Actually I visited Lord’s twice in the short week before Easter and on both occasions played real tennis.
Given the weather and my other activities, I got more tennis than cricket during those visits.
On the Tuesday, before the start of the cricket season, I had a really good game of doubles, partnering Graham Findlay for the first time and taking on some strong opponents. On paper we should have received some handicap but we played level and still prevailed over 90 minutes. The best I can remember me playing for a long time; perhaps the best I have ever played. Sadly, the CCTV camera stopped running a couple of seconds into our slot, so all I can show of the historic event is this warm-up shot from the hazard end.
Meanwhile Charley “The Gent Malloy” and I had planned to spend the first day of the season at Lord’s together, a bit of a tradition and, with Middlesex playing Essex, a desirable fixture for us both too. But Chas had to withdraw from the planned meet, so I arranged to play tennis first thing with a view to seeing a bit of cricket afterwards, all being well.
Another really good game of doubles, with an opportunity to partner Nick Evans for the first time since goodness-knows-when. Also a chance to play with Bill Taylor again, who was back on court playing competitively after quite a long absence. Again, we played level against the odds for my pairing. This time we lost by a smidgeon. I’d rather not talk about the four set points that went begging, nor my duff call on the opponents’ set point. Again I played well, I felt, but not as well as I had played on the Tuesday.
When I emerged from the dressing room, I ran into Ed Griffiths, Harry Whiteley and Arfan Akram from the London Cricket Trust, who were having an impromptu meeting (chat) about our next stage of activities. They asked me to join them.
In the interludes between the cricket conversation, Ed waxed lyrical about the real tennis, as only he can, suggesting it was a geriatric game, while studiously ignoring the rather good quartet from Prested Hall who were playing by then.
Then Ed collared young Nat, our apprentice professional, asking him why he wasn’t 60 years older than he looked and then asking Nat to provide a three word description of my real tennis.
Graceful, technically gifted…
…came Nat’s spontaneous reply, which I must say I thought was a fine contribution to the debate. I’m not sure what substances (or planet) Nat is on if he actually believes that, but it was a great answer for the context.
The weather then started to smile and Ed wanted to go off to take custody of a ludicrously fast and expensive car for reasons that he did explain but they got a little lost in translation. It’s probably something to do with late-onset-mid-life-crisis.
Ed made a rather disparaging remark about my car, Dumbo, perhaps unaware that Dumbo tends to hang out with ludicrously fast and expensive cars these days:
Two Lamborghinis, Dumbo & a Ferrari: in Waitrose Bayswater Car Park
But I digress.
I got to see some cricket.
I sat for a while in the Writing Room, but then really wanted to get a feel for the outdoor nature of the game, so took up a position in the Warner Stand…
Then, around 3:15, I started to realise how cold I felt and how close the time was getting to the “afternoon showers” predicted by the weather app and increasingly feeling likely. So I went home.
Still, I had played a good game of tennis, had a useful chat about the LCT (between the bants) and seen a couple of hours of cricket. That’s a pretty good day in my book.
On 18 May, for example, I visited my friend Rohan Candappa in Crouch End…
Crouch End’s equivalent of the bread line emerges daily outside the Sourdough Shop
… and then went on to meet Sophie Kent, one of the LCT Trustees, to take a look at Hornsey Cricket Club to discuss a prospective indoor cricket facility project (not an LCT one).
Half-close your eyes, wish and imagine…
On 9 June we had a face-to-face LCT meeting at The Oval. Dumbo, my car, was very excited at the opportunity to park within the hallowed grounds of The Oval, adding to his bucket-list collection of “cricket grounds within which I have parked”:
Why shouldn’t Dumbo have a bucket list like everyone else?
But I digress.
Birchmere Park via New Zealand, Hendon & The Woolwich Ferry
I started the day in New Zealand. Not physically of course, but I did Zoom over to Wellington for a short meeting on Z/Yen business.
Then I set off for Hendon, to Middlesex University for a game of real tennis, in which a sixteen-year-old utterly took me to pieces. I had pretty much been able to keep up with him a couple of weeks ago, but his regular play post GCSEs and the rapid improvement available only to people 40 or more years younger than me means that he is at least 10 handicap points better than me now and shall soon sail off into the stratosphere of only wanting to play with serious sporty folk and pros.
It doesn’t get much better than this
Having allowed bags of time to get to Birchmere Park in Thamesmead, I trusted Waze to sat nav me there and was led to expect to arrive more than an hour before the event, via the Woolwich Ferry. Time for a wander around when I get there, I thought.
I had never attempted the Woolwich Ferry before. My only real knowledge of it, from my youth until this day, was traffic announcements on Capital Radio & Radio London saying that only one ferry was operating and that there were hour-long queues as a result.
I didn’t listen to the radio on my journey from North-West to South-East London. Why should I? The sat nav does that traffic guidance job these days…
…except that the sat nav clearly didn’t know that today, as in my radio-listening days of yore, the ferry was operating with just one boat and the queues were some 40 minutes long.
The Woolwich Ferry from a Dumbo perspective
Still, it was another tick on my bucket-list and Dumbo was very excited to travel by boat again, for the first time since his trip to Ireland with us six years ago.
Fortunately I had allowed so much extra time for this journey, even with the long wait for the ferry, I still arrived at Birchmere Park about half-an-hour before the event.
New Zealanders have an expression for their weather – all four seasons in one day – which can apply to English weather too and certainly did apply on this day. In fact, I think I can safely say that I experienced all four seasons in one two-hour journey from Hendon to Thamesmead.
By the time I arrived at Birchmere Park it was unquestionably the rainy season. It was bucketing down.
My trusty weather app suggested that the rain would ease off after about 15 minutes and even suggested that it should stop completely to allow us a 45 minute event in dry weather.
And so it was. The weather smiled on us for our launch. Only the multiple rainbows in my picture present clues to the changeable weather on that afternoon.
As the Trustee of a cricket charity that is putting dozens of non-turf pitches into parks around London, I am glad to point out that only a non-turf pitch would be playable just a few minutes after the sort of deluge we experienced that afternoon.
Can you see the join?
These cricket pitch projects tend to need several organisations to come together. In this case, not only the LCT, the ECB and the local (Greenwich) council, but also Peabody and in particular its Thamesmead Regeneration arm. It was very interesting to meet the various dignitaries and activists from the area. I also sensed genuine interest in progressing more projects of this kind in that corner of Greater London.
I took my stroll around after the main event. Birchmere Park is a charming place with a lake and plenty of bird life on the far side of the park.
Sort of three hours of doubles for me, as Neil at Queen’s asked me at the last minute to help make up a doubles the evening before, so I was still a little sore from trying to keep up with Bomber, The Saint and The Biscuit (all well above my handicap/pay grade).
For our two hour session, Dominic and Bill (as last time), but this time we were joined by Snitch for the first hour. After Snitch left, we played a real tennis form of Canadian Doubles, with the server/receiver from the doubles pair grabbing the “honour” of doing the hard work as the single player until defeated.
I worked up quite a sweat, especially as the single towards the end. Then picked up the message from Fletch at Middlesex CCC that Kevin Hand wanted to interview me this evening about the London Cricket Trust and AB de Villiers, for BBC Radio London and BBC Essex, so we arranged that between the sweats and the showers.
Soon after I set off in Dumbo for home, I felt a touch of cramp starting in my foot and tried to wriggle my foot while braking for the lights…but instead slipped my foot onto the accelerator, requiring me to switch to emergency stop braking which made one hell of a screech.
Better than half-a-yard…or more or less the nick. Phew.
I signalled an apology to the driver in front, who seemed to be apoplectic with rage, leaping about in his seat and waving his arms. Then I realised that he was car-seat-jiving while listening to loud music. Perhaps he hadn’t even noticed my near miss.
When the lights changed, the jiver/driver in front zoomed off ahead of me, as fast as I have ever seen someone zoom out of Palliser Road. Whether he was just that sort of driver or desperate to get away from me I’ll never know.
Then some work in the sweatshop that is my little office at home on a sunny afternoon.
So I had another shower before heading to Lord’s – not for the start of the match but in good time for my “over 18 of the first innings” appointment with Fletch.
As I got out of the shower, the phone was ringing. Fletch.
Can we meet a little earlier than I said – like over 15?…
…sure, I’m just getting ready to leave…
I’m sorry, it’s because I have other media to do on the pavilion side in the interval after dropping you off…Eoin Morgan…
…should be no problem, Fletch, but I need to get off the phone so I can put on some clothes and leave. I know its radio, but I figure I’ll still need to put on some clothes to get through the street, the gates and to the media centre?…
…yes, I think that would be for the best.
In fact I was making good time and got to the Maida Vale/St John’s Wood borders, where I knew I could park easily, bang on 18:30. So I was in the ground and able to watch cricket for about half-an-hour before wending my way round to the media centre, where I enjoyed the commentator’s view of the last few overs and could hear the radio commentary of course…in the commentary box.
Below is my interview, which runs for about eight minutes if you want to hear it all.
In the commentary box was the artefact pictured below. It seems that the media centre tea-time spread was adorned by this artefact for each of the world cup matches at Lord’s, with the badges of that day’s competing nations shown on the helmets. Left over from the world cup final on Sunday:
Kevin Hand was apologetic about the shortness of the interview and the fact that he sort-of had to leave me to it while he photographed and tweeted about Eoin Morgan. But Kevin owed me no apology for that; it was great and timely publicity for the London Cricket Trust charity.
In any case, it seems Kevin might want me to do the odd additional slot with him this season. If for no other reason, I think he’s keen to disambiguate Ian Harris and Ged for any listeners who might, understandably, be bemused and/or amused.
Kevin also apologised to me when he discovered that I came in especially for the interview as I hadn’t planned to attend the match. Again no apology needed as I live so close by and in fact I am so glad I was there for the post world cup afterglow. The Middlesex v Essex match was even played on the world cup pitch.
In fact I stayed for just the first few overs of the Middlesex innings before heading home and catching the end of the match on the broadcast.
One final anecdote. When I mentioned during my interview that AB de Villiers had come out to Deptford for us just a few hours after landing from South Africa, Kevin wondered whether we might have tired him out ahead of his first appearance for Middlesex. I think the scorecard and match reports attest that Kevin needn’t have worried.
On which day did Middlesex come second twice while Middlesex Seconds came first once?
Now that would be a really good sports quiz question…if it were located somewhere other than this clearly dated blog page.
Confused? Let me explain.
I arranged to go to Radlett with Charley “The Gent” Malloy to see Middlesex v Essex. Long overdue, was our joint visit to Radlett – we had planned to go together to a second team match about four years ago but the rain put paid to that plan, although I did write up our replacement culinary gathering for King Cricket – click here or below:
Tempting the rain gods yet further, I contacted Fran to find out whether she and Simon intended to visit Radlett that day. Our previous attempt to watch cricket together at Uxbridge had been well soggy – click here or below:
Anyway, Fran and Simon were planning on showing up at Radlett, so we planned to all sit together.
Then Richard Goatley (Middlesex CCC’s Chief Executive) asked me if I could join him and some others that evening at the Oval for a London Playing Fields Foundation Sports Quiz Fundraiser. Not really my cup of tea, but given the functional connection with the nascent London Cricket Trust charity, for which I am a Trustee – more on that anon – I thought I should go. Richard promised me a lift from Radlett to the Oval if I wanted to help save the planet by limiting the number of cars criss-crossing London that day – I eagerly accepted that offer of a lift.
In fact, getting to Radlett by train was a doddle…
…certainly compared with Chas’s ludicrous hike across from Malloy Manor, which should have taken him 40 minutes and took more like an hour-and-40. I managed it door to door in not much more than an hour.
That enabled me to nab a few decent seats at the front, with Fran’s vertical challenges in mind. I also thought best to avoid the relentless sun, although I didn’t realise quite how cold the shade would be.
The night before the big day, I had a memory flash that Fran had written to me while I was in Mauritius in 1979 and that I still had the letter. She had…I did…I scanned & printed same and took the incriminating evidence with me to Radlett. Click here or below to see the letter and how all that went down:
Anyway, that correspondence proved an interesting conversation piece for the middle part of the Middlesex innings, during which time Middlesex turned a very promising start into a potential disaster.
While Middlesex rebuilt the innings to something approaching respectability (only 30-40 runs short, rather than the 60-70 runs short that the innings at one point threatened), Fran and Simon observed the Chas and Ged picnic much as a pair of field anthropologists might observe a remote tribe. They had read of such picnics on King Cricket and Ogblog of course, but never actually witnessed anything quite like it.
Not really picnickers themselves, Fran and Simon did bring some cashew nuts, enabling us to share and test the relative merits of Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Lidl in the cashew department. Result: little distinction in flavour, but the more expensive M&S ones are larger and would look posher served up in a bowl.
Unfortunately, just before the end of the Middlesex innings, Fran’s mum, who has been poorly of late, called with a minor emergency which Fran and Simon, kindly and dutifully, went off to attend. I hope I’ll be able to catch up with them again soon – e.g. at Merchant Taylor’s School.
Meanwhile I tried to convince Chas (and myself) that 250 might just prove to be enough runs (ha ha) while Essex set out to prove that even the 280-290 par score might not have been enough if Middlesex kept insisting on dropping catches all afternoon.
Mercifully I had to leave before suffering the indignity of the final nails being driven into Middlesex’s coffin by Essex – click here to see the scorecard and details – in short, Middlesex came second.
Then the drive across London, starring James Keightley behind the wheel, Bob Baxter (Chair of Middlesex Cricket Board) in the front seat, with the back seat navigators being Richard Goatley & me…especially me once we hit traffic and I figured that Waze might solve our navigation problems for us.
We got to the Oval in good time.
The opening overs of the charity event were stunning – it was a glorious sunny evening and we took drinks on that OCS sun deck.
Our team/table also comprised William Frewen (like James, from Teddington CC), Ed Griffiths, his nephew Alex (Richmond CC) and a young gentleman named Bruce (I think).
It soon dawned on me that everyone on our table, apart from me, was bringing quite a lot to the sports quizzing party. It also dawned on me that Richard and the others had sort-of assumed that I might be a useful addition to a sports quiz team. Oh dear.
Oh well, I am what I am, an’ I’m not ashamed.
Strangely, I was able to make a few useful contributions, more through general knowledge questions and sort-of knowing how quizzing works than through sports knowledge itself.
Example: as we were going in to the meal/quiz, James mentioned to me that the master of ceremonies/quizmaster/former Rugby Union international, Martin Bayfield, has appeared as Hagrid’s body in the Harry Potter movies. “Park that piece of trivia at the front of your brain, James,” I said, “that’s bound to come up in one of the questions.” It did.
It was a reasonably relaxed atmosphere on our table, at first. But as we started to do better and better on the leaderboard, the competitive spirit on the Middlesex table started to really take hold.
Heading up the Middlesex competitive spirit big time was Ed Griffiths. I have got to know Ed quite well over the last few months, as he is leading on our London Cricket Trust initiative, to put cricket facilities into parks and commons across London. I have a huge amount of admiration for the way Ed is gently but relentlessly driving our initiative forward. I’ll be writing a fair bit more about the London Cricket Trust in the coming months.
So I suppose it should come as no surprise that Ed is a very competitive chap. But his response to the conclusion of the sports quiz, when it was announced that we had come second (out of sixteen), had to be seen to be believed.
At first I thought Ed was joking, as I might have done, melodramatically bemoaning our “close but no cigar” outcome. But when he nearly smashed a glass in frustration and then went to the quiz adjudication table in order to audit and question the results, several of us realised that Ed really was a ball of combative anger.
Ed returned to our table with the news that we had lost by a mere two points, which, given the charitable circumstances, was news that would satisfy less driven individuals (e.g. me) to conclude that we had done really well and that it was for charity after all and that, but for fortune, we might even have won.
Yet the closeness of the defeat seemed to anger and frustrate Ed yet further. He nearly smashed a wine glass again. Writing this up five days later, I think Ed Griffiths might just about be over the disappointment now…but perhaps not. Middlesex had come second again. Albeit this time in a field of 16 rather than a field of two.
Coincidentally, sitting at the next table to us, was a lady who kept looking across at us and who eventually came over to introduce herself; Tom Lace’s mum. Tom is one of our up and coming second team players who, as the coincidence grows, also plays for Teddington CC. Tom’s mum went on to take selfie photos of herself with William and James from Teddington. I am absolutely sure that breakfast time in the Lace household the next morning will have thrilled young Tom, when mum showed him the evidence of her fun evening with the Middlesex CCC/Teddington CC great and good. In my (limited) experience, youngsters love that sort of thing.
On the evening, I chose not to mention that Tom Lace is (the coincidence simply grows to bonkers proportions) my long-form kit sponsorship player this year. I surmised that such news would have been a relative sub-plot to what was already a bit of a sub-plot, so I kept schtum about that.
But I don’t suppose anyone at that fundraiser was left in any doubt that Middlesex had attended and contributed to the evening big time. Not only did we come second in the quiz (I will get over it eventually, really I will) but two of our number bid very generously in the auction. Ed Griffiths bought tickets to a show he didn’t even know existed (until he was bidding for it), while William Frewen procured one of Harry Kane’s football boots.
As William lives quite near me, I offered to cab him and his new boot home on my way. But I signally failed to find a cab or Uber at the end of the evening…
South of the river? Do me a favour!
…so William and I walked to Vauxhall together and journeyed by tube, with William carrying an unfeasibly expensive soccer boot in a presentation box that had been cunningly disguised, through the use of a simple cardboard box exterior as…
…any old cardboard box. Fiendish.
William and I sat on the Victoria Line train discussing the finer details of Middlesex Cricket Board governance and its integration into Middlesex Cricket…like you do.
How can I win England the World Cup with only one soccer boot?It was a fitting end to an odd but hugely memorable day.
The original idea for this expedition was to be a day at the Essex v Lancashire cricket match with Escamillo Escapillo as well as Charles. Indeed, Charles had also been hoping to line up Nigel “Father Barry White” Hinks – a Lancashire supporter, like Escamillo Escapillo – but in the end neither of the Lancastrians could make it.
With the cricket season still new and the weather set fair (at long last), I was still up for it, so we arranged that I would drive over to Malloy Manor, leave Dumbo in safe custody there, while Charley drove us to Chelmsford for the day.
Charley was on hand to greet me as I arrived along the driveway of Malloy Manor – he then directed me to a very specific parking place he had in mind for Dumbo. It’s protocol galore in such rarefied parts of the land, it seems.
I had the opportunity to greet Mrs Malloy briefly, but Charley wanted to keep the pre-expedition pleasantries to a minimum, as he was convinced that we needed to get to the members’ car park early. As it happens, Chas was right.
But it also meant that I didn’t get to greet The Boy Malloy, who it transpired was also in the house at that hour, as he is on late shift at the moment. That made me feel badly about not having even shouted out a “hello” to the lad, although The Boy could, of course, have come down to say hello to me. The Boy was probably seething with envy in his room, envisaging me and Chas relaxing all day in the sun at Chelmsford, while he would be toiling on a late day at work.
Before the start of play – Chelmsford looked a picture
Chas and I were in the ground and well positioned in the Tom Pearce stand by about 10:20. We would have been in place five minutes sooner, but Chas started to mount the wrong staircase for his favourite spot, realising his mistake quite late in the ascent and displaying considerable embarrassment at his error.
“You’re going to blog that mistake, aren’t you?” said Chas.
“How many years have you been coming here?” I asked.
It was a gloriously sunny day. I took the above picture and zapped it to Escamillo Escapillo, with a kind note:
Missing you already.
We watched the whole of the first session from Chas’s favourite, elevated in the Tom Pearce, spot. But while there, Chas spotted that, across the way, a small stand with green chairs has been erected, where formerly there were just some higgledy-piggledy loose seats. It was from that shady spot three years ago we had witnessed Essex v the Australians and a steward who seemed to have St Vitas Dance:
“That looks tempting for the second session”, said Chas.
“I can see some seats at the front, by an aisle, that would certainly do the job”, I agreed. So that’s where we went for the second session and the start of the third. A shadier spot for the hottest part of the day with an excellent view.
Soon after we arrived in that small green stand, a gentleman with a dog, Clive, arrived and sat near us.
Meet Clive
Chas and I remarked afterwards that, although people talk about County Championship cricket being attended by “one man and his dog”, this was the first time we’d ever seen (or at least noticed) a man with a dog at the cricket.
It transpires that the dog’s attendance is perfectly permissible at Chelmsford. Chas wondered whether the same applies at Lord’s.
“Only if the dog is of the requisite pedigree and from the right sort of family, I should imagine”, I mused.
Clive displayed extreme indifference to the cricket at times, which encouraged me to ask permission to photograph him and blog his pictures. A King Cricket piece on this matter is ready and will no doubt appear quite soon, by King Cricket standards. It will be worth it.
Having enjoyed my ham sandwich in the Tom Pearce (Chas went for cheese initially), I felt ready for my cheese sandwich just before tea – as Chas indeed felt ready for his ham.
But, horror of horrors, it transpired that Chas had eaten my cheese sandwich, not his own.
I should perhaps explain that it is Mrs Malloy’s charming habit to write a little personalised note in each sandwich, describing in detail the delights therein. Sometimes she will prepare different sandwiches for different people. She knows that I don’t like egg, for example, while Chas normally would opt for egg ahead of cheese.
As good fortune would have it, the menu was exactly the same for both of us on this occasion, so the fact that Chas had eaten “my” cheese sandwich rather than his own ought to have made no difference. But I threatened to snitch on Chas for this error. In fact, perhaps fearful of my squealing, Chas himself confessed to that misdemeanour when we returned to Malloy Manor.
Parenthetically, Mrs Malloy seemed irritated and a little anxious about Chas’s mistake, chastising him for his carelessness. Also parenthetically, I have displayed some strange symptoms in the subsequent days, which Daisy has diagnosed as mild arsenic poisoning. Daisy and I are both absolutely sure that these must be entirely unrelated matters.
But I digress.
Chas and I moved on to The Boy Malloy’s favourite side-on view (beyond the members area) for most of the final session of play, taking in some early evening spring sunshine.
Essex had been on the wrong end of this match for much of the day, but as the day unfolded they were right back in the contest, ending up, in my view, a smidgen ahead.
Late in the day we got a response from Escamillo Escapillo to my morning message. I wanted to take and send him a photo of the sunset, but while trying to mug the phone into a suitable light setting, ended up taking and sending a short video instead:
I told Escamillo that it had been super entertaining cricket – which it had.
When Chas and I returned to Malloy Manor, in addition to Chas’s chastisement for the sandwich swap error, I also got a quick tour of the lovely garden and a look at a wonderfully moving cricket team photograph, including Chas’s father, taken in a German prisoner of war camp.
It had been a great day. The weather had smiled on us and the cricket had been excellent. An especially memorable day of county championship cricket.
In early May I received an e-mail from John White, out of the blue:
I have been invited to the Oval on 19th July and have been asked if I would like to bring a friend! It could only be you Ian. Are you free? We will be the guest of WE Communications and we get to go in the members area.
My first thought was that this must be the test match, but when I looked up the date I discovered that it was an evening domestic T20 match between Surrey and Essex.
John’s e-mail was not terribly informative and (after accepting the invitation with relish) I didn’t give the event a great deal of thought again until it was imminent.
As it happens, on the day, I was working from home, interrupted only by a marathon session of tennis mid morning at Lord’s.
On reflection, I should have pipped John an e-mail about the extent to which this might be formal entertaining, mode of dress, etc., but instead I picked up Marcus’s e-mail, Googled WE Communications and decided for myself that this must be corporate entertaining of some scale and that I’d better turn up suited and booted. I even put my little case of business cards in my jacket pocket.
As it turned out, the evening was in fact a very informal set up with Marcus (who is a Surrey member), his colleague Josh (who is in fact a fellow MCC yellow-carder), me and John. All the others were in “dress-down, evening out” attire.
It was a very enjoyable evening. Really good company; people who know and enjoy their cricket while at the same time keeping the conversation suitably varied and interesting on many topics.
I really liked that feeling of neutrality at the match. I was watching cricket, simply hoping to see a good match, without any emotional equity in the result. It was strangely refreshing. In particular I think the neutrality worked for me because I was in good company.
After the game, although John was demob happy, he was keen to start his long journey home and I was keen to get home quite early as I had a long working day ahead the next day.
The evening was great fun; I’m sure we’ll do something like that again next season – perhaps at Lord’s, so that Marcus can experience that slightly oblivious feeling of cricket watching neutrality.
It seemed like a brilliant idea when I/we arranged the trip.
Middlesex were playing Essex in the first ever round of day/night county championship cricket matches. I’d drive out to Prested Hall on the Tuesday morning, drop my bags, have a real tennis lesson, join Charley “The Gent” at Chelmsford for cricket on the Tuesday afternoon, return to Prested after stumps at night, check out/play real tennis the next morning, drive back to Chelmsford for at least a couple of sessions play Wednesday, then head back to London in reasonable time towards the end of that day.
Indeed, it was a pretty brilliant idea, confounded in part only by the weather “turning Charley on us” (as it were) and Middlesex’s dismal performance. Of course the latter was no disappointment to Charley “The Gent” Malloy, who is enjoying watching his team ride high in the county championship this season.
The weather forecast for Tuesday was changing on an almost hourly basis. Charley at one point Monday messaged me to see if I still wanted to give it a go, but when I explained that I was coming out to deepest Essex anyway, we agreed to meet at the ground Tuesday come what may.
In the morning, at Prested, I had the honour (and pleasant surprise) of getting my real tennis lesson from Rob Fahey, the former and longest-reigning world champion. I doubt if I was utilising even a tiny fraction of his skills and knowledge, but I learnt a great deal and he was a thoroughly delightful coach for that hour. He filled my head with all sorts of stuff that will probably come in handy down stream but which I have so far been utterly unable to put into practice. A few simple tips on placement of shots and serves are already coming in handy.
Then to my apartment room in the health centre area. Comfortable-looking and very large – there would even be room for Janie, Benjy the Baritone Uke and all of our attendant paraphernalia in one of those, I noted for future reference.
Then a very dingy drive to Chelmsford, but it wasn’t raining and the forecast suggested that we might get a few hours of play before the rain set in for the evening. But five minutes before play was due to start, an unscheduled, sharp shower put paid to the prospects of play for a while.
Chas and I braved the pavilion while all that was going on, which gave us a chance to catch up on news and gossip over coffee (not bad stuff and just one nicker per shot) plus some headway into Mrs Malloy’s splendid bap sandwiches.
The weather looked reasonably promising again for a while; they even announced a 16:25 start and the Middlesex players came out to warm up. But almost inevitably it started to rain again at 16:20. Looking at the forecast and the rain radar, Chas and I agreed that the prospects of play now were close to zero and that we had cunningly focused most of our attention on the more perishable elements of the picnic, allowing the less perishable elements to return the next day.
I returned in the driving rain to Prested Hall, where I was able to catch up on my reading and blogging (as well as sleep) in that comfortable appartment/room during the evening and into the next morning. I had a very tasty light bistro meal in the evening there, again noting that this would more than do the job for me and Daisy on a future visit.
In the morning, after checking out of my room, I played real tennis against a very charming gentleman who managed to capitalise well on all the new ideas drifting around my head (but not onto my racket) from yesterday’s lesson. Why I should suddenly start over-hitting and mistiming my shots in these circumstances is beyond me.
I tried a bit of bestial roaring when stretching for difficult gets and my opponent responded in kind, less often as I was making him stretch less. We were on the Prested Glass court – across the other side of the galleries is the Prested Far court, where a far finer exponent of bestial roaring than either of us was playing that hour.
The upshot was, I just couldn’t get any sort of rhythm going and my opponent played really well for his handicap. Still, I couldn’t have lost to a nicer chap, who celebrated his win by buying me a coffee in the bistro afterwards. This was good timing, as once he had gone and I had done some warm-down stretches and showered, I was ready to say goodbye to the friendly, helpful Prested team and head back to Chelmsford.
Chelmsford was once again well gloomy; I even drove through some drizzle as I approached town. But the cricket ground itself was dry and the forecast was far more promising than Tuesday’s.
Indeed, although we got the occasional tiny bit of drizzle (perhaps merely mizzle) during the day, it mostly stayed dry; just seriously dark and gloomy throughout the day. Just as well this was a floodlit match, as I doubt if there would have been much if any play with a conventional red ball and no floodlights.
Even though we had spent some time together the previous day, Charley The Gent and I had no difficulty filling several more hours with chat. Tales of derring do from playing and watching matches in years gone by. A bit more news and gossip. Bants, although it is hard to bant too much when the match is so one -sided – click here for scorecard. The locals who were sitting around us seemed to enjoy some of our chirp, so it can’t have been too bad.
We were in Charley’s favourite position at the front of the Tom Pearce stand. At times we both felt a bit chilly and took turns taking a brisk stroll to get coffees from the pavilion.
There was a reasonably sized crowd but I’m sure it would have been so much better had the weather played ball; especially as Essex were doing so well.
Dot (Mrs Malloy) did us proud with the bap/sarnies yet again; corned beef, ham and cheese for me – I think Chas had some egg; we each got personalised sandwich boxes with kind notes from Dot; Chas’s note was signed off “wifey” which seemed rather quaint to me.
I wanted to get home in reasonable time, so when Essex declared soon after 20:30, that seemed the perfect moment for me to bow out after my very first taste of pink ball cricket. We’d had a really enjoyable couple of days.
At last, the new season proper, i.e. a day of live cricket at Lord’s with Charley “The Gent” Malloy.
I made something close to our traditional picnic, with Alaskan salmon bagels, plus some variations on a theme, using Brunswick ham and some soft cheese with chives for a slightly more smokey-flavoured afternoon roll.
A bottle of Gewurtztraminer to help the salmon go down – I might have gone Gewurtz rather than Riesling before, but tend to go Riesling for Chas (who likes that stuff) but thought that today was the day to broaden his horizons just a tad. Thanks to Edwardian over on King Cricket for recently tweaking my memory on that idea.
The white wine aspect worked for sure; Chas was so convinced that Mrs Malloy would like the Gewurtztraminer, he even photographed the label so he could hunt down the wine.
Chas’s desire to please his good lady was a charming and endearing theme, until his ulterior motive was revealed. This Monday is Mrs Malloy’s birthday and also day four of this Lord’s match. Chas was hoping (I think more than expecting) that Mrs Malloy might enjoy part of her birthday treat being a visit to Lord’s. Given the match position, the weather forecast and Mrs Malloy’s predisposition towards the shorter forms of the game, I’d offer long odds on seeing the Malloys at Lord’s this Monday.
We sat in our traditional, back-breaking death row seats (front row of the pavilion terrace) for the first session and quite deep into the second; unable to move until Sam Robson had secured his hundred.
A charming brand new Middlesex member, named Barry (not Father Barry I hasten to add), joined us on death row for a while, towards the end of the morning session – he really seemed to be delighting in the benefits of his new membership.
When Chas and I finally moved, we went for the further reaches of the Grandstand, to which we had to walk the long way round while workmen are putting the finishing touches on the new Warner Stand. We found a nice quiet spot at the front of the Grandstand, wonderfully close to the action, as the pitch in use for this match is well to the north of the square.
Shortly after tea, play was suspended for bad light. I was hopeful that some slightly better looking light might be on its way but only the umpires returned periodically to test the light and shake their heads.
This is a picture from the Eric Hollies Stand in 2008, you understand, not the charming couple we met in the Lord’s Grandstand in 2017. Thanks to Charles for the picture.
It started to get quite cold, but Chas and I naturally braved it until the umpires bowed to the inevitable.
In the meantime, we made some more headway into the delicious bottle of Rioja Chas had brought. This was ideal for the Brunswick ham and soft cheese rolls; it also warmed us up as the afternoon got cooler.
I was being a little careful with my wine intake – my limits are lowering as the years go on – but Chas was keen neither to waste any nor take any of the red home with him, so he polished off the Rioja before we went our separate ways home.
As Chas said in his e-mail to me the next day:
I must have seen the Red off too quickly as I was a little wobbly on the way home!!
A day out in Chelmsford, reported upon at length on the King Cricket website.
This season my possessions are taking an increasing role in proceedings, writing many of my King Cricket match reports for me. Dumbo, the Suzuki Jimny started this trend while we were in Ireland – click here. Dumbo continued this trend on a half-day out to Uxbridge, linked through this posting here. There will be more to come from Dumbo, once King Cricket gets around to publishing it.
To understand my King Cricket match reports you need to know that:
Ged and Daisy are nicknames/noms de plume for me and Janie. Friends are all referred to pseudonymously;
King Cricket match reports have strict rules: “If it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. If it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.”
I remembered that we had done the Lord’s T20 thing with John and family a couple of times, but it wasn’t until I found diary/e-mail references to this Sunday afternoon gig that I realised that there were several years between visits.
I recall that, in many ways, the 2010 outing was more successful. None of the Friday afternoon/evening stress – this was a Sunday afternoon outing in good weather.
I think the girls had genuinely enjoyed the Lord’s visit in 2007 so had been really looking forward to this afternoon visit and they weren’t disappointed.
John was possibly a little disappointed by the result – another “close but no cigar” match for Essex. Here is a link to the scorecard.
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