw me checking in with Luke the Baroq-ulele and suggested that I provide some musical entertainment for the evening. I told them that they would need to ply me with plenty of drinks before I’d attempt that, the idea of which didn’t seem to put them off. Mercifully, though, I managed to avoid them while I took dinner and saw them briefly enough on exit merely to wish them goodnight as I returned to my room for a little solo jam and reading before bedtime.
Tuesday
I used the gym and leisure facilities of the hotel first thing. After breakfast, a very pleasant short walk to the ground. We were hosted in hospitality suites at the Radcliffe Road end today, a very good view, similar to the pavilion but which made a nice change of aspect.
Quite a large group of people; many of the usual suspects plus an expert on American rural history, Mark Friedberger, who originally hails from England and mostly follows cricket over in the USA via the internet. Mark and I had a long chat about various subjects, including professors, e.g. Ronnie Frankenberg, whom we both knew. The outcome of that encounter was a long list of stuff for me to follow up as homework. That’s academics for you.
Cracking cricket, with Middlesex bowling out Notts for 241, probably below par, but then succumbing to a Jake Ball hat trick to be 0/3 off five balls. First time I had ever seen a professional hat trick live.
The Trent Bridge hospitality is very generous, so I wanted little in the evening and spent my time reading, writing and playing Luke the Uke.
Wednesday
I used the gym again this morning and then drove to the ground after breakfast and check out.
We were in the pavilion today; a slightly smaller group. David Kendix, Chris Lowe and Shilpa Patel joined the usual suspects from the Middlesex side; we had some interesting chats.
At lunch, we were entertained at table by Bill “Wild Bill” Taylor with tales of his exploits, not least his cavalier match-winning performance against Sussex in 1975, retold in John Barclay’s excellent book, Life Beyond The Airing Cupboard…
“pages 72 to 73,don’t forget to look it up when you get home”
…I didn’t forget to look it up.
Middlesex bettered Nottinghamshire’s first innings score, just, but then failed to make any inroads in the few remaining overs.
I had a pretty clear run home, getting back to the flat not much after 20:30.
No business visits this time and only Days One and Two for cricket.
Again the excellent Eaton Hotel, but not before driving straight to the ground on the Wednesday morning, after a good early morning workout at the gym.
There’s a regular core of people in the Committee Room at Edgbaston, so it felt a bit like a regathering of the clan. A very pleasant clan too.
At the end of Day One we thought that Warwickshire were on top; just. At the end of Day Two, Middlesex seemed to be bossing the game. In the end, as has been so often the case this season, the weather determined the match, on the Saturday. Scorecard here.
Two overnights, affording time for reading, writing and ukulele playing. I took Luke the Baroq-ulele (of Thomas Gresham Society Soiree fame) this time.
I left Edgbaston just after 10:00 on the Friday, once my early afternoon meeting in London had been confirmed; otherwise I might have been able to enjoy the first two or three hours of play that day also. On the Friday evening, after a relatively frantic (albeit short) day’s work, I got my exercise playing real tennis.
I know from my own years editing the Middlesex Till We Die (MTWD) website that one of the toughest jobs is getting enough articles for the winter. Sportnetwork require regular editorial material as the quid quo pro for providing their site and system.
So when I chatted with Barmy Kev in the autumn, explaining to him what Ogblog is about and offering him some ideas for pieces, the answer was, “I could do with some stuff for after Christmas”.
I suspect that many county cricket lovers occasionally have afternoons like that when the matches suddenly get very interesting indeed.
Yes I did catch up with my work in the end as well, thank you for asking, for those Ogblog readers too lazy even to click the link and read a few hundred words. Honestly.
Tony and Liz’s caravan. Not Jason Gillespie’s caravan. Why anyone might imagine it to be Jason Gillespie’s caravan, or why anyone might ask Jason for the location of his caravan, is entirely beyond me.
Our original plan was to spend a week or so in North Yorkshire, but Janie’s success with the Wimbledon ballot for 1 July and her desire to be back 6 July for the Hampton Court flower show, meant a shorter trip this time, just to Scarborough. Still, we’d have the opportunity to see Tony and Liz, plus take in a couple of days of cricket.
Despite our having raved about Cafe Fish on our previous visit to Scarborough in 2014, advice which Chris and Charlotte took and with which they concurred, Tony & Liz still hadn’t tried the place. So Janie booked it for the Saturday night as our treat for Tony’s birthday.
By booking our hotel early enough in the year this time, we’d managed to get a decent size of room at the Palm Court Hotel ; much nicer than the hotel we’d stayed previously and a joy to have the parking behind the Palm Court guaranteed as part of the deal.
Saturday 2 July
A relatively event-free journey – we set off in good time, leaving the flat very early and only stopping at the house for 90 minutes or so – the “5 minute stop” Janie had promised she needed. Still, we got to Scarborough mid afternoon, so there was time for some rest before meeting Tony and Liz. Janie went off to get a swimming costume, having forgotten that the hotel had a pool. In the end, neither of us swam. I watched the denouement of the Querrey v Djokovic match from yesterday and called Janie to tell her the result while she was still at the shops choosing her cossy.
Tony and Liz came to the hotel for a drink before we wandered three minutes down the road to Cafe Fish. There we ran into Harry and Blossom Latchman, their friend Elaine and Geoff Norris, who were getting towards the end of their meal. Janie and I remembered (and were remembered by) the Cafe Fish people, especially proprietor William, so we really must have seemed like the locals on home turf despite being in Tony and Liz’s home town. Tony and Liz were a bit discombobulated by all this.
Unsurprisingly, we had an excellent meal at Cafe Fish; I think Tony and Liz thoroughly enjoyed it. They walked back to our hotel with us, having arranged for their cab to meet them at the Palm Court rather than the restaurant.
Sunday 3 July
A fine breakfast and good weather (albeit with a cool northern breeze) for our first day at the cricket. A pleasant walk from the Palm Court to North Marine Road and (as previously) a very straightforward matter to collect our visitors’ tickets and make our way to the pavilion.
Janie took this picture just before the start of play on Day One
There we were greeted by Robin and Jennifer Smith (whom I had got to know last year at Headingley) and also Tony (a former Yorkshire committee member I’d met last year at Headingley), plus the regular Yorkshire host Geoff Cope with his delightful dog Queenie. From the Middlesex side, Andy West was there and we were assured that Harry, Blossom and Geoff were around – they had taken sanctuary from the cool breeze behind glass, one level down.
That pavilion balcony spot is a great place to view the cricket. Yorkshire had won the toss and elected to bat. Most people thought it a good toss to win at Scarborough, but the ball seemed to do a bit; Yorkshire batted well and Middlesex bowled without luck that first morning.
At lunch, Harry presented Janie with her life membership of Middlesex, which was a lovely surprise for her. Mind you, as she managed to get the lunchtime conversation onto controversial subjects such as Brexit, feminism and commercial ethics within the space of about 20 minutes, “life” started to sound more like a sentence for everyone else than an award for Janie! Actually, joking apart, that Yorkshire group are an interesting bunch for proper conversation.
As always, the day passed quickly. Yorkshire looked well placed at the end of the day just shy of 300 with only 5 wickets down. We walked back to the hotel and like doing very little indeed in the evening, which is precisely what we did.
Monday 4 July
Brighter start to the day than yesterday. Again a pleasant breakfast in the hotel and then the walk to North Marine Road. A smaller group for lunch today, but for tea we were joined by Shirley Houghton (David Houghton’s wife) plus John Hampshire & his good lady. I didn’t realise that John Hampshire had been the first coach of the Zimbabwean test team when the southern African teams rejoined the international fold in the 1990s.
Fairly soon after tea it got gloomy and then it started to rain. There was a brief respite, but only brief before the light deteriorated again. Middlesex only two down but a long way from safety still.
We walked back to our hotel in the gloom, hoping to get in before the end of the Murray v Kyrgios match and before the heavens opened. We ran into Barmy Kev, Big Harv and another of the Middlesex regulars on St Thomas Street. We chatted for a while, in my case with one eye on the skies, declined the opportunity for a “swift drink” and got home just before the heavens opened. We took a couple of glasses of wine and some nibbles to our room and caught the end of the Murray match, plus some other interesting tennis on the box.
Tuesday 5 July
We had breakfast in the hotel, then checked out and drove over to Tony and Liz’s place for “elevenses” and a look at the progress they have made with their house since our last visit.
In the end we didn’t get away until lunchtime, which lengthened the drive home a bit, hitting the rush hour towards the end of the drive. Unusually, we split the journey into three; I did less than half the run, the Daisy took over the wheel but was feeling fatigued by Luton-ish so we stopped for petrol and had one more changeover, such that I did the final leg.
We followed the Yorkshire v Middlesex match on the way home, along with the tennis.
Wednesday 6 July
On the Wednesday, I played a good morning game of real tennis after clearing my e-mails and then worked from home in the afternoon, catching the end of the extraordinary Yorkshire v Middlesex match on the internet radio. This is how it panned out, scorecard-wise. Who’d have thought it? Back to Lord’s in the evening for another “last minute sub” game of real tennis; two very good, close matches in one day – exhausting.
I had a game of real tennis at 10:00 and arranged (with Chris’s blessing) to play again at 16:00. I made a short, promised visit to the Committee Room; then to the writing room to do some reading and watch some cricket.
Expecting Chris (Escamillo Escapillo) to arrive around 14:30, I packed up my things and left the reading room to find a “just arrived” message from Chris just as I left the room – good timing.
I watched some good cricket with Chris for just shy of 90 minutes until tea – then went across to the real tennis court again. Towards the end of the hour, Chris came and watched the real tennis, then went back to the pavilion while I changed.
…then one more drink for the road before parting company.
Chris wanted to get home to see the England v Iceland football match. So not a happy ending for Chris, but a happy afternoon for both of us to be sure.
I played real tennis at the convenient time of 10:00 – convenient that is for seeing a fair chunk of county cricket afterwards. I played a good game this morning by my own sporadic standards. By the time I had showered, changed and chatted best part of half the morning session had passed, but I found a nice sunny spot in the pavilion and hunkered down with my book, A Confederacy of Dunces, which I was determined to finish today, along with some more business-oriented reading.
I had taken with me the simplest lunch of nuts and fruit. A resuscitating coffee in the pavilion afterwards and then I went in search of more sun by relocating to the front of the Mound Stand. Fine spring weather it was.
Trego and Gregory were trying to ruin Middlesex’s day, but once Trego fell the wickets tumbled. Then Robson and Gubbins got to work in fine style.
Meanwhile I was making similarly light work of A Confederacy of Dunces; I shall write up that book in its capacity as cricket reading for King Cricket.
Once that was done, I read the Economist and then, as it started to get a little colder, decided to bail out while I was still enjoying myself – after all, I’d be back tomorrow for some more and wanted to clear some work from home.
Tuesday
A couple of meetings first thing towards the Middlesex strategy, then a few minutes before lunch to watch the cricket. I joined Brian and Judy for the first time this season, hoping to witness the completion of a couple of tons and a double century stand between Robson and Gubbins, but Robson fell on 99 with the team score on 198. But Gubbins did go on to complete his maiden county championship ton.
Again some reviving coffee at lunchtime, while watching Andy Murray snatch victory from the jaws of defeat against Radek Stepanek in the first round of Roland Garros. Then I wandered over to the Upper Compton stand, in the hope of finding James Sharp of Googlies and Chinamen fame. So much for one man and a dog at county matches – there must have been a couple of hundred people up there. I asked a few people, who I recognised as Middlesex regulars, if they knew James, but they didn’t, so I e-mailed James with my location. But it transpires that James travels incognito, or at least without an e-mail device. He says he also looked out for me, but it wasn’t to be.
One of the more senior regulars up there suggested to me that Middlesex were batting so slowly that they might lose the match. I said I thought they were getting close to the position when only Middlesex could win, although the draw remained the most likely outcome.
Then as 15:00 approached, I wandered back round towards the main gate, as I was expecting cousins Ted and Sue as guests. I ran into Steve Tasker along the way and we had a good chat. Then I saw Harry and Blossom Latchman, and spoke with them briefly, until I spotted Ted and Sue at the Grace Gate. The stewards did their wonderful bit of making guests feel like honoured visitors. I showed them around the lower pavilion and we watched the last few overs before tea from there.
Then I showed them the upper pavilion and Bowlers Bar, where we had a drink and watched for a while, until Ted casually mentioned that he’d like to see the museum. I thought we’d missed the closing time, but the stewards kindly let us follow the last tour in so Ted and Sue could at least see the Ashes. Then I showed them the real tennis court, which they enjoyed for a while, then round to the Presidents Box for the last few overs before stumps.
An early dinner at The Bridge House (home of the Canal Cafe Theatre) and then a walk back to their Paddington hotel, followed by a short hike back to the flat for me.
Daisy and I were invited to spend the day with the Middlesex Committee and their Nottinghamshire guests, by dint of my advisory role regarding the Middlesex strategy. I’m not sure whether that makes us guests or hosts in such circumstances. Perhaps a cross between the two; “ghosts”?
We chatted mostly with Middlesex folk before lunch – the Nottinghamshire guests had taken pole positions in front of the big window – as guests indeed should. In that morning session they witnessed all the wickets that were to fall that day; three quick wickets to close the Nottinghamshire innings, then a good start for Middlesex, then three quick wickets before lunch.
Then lunch in the Committee Dining Room. A first for me as well as for Daisy and very splendid it was too. Not only the grand setting, full of history, but also a very fine meal. We both started with scallops supported by some black pudding and belly pork, followed by a splendid beef fillet with a well posh jus, rosti potatoes and trimmings, apple crumble desert and cheese. Nice wine and a little drop of port with the cheese.
After lunch, we watched the cricket from the committee dining room balcony for a while; something special to have done at least once in a lifetime. Watching Robson and Simpson bat well from up there added to the sense of occasion.
The afternoon passed quickly. We got to chat with some of the Nottinghamshire guests during that lunchtime period upstairs and then some more in the Committee Room afterwards. The cake at teatime looked splendid; Daisy tried some, whereas I had no room. Where she fits all that food in that tiny body of hers is anyone’s guess.
Daisy wandered off to call her sister and when she came back some minutes later saying, “oh, have they started again, then?” my answer was, “yes they have, but I think they might be about to finish”. I was right; it was getting gloomy and soon they came off for good.
Still, we’d seen some good cricket. We thought we’d walk back to the flat – it was barely raining, but then got caught in a heavy shower when we were so close to home it seemed ridiculous to take cover or call a cab, but we were still far enough away to get soaked. The suit looks fine again now I’ve had it dry cleaned – thank you for asking.
Tuesday
In theory, a day with several strategy meetings and a chance to watch some cricket in between. In practice, a day with several strategy meetings, a pleasant beef bap in the Long Room Bar with Richard Goatley in between and no cricket whatsoever. I went home and did some of the work I’d planned to do tomorrow.
Wednesday
In theory, a morning with real tennis first thing and a chance to catch up on some reading and watch some cricket too, given that I’d got ahead of my work yesterday. In practice, yes to the real tennis – a good game, yes to plenty of reading, uninterrupted by cricket; indeed no cricket whatsoever. A heavy shower around 14:00 put paid to any chance of that.
‘Twas the second day of Middlesex’s cricket season and my first glimpse of live cricket for far too long. Charley “the Gent” Malloy was my guest for the day.
I went to the gym first thing, then on to the bakers for fresh bread and then the flat to prepare the picnic. Cray fish breakfast muffins and wild Alaskan salmon in poppy-seed bagels formed the highlight of the feast. A fruity little Kiwi Riesling was the highlight beverage.
Charley was waiting for me at the Grace Gate and looked at his watch as I arrived, as if to say “where have you been?” In fact, we had both arrived some minutes ahead of the appointed hour, which was probably just as well, as Charley wasn’t moving too quickly. “Done me knee,” said Charley.
In accordance with our tradition, Charley and I sat on death row; the front row of the lower tier of the pavilion. Normally, our backs can only tolerate death row for a while, but as it turned out, our knee problems probably served to mask any back pain. Further, with Charley’s limited mobility and no chance of sun that day anywhere in the ground, we ended up staying put on death row for the whole day.
I described to Charley my correspondence with King Cricket on the matter of match reports henceforward. Charley liked my ideas about writing book reviews and recipes for King Cricket, while posting reports of this kind on Ogblog. I wondered whether I should revert to real names here on Ogblog, but Charley felt that the characters’ names were a tradition and allowed me a bit more poetic licence. (Little does Charley realise that I write with reckless abandon, at least in the matter of creative licence, regardless of naming conventions).
It was seriously chilly but Charley and I had both wrapped up warm and were chatting eagerly; the start of the season holds so many exciting possibilities. So the day passed very quickly. With just over an hour left to play, the umpires decided that the slight gloom which had pervaded for much of the day had become a little too gloomy, so off came the players and that was that for the day. Charley and I stuck around for a while, partly in hope more than expectation and partly to warm up with some coffee inside the pavilion before heading home. We’d had a very good day.
Tuesday
I returned to Lord’s the next day, primarily for meetings, but with the hope and expectation that I’d get to see some cricket too. Indeed, as a couple of the meetings got postponed, I got to see much of the day’s cricket and get some good reading done.
It was a much sunnier day, so I decided to take up position on the north side of the middle tier balcony. As soon as I plonked myself down, I sensed that I might be blocking Dougie Brown’s view. So the moment I heard “excuse me”, in that unmistakable Scottish accent, I started to shift along the row and checked that all now had a clear view. Dougie was chatting with Peter Such and soon Graham Thorpe joined them, but my mind was firmly on my book, A Confederacy of Dunces (read nothing into the juxtaposition, folks) and of course I was taking in the cricket.
Despite the sun, it still wasn’t warm and I hadn’t donned my thermals on the Tuesday. Also, I was quite peckish by about 12:30, as Charley and I had picnicked sensibly the day before and/but I had only snacked in the evening. So I went to the upstairs bar and bought a nice chunky sandwich and a hot cup of coffee for my lunch, both of which I downed with great pleasure. The bar was mostly populated with Warwickshire 1882 Club members talking exclusively about soccer football.
After my lunch, I retired to the writing room, where I thought I’d get some quiet and a decent view of the cricket protected from the cold. To some extent, my plan worked, especially the matter of getting some reading done and shield myself from the cold.
But my attempts to make headway with this Ogblog piece were continually thwarted. Initially, for a few brief minutes, I was distracted by the arms of Morpheus. Then when play resumed, there were interruptions and enough going on in the cricket to tear me away repeatedly from my little Kindle Fire gadget. No matter.
The interruptions came primarily in two forms:
unpleasant aerial noise from a plethora of helicopters overhead;
After the helicopter crescendo and witnessing Trott complete his double-hundred (they seem to be like double-decker buses, these double-hundreds), I then had an interesting chat with a couple of the remaining writing room gentlemen. The younger of the two had been a teacher at Highbury Grove School when Rhodes Boyson was the head, which made for an interesting chat. I said that I remembered protesting against Boyson’s cuts when he was an Education Minister and I was a student. The older of the two gentlemen suggested that they might be in the company of a dangerous leftist, to which I countered that the chap who had been teaching in an Islington Comprehensive in the 1970s had, by definition, more “dangerous leftist credentials” than me.
I did not share with those gentlemen the clear memory, which popped into my head, of an anti-cuts protest we staged in the early 1980s outside the UGC Building in Bloomsbury. I’ll need to go through my diaries to write that one up properly and no doubt Simon Jacobs will again deny all memory of the business. Suffice it to say here that a similarly garbed non-violent protest stunt, staged these days, might be inadvisable to say the very least.
I was spotted by one or two other friends and associates at that writing room table, who stopped by for an early season hello and quick chat. Richard Goatley arrived to whisk me away soon after those interludes, so I had a quick drink with Richard and a few other people in the Bowlers’ Bar, then headed for home a few overs before stumps.
Charley appealing…or celebrating a year early. Many thanks to Charles Bartlett for this picture.
Good drama often subtly uses a device known as foreshadowing. Something happens early in the piece, so when the dramatic climax or denouement comes, the audience isn’t completely taken by surprise by the twist.
Bad drama does this unsubtly, perhaps showing that one of the characters has an unsecured gun, or getting two characters to tell a convoluted back story for seemingly no reason other than foreshadowing.
In many ways, the climax was all on Day One. Personally, because that was to be my last cricket of the year, accompanied that day by Charles (Charley “The Gent” Malloy) Bartlett. But also because Yorkshire clinched the title that day, by virtue of something that happened on some other cricket ground at some point during the afternoon. It was all a bit confusing for us spectators, who weren’t officially told by the announcer until tea, although many were listening to internet radio accounts from elsewhere, so word soon spread.
To some extent Charles’s presence was foreshadowing of day one of the same fixture in 2016. In some ways, the first over of Middlesex’s innings – three wickets and no runs – foreshadowed the Nottinghamshire match in 2016 – click here – which Middlesex also (despite the three wickets for zip setback) went on to win.
I wrote up this day for King Cricket as long ago as April 2016, but at the time of writing this piece (November 2016) the piece is as yet unpublished. I’ll add an update and a link here once he publishes.
At the Meet the Players party in the evening, which was splendid, I suggested that the Middlesex folk should encourage the Yorkshire celebrations. I don’t think my advice was heeded, but I also don’t think the Yorkshire players needed encouragement. Despite Middlesex being on the ropes at the end of Day One, we somehow snatched victory from the very jaws of defeat in this match.
For those readers unaware of the King Cricket rules: “If it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself.”
Readers should perhaps also be aware that my nom de plume for King Cricket purposes is Ged and that occasionally my possessions start writing match reports for me. This one is authored by Dumbo, my Suzuki Jimny.
Indeed by the end of the 2015 season, inanimate objects had pretty much taken over my contributions to King Cricket, as you will no doubt find out come spring 2016 or whenever King Cricket gets around to publishing some of the later ones from the season. This one was published 13 December 2015.
In case you don’t delve that far into the King Cricket report, the links to the Visa commercials showing old cine footage of my dad slapping on the tanning oil and/or, perhaps even worse, the vine of me and mum on a pedalo, are worth the price of admission to this blog alone.
Mind you, this blog is free. As is King Cricket, which I also commend to you.
