Long To Rain Over Us, England v West Indies, Edgbaston, Days One and Two, 7 & 8 June 2012

Photo, thanks to Charles Bartlett, probably unconnected…unless Chas was building an ark and starting to populate it during this trip

It rained.

There shouldn’t be much else to say.

It rained for the entirety of our visit.

When I started typing the headline of this piece, I typed “Wet Indies” rather than “West Indies” by mistake. Or was it a mistake? Spooky.

To add to the disappointment of this visit, Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett had, as usual, organised a blinder of a visit, including our front row seats in the Raglan Stand and nets early in the evening on the day before the test, at Harborne CC, just up the road from our residence at Harborne Hall.

We had a roadworks/lane closure filled journey up to Birmingham. Chas had kindly offered to give me a lift from the outer reaches of the Central Line (Redbridge? Gants Hill?), so the three of us (including Nick) had plenty of time to bicker about music choices in the car.

If I recall correctly, Chas and I were both on a bit of an electric blues odyssey at that time, so (two to one) we mostly settled on Bo Diddley and Muddy Waters for that journey. In any case, I’m listening to my playlist of those artistes to tweak my memory as I write.

We crawled through Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire in glorious sunshine, secure in the knowledge that we had allowed plenty of time to get to our net; we thought that we were merely losing “decompress” time between the journey and the net. Not quite Kim’s levels of ludicrously OCD “plenty of time” – see this write up in recent memory at the time of writing – but still plenty of time.

However, once we were on the M6 scooting through the West Midlands getting close to Birmingham, we saw some dark sky ahead. rather a lot of it. Rain clouds. Wet rain. Very wet rain. We arrived at Harborne Hall in what could only be described as a tropical-style storm. That storm passed pretty soon after we arrived, but we more or less knew that the soaking was bound to have put our nets at risk. We went down to Harborne CC in hope more than expectation, only to have our fears confirmed. Pools on the outfield and around the nets. No chance of a net.

We’d seen the gloomy weather forecast for the first two days of the test, of course, but still we hoped for a further 36 hours.

I remember little about our two evenings in Harborne that year. I think we went to Harborne’s very satisfactory Chinese restaurant, Henry Wong, one of the evenings, I think that first night. Perhaps the others can remember where else we went.

I remember a lot of sitting around at Harborne Hall. I remember the other three deciding to go down to the ground, despite the pouring rain and no sign of respite. I remember staying back, making some notes about Heavy Rollers visits from years gone by, which are now proving to be a most useful starting point for this blogging.

I also remember how much Harborne Hall had declined since our last visit. Not down to Beechwood Hotel levels – those depths would take some plumbing – but still decline. Harborne Hall had been the VSO conference centre, run along similar lines to The Children’s Society’s Wadderton. But it seemed that VSO had sold (or at least put under management and attempted to commercialise) Harborne Hall. The resulting approach had subtracted almost all of the friendly, folksy character of the place, leaving only the distressed gentility and a rather grasping approach to commercialism.

The nadir for our visit was on the final morning, when Nigel made the mistake of asking for an additional slice of toast with his breakfast and was informed that he would be charged extra for that extra slice. Did I see steam starting to come from Nigel’s ears? I don’t remember exactly how this matter was resolved. Nigel probably does recall.

The other occupants of Harborne Hall were now mostly peripatetic tradesmen. We played some pool and I think darts with some of them, at least one of the evenings, during that stay. We more or less held our own. Perhaps they were more inebriated or had failed to mis-spend their youths playing those games any more than we had.

I also don’t remember when we bailed out of this hopeless situation. I don’t think we stuck around too deep into the second day. I don’t even remember whether Chas gave me a lift back to the Essex borders or whether I stuck with my original plan to take the train home after the game.

It was the first time that the first two days of a test match had been entirely rained off in England since 1964. Not even the modern drainage could save play from that type of relentless rain. This telegraph piece has a lovely photo.

Despite the fact that we saw precisely nothing of this match live, it still counts as one of our Heavy Rollers matches in my view, so here is the scorecard. No surprises that the match was a draw, but there was a surprising stand between Dinesh Ramdin and Tino “mind the windows” Best who put on nearly 150 for the last wicket, Tino managing a batting-career-defining 95 of them.

Crickey, I have generated some 900 words, merely to elaborate on the main point, which I managed to get across in the first two words.

It rained.

Postscript: Nigel kindly submitted a wonderful guest piece with his own take on this particular (non) event:

Long To Rain Over Us – Heavy Rollers Edgbaston Trip 2012 – Nigel Hinks’s Take, 6 to 8 June 2012

Two Wheels On My Roller, But I Keep Rolling Along…England v India Days One and Two, Edgbaston, 10 & 11 August 2011

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Pretty much everything I want to say about this event, has been said at King Cricket, click the link below.

I think it is fair to say that matters did not go according to plan in 2011, especially as far as Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett was concerned, for reasons explained in sufficient gory detail in the King Cricket piece I wrote about our 2011 visit to the Edgbaston test – click here or below:

England v India, Edgbaston Test match report

If anything ever happens to the King Cricket website, I have scraped the piece to Ogblog and you can click and read all about it here instead…

…except, of course, you can’t read ALL about it at King Cricket, because of that site’s reporting rules…

…so here is the scorecard if you want to know how the match turned out.

Also there was the backdrop of the riots that summer, which were unfolding as we arrived and during our stay, although leafy Harborne seemed unaware of or at least untouched by them.

Naturally Nigel and I made the most of it without Chas. It would be cruel to harp on about the extent to which we were nevertheless able to enjoy ourselves despite Chas’s indisposition. In any case, I doubtless harped sufficiently when I saw Charles again a bit later that season.

It must have been especially galling for Chas as I seem to recall he had gone to a great deal of trouble that year to secure our “honorary” front row seats, book nets, book rooms, book an Indian feast…oy!

I believe that I drove up that year having booked the extra night after the second day’s play. That might have been Nobby’s only visit to Harborne Hall.

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Nobby never really acquired a taste for cricket…unlike Dumbo subsequently...but I digress.

 

A Scaled Down Edgbaston Test Visit, One Night At Harborne Hall, Then England v Pakistan Day One, 5 & 6 August 2010

With grateful thanks to Dan Steed for the pictures

There could be a fierce debate among the Heavy Rollers as to whether this match qualifies as a Heavy Rollers event at all.

The match was scheduled to start on a Friday and half of Edgbaston was a building site for this match, so most of the rollers chose to absent themselves this year. Also, Anita was in hospital recovering from an op, so I think David & Dan were unable to join us the evening before the match.

Anyway, the Edgbaston party comprised four diehards: me, Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett, David and Dan Steed.

Chas’s e-mail to me, cc: Dan & David after the event provides some evidence:

Just a quick note to all and thanks for a great day – so lucky with the weather.

Ian, special thanks for your generosity, so much appreciated, I will look for an Essex match within the next few weeks and also let you know about the face off at lords when I have that date!

David, Thanks fro taking us to the Hospital to see Anita, so pleased she is recovering well – keep me posted

Dan, don’t forget the link for the photos.

I will research the matches for next year. To include Edgbaston, Lords and the Oval, so far it looks to be India and Sri Lanka.

Regards

Charles.

PS – just thought I would mention it that I did say England needed 400 in the first innings, so not to bat again, its gets boring being so right so often!!

We stayed at Harborne Hall and my records show that my generosity extended to a meal at Henry Wong‘s on the night before the match – I think just me and Chas.

I recall that, before dinner, Chas and I visited Anita in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, which was brand new that summer. She was in good spirits while recuperating and was in superb spirits when we saw her again, in more convivial circumstances, the following year.

As for the cricket, I recall Edgbaston looking quite sad in its building-site-fulness and the Day One crowd was quite sparse.

We were in exile in the RES Wyatt Stand, some distance from our normal seats in the Priory Stand (subsequently a few blocks round in the Raglan Stand).

I also recall many locals (including Dan) griping about the prices that year – they felt that Warwickshire CCC had failed to notice the unattractiveness of this match in the circumstances and still tried to charge “Ashes prices”.

Not the best Pakistan performance we’ve ever seen

I’m not quite sure how Chas’s point about England scoring 400+ is vindicated by the ultimate scorecard, click here, but he must have known what he was talking about at the time.

Shilpa Patel, Alec Stewart, Michael Vaughan and Jonathan Agnew all furiously debating whatever it was that Charley the Gent might have been going on about.

Here’s the note from Dan in response to Charley’s note:

Few photos from the building site – didn’t take too many! The score board ones say it all really. Great day, apologies its taken me a few weeks to send.

Ian/Charles, Take care all and see you again next year at the Oval…….hopefully?!!

P.S. Ian, forgot to give you your Z/Yen cap back – if you need it let me know your address and I will post it?

I never got round to asking for my cap back. I wonder (in April 2020, nearly 10 years later) if it is too late to ask?

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:

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.

Heavy Rollers In Edgbaston and Stirchley, Primarily For England v South Africa Days Two and Three, 30 July to 1 August 2008

We have Charles Bartlett to thank for the most wonderful relic from this trip: a superb stack of pictures – 80 of them – click here to see them all. I’ll pepper this piece with just a few.

30 July 2008

This was one of those rare occasions that the test started on a Wednesday and so we actually travelled up on the first day and watched days 2 and 3.

Thus we gathered for pre match cricket in David Steed’s local park in Stirchley.

Adam was not impressed with his batting performance

Never mind Adam’s body language above, that muck-about game on David’s local green went well for Adam and did not go at all well for me, as evidenced by this page of my jotter.

2006 Muck About Cricket

Nigel “Father Barry” (and son) did well, as did a local lad, Craig, who wandered along and asked if he could play with us.

Harish (Harsha Ghoble) also had a good go, although I do recall bowling him on one occasion with one of my moon balls which descended vertically onto the stumps. “How are you supposed to play a ball like that?”, complained Harish. Nigel then dispatched my next, similar ball for six. “Like that”, said Nigel.

I also recall lots of bites on my legs afterwards. Yet I was (uniquely amongst those in the following photo) wearing long trousers.

As darkness fell…

…then on to David and Anita’s place for a super barby:

Super barby at Steed Towers

31 July 2008

Chas and perhaps some of the others must have gone for a good walk the next morning, in the grounds around Harborne House…

Signs of some walking around Harborne House…

…while Harish and I, great athletes both, exerted ourselves with some morning sports activity:

For those looking in black and white, Ian’s the one dressed in red…

Some signs of mis-spent youth there; not least Ian’s ability to play a little better after a couple of bevvies.

Then the annual Heavy Roller shirt ceremony…

…for some reason Chas got a unique, pink one. As I’m the Middlesex supporter among us, “it should have been me”…

…then off we go to Edgbaston.

All action it was. Could this have been the year that someone started a row with Nigel 20 minutes before the start of play asking him to sit down?

We had the honour of witnessing “that” over from Flintoff to Kallis:

The crowd was just a little bit involved.

We’re all standing now (apart from Hippity and Monkey-Face)!

I think we went to Zizzis that night – correct me if I’m wrong, folks

1 August 2008

We did it all again! But Chas didn’t take pictures that day.

Want to know what happened in the cricket? – here is the scorecard – yes, click here.

I made my own way home by train, as oft I do. Unusually, though, Nigel and Chas stayed on an extra day, having decided to brave the Eric Hollies Stand.

Aftermath – Chas and Nigel in the Eric Hollies

There are plenty of pictures in that photo album, but I’d really like one or both of the lads to write a short side piece describing their very different day “on the other side”…

…the dark side…

…with brigades of Amy Winehouses…

…and extra police protection. Had the fuzz been tipped off that Chas and Nige were coming?

Do tell, fellas.

Postscript: Nigel wrote up the Eric Hollies experience for King Cricket. King Cricket published the piece 8 November 2017 – here.

Just in case anything ever happens to King Cricket, a scrape of that piece may be found here.

Indeed, other memories from any of us much appreciated, in the comments section or by e-mail ahead of a post script.

England v West Indies, Day One and Day Two, Old Trafford Test, June 7 & 8, 2007

The usual Heavy Rollers gig is Edgbaston, of course, but this year there was to be no test match in Brum.

Indeed, there has been much musing and debate since June 2007 as to whether this outing comprises a Heavy Rollers event or not.

In short, it does as far as I am concerned.

The evening before the match started, we were supposed to have a net at Old Trafford.  Charles had arranged it all.  The Old Trafford lot had been reluctant at first, priority for test match teams, can’t have oiks in the same nets as international players, blah blah.  But when Chas explained that it was our tradition to net at Edgbaston the night before the match (based on a sample of one previous occasion, the year before, negotiated through similar reluctance), someone at Old Trafford was daft enough to relent and take our booking…but was then too polite to tell anyone to keep the place was open for us.

Result – disappointment the night before – only consolation being an amazing meal at Yang Sing (yes, my idea, yes, I know what I am doing, Chinese food-wise) for the four of us who had ventured that far north.  Given the fuss-pot group involved: Nick, Harish, Charles and “me-no-fuss-pot” , the Yang Sing team worked wonders with a feast with plenty of food for all to enjoy.

The first day at the test was a day to watch England batting pretty well.  Chas was still fidgeting about the net; I suggested that our best chance of real redress (i.e. a net) was to try and get them to allow us a net the next morning before the start of play.  So we went to see the indoor school people and managed to find a suitably apologetic and sympathetic lady.  She agreed that we had been seriously inconvenienced, to the extent that merely getting our money back was not adequate; she also managed to arrange for us to have our net at 9:00 am, before play the next day.  She even arranged for us to have a parking space at Old Trafford when the inevitable question came up.  Yes, Chas could then leave the car at Old Trafford all day.  Quite a result.

So in the end, we were able to drive into old Trafford for Day two of the test early in the morning, as if we owned the place.  Into the nets and let the fun commence.  Around the time I came to have my bat, a small posse of West Indian stars turned up in the adjoining net.  I especially remember Ravi Rampaul bowling to Shiv Chanderpaul.  I also remember having to encourage the heavy roller guys to bowl at me rather than rubbernecking at the adjoining nets.

Whether Shiv Chanderpaul rubbernecked to observe my technique I couldn’t say, as naturally I was concentrating hard on my batting – watching the ball all the time, all the way.  But Shiv did make a 50 that day, so I suspect he picked up a few ideas through observation in those nets.

The day got weirder once we were in our seats.  Someone behind us spent more or less the whole day on his feet in a Borat mankini.  He and his mates were also doing some strange business, passing around a whole cooked chicken while singing its praises.  And of course the inevitable Old Trafford beer snakes etc., as was the case Day One.

I also ran into Mike Redfern and a bunch of his mates from the Red Bat Cricket Collective. I noticed the Red Bat shirts walking past us and stopped the guys, asking them if they were by any chance still in touch with Mike.  “We sure are – he’s sitting over there with us”, was the reply.  Really nice to see him again.

Of course we went home at the end of Day Two (driving off into the sunset straight from the ground), but the test remained weird after we left Manchester, with a streaker incident the next day. Strangely, that incident was recently (at the time of writing, December 2015) reminisced about on King Cricket – here.

For the actual cricket, here’s the scorecard.

A Conversation With My Neighbour When Staying at the Beechwood Hotel, 24 to 26 May 2006

The following is a note I wrote up on my jotter while staying at the “hell hole” that was the Beechwood Hotel in Edgbaston for the Sri Lanka test match in May 2006, as written up comprehensively – click here.

The Beechwood Garden and Roller. With thanks to Charles Bartlett for this picture.
The Beechwood Garden and Roller.
With thanks to Charles Bartlett for this picture.

It relates to a conversation I had with my next door neighbour.

The door to the next room was wide open. At first I thought my neighbour was engaged in conversation with someone – perhaps in the room but unseen by me, perhaps on his mobile phone. As I put the key into the lock of my door, he yelled out, unmistakably at me, “hello young fella. We’re neighbours, mate”.

‘Young fella’ is an endearing moniker once you get to my age. (These days only stewards at Lord’s and front of house staff at the Wigmore Hall still seem to use it for me.)

I took a couple of steps back and greeted my neighbour. He was certainly alone in the room and as far as I could tell had not been talking to anyone other than himself before I arrived.

He was bare chested – a strange sight in an old Victorian house/hotel in that Midlands City in spring – indeed I was going to my room to get an extra layer for the evening. He was drinking a can of lager.

“Sorry mate, I’m a bit pissed”, he said. It was 18:30 – probably par for his course.

“No problem”, I replied, “why not? You enjoy yourself.”

“That’s the spirit”, said my neighbour, “you going out for the evening?”

“That’s right”, I said.

“Well you have a good time, mate”, said my neighbour.

“And you have a good evening too”, I replied.

“That’s the spirit, mate”, he hollered after me as I scuttled the few steps along the corridor, quickly opened up the door to my room, grabbed my jersey, locked up again and fled for the evening.

The Worst Place We Have Ever Stayed In For Cricket, England v Sri Lanka at Edgbaston, 25 & 26 May 2006

The Beechwood Hotel Garden and Roller. With thanks to Charles Bartlett for this picture.

How did our regular Edgbaston (and occasionally other grounds) visiting group, the Heavy Rollers, end up staying at possibly the worst hotel of all time? After all, we comprise a bunch of reasonably discerning, sensible people.

The very worst hotels only happen to stupid people, right?  Wrong.

But this event does needs some context and explanation in our defence before the exposition.

Context

For several years, our excursion was based around the Wadderton Conference Centre, which was the Children’s Society place in rural Worcestershire, just outside Birmingham. David Steed, who was one of our number in the Heavy Rollers, ran the place and lived on site. The Children’s Society was pleased for a bit of income from guests in the quiet summer period and it was mighty convenient and pleasant for us, with a suitable garden for pre-match cricket antics.

Just in case anything ever happens to the local paper on-line, a scrape of the above link about Wadderton can be found here.

Reports on those pre-test-match games held in the Wadderton gardens are now available on Ogblog, not least the one from 2004 linked here and below:

But Wadderton had closed down permanently in the 2004/2005 winter.

In 2005 we spent one splendid night, before the match, at Tye Towers. We then spent on night at Harbourne Hall – VSO’s equivalent place to The Children’s Society’s Wadderton – a place to which we returned subsequently several times before it declined.

But for some reason people, after that first stay, wanted an alternative. It was perhaps perceived as too far from the ground (although it was much closer than Wadderton). Perhaps people felt it reminded them too much of Wadderton without “being” Wadderton.

David Steed, living locally, said he’d sort something out.

Now David Steed, bless him, ran Wadderton wonderfully and was subsequently a superb host at his Birmingham house. But he possibly wasn’t the best judge of a hotel. Cheap and near the ground seemed sufficient criteria for him. His e-mail a few weeks before the match:

Accommodation is confirmed as previously written about and subsequent telephone chat at Beechwood Hotel on the Bristol Road approx. 200 yards from the main entrance at Edgbaston…

…No deposits required and as we have spoken – do people want to come early enough on the Wednesday to perform on our local green followed by supper at ours with a meal out locally or in Brum on the Thurs. night. Any thoughts ?

That “subsequent telephone chat” was not with me. Anyone dare to confess?

Of course, in a more modern era we might have looked at TripAdvisor or one of its competitor/predecessor sites to check the Beechwood Hotel, but back then those web sites didn’t exist, or barely existed.

The earliest reviews of the Beechwood Hotel on holidaywatchdog.com, for example, were in 2007. Let’s just say that I would not have dreamt of staying in a place described by one reviewer as:

“Hell hole”

…while another reviewer pleaded:

“DO NOT STAY THERE, you’d be better off in a cardboard box.”

Indeed, if you want a laugh, do look at those reviews in full on the above link to the Beechwood Hotel page on holidaywatchdog.com – indeed here is the link again.

The “gentleman” who held himself out to us as the owner/proprietor, I suppose must have been the infamous Tom mentioned in several of the reviews.

Just in case anything ever goes awry with holidaywatchdog.com, here is a scrape of that delicious reviews page.

Exposition

Nigel recalls that the main light in Adam’s room didn’t work because the light bulb had blown. When Adam approached Tom for a replacement light bulb, he was told to fill in a form to apply for a replacement – the replacement was thus not forthcoming during our stay.

The place was presumably used in part as a sort-of social services half-way house for people who were having a multitude of difficulties. I shall post an aside presently based on my notes about my alarming next door neighbour – (update: now posted here).

Although David had promised us that the rooms came

“each with private bathroom”…

…I seem to recall having to toddle down the corridor to get to said bathroom. “Private”, I suppose, does not necessarily mean “en suite” in this Beechwood world. I also recall some very inappropriate jokes about Zyklon B from my companions during conversations about those ghastly showers.

But the most bizarre conversations were with Tom, who tended to sidle up to us in the bar/common parts areas of the hotel and bend our ears with tales of his roller-coaster and/or imagined past. I made some fragmented notes:

“I was a millionaire at 21…a multi-millionaire at 24…lost it all at 33. I’ve been out with Miss Jamaica, Miss Bromsgrove, the lot. I had an Aston Martin – would cost about £125,000 today. Do fast cars while you’re young, young man, you won’t fancy it once you are your dad’s age. I made a million when a million was real money. When a million was really a million…”

…you get the idea.

But Tom was not the owner/proprietor, if the little bit of Companies House due diligence I have done this weekend (another form of on-line check not readily available back then) is reliable. Tom must have been employed as some sort of manager by the owners; his name does not appear on any of the Companies House papers for the Company that owned the property, 199-201 Bristol Road, it was owned by members of a family, named, perhaps ironically, Kang.

A couple of years after our stay, the place was a squat for Earth First Social Justice Permaculture warriors, as evidenced by the following links:

(Just in case anything ever happens to the Earth First website or to the Birmingham Mail, I have scraped the relevant pages here).

The company that owned the property was only struck off a few months ago at the time of writing, December 2015, so I imagine the property is now in the hands of the Mortgage provider, Nat West, who surely could find some property developer somewhere who might adapt the premises into some jolly useful affordable housing in leafy Edgbaston.

Two Nights and Two Days of Cricket

Why were we there?  Oh yes, cricket.

We had a net at Edgbaston itself on the Wednesday evening. I’m not entirely sure how our evening panned out, but – having now also seen an e-mail from Nigel sent to us ahead of the trip – I suspect that the net was late afternoon – Nigel’s e-mail suggests 17:00 start – and that the game on David’s local green was therefore a that same evening at, say, 19:00.

I also suspect that my conversation with my Beechwood Hotel neighbour – click here- was also that same first evening, while I was popping back to the room to get an extra warm layer ahead of the evening activities.

Anyway, the muck-about game on David’s local green, the night before the test match started, did not go well for me, as evidenced by this page of my jotter.

2006 Muck About Cricket

Nigel “Father Barry” and son did well, as did a local lad, Craig, who wandered along and asked if he could play with us.

Harish (Harsha Ghoble) also had a good go, although I do recall bowling him on one occasion with one of my moon balls which descended vertically onto the stumps. “How are you supposed to play a ball like that?”, complained Harish. Nigel then dispatched my next, similar ball for six. “Like that”, said Nigel.

I also recall lots of bites on my legs afterwards, although whether those were from the green or the hotel is a matter of some conjecture. Perhaps a bit of both.

Postscript March 2017 – the scorecard relic and narrative about the park muckabout game is  a false memory from 2006 – that happened in 2008 and the text is transposed to that piece, together with a link to Charles Bartlett’s wonderful 2008 photographs that helped me to disambiguate. It seemed a ridiculous idea, that we had a net AND a muckabout in the park the same evening…it was ridiculous – didn’t happen.

The dinner at David’s on the Wednesday evening was typically delicious and (equally typically) the wine flowed plentifully. We had a great evening, that Wednesday before the game.

Heavy Rollers 2006 With thanks to Charles Bartlett for this picture.
Heavy Rollers 2006
With thanks to Charles Bartlett for this picture.

I don’t remember all that much about the test match, but I do recall that England did well and here is a link to the scorecard which proves such.

Light Rollers 2006 With thanks to Charles Bartlett for this picture.
Light Rollers 2006
With thanks to Charles Bartlett for this picture.

I’m not 100% sure where we ate on the Thursday night, but I think it was that year we went to a local Indian place near Steed Towers. Others might recall better. I think I was in “Beechwood Hotel shock” by then. It really was not a place for the faint-hearted.

Or, as Charley the Gent Malloy would put it, “that hotel was no place for a wuss.”

Unforgettable Days With The Heavy Rollers, Days One & Two Of THAT Edgbaston Test Match, 4 & 5 August 2005

All Photographs By Charles Bartlett Except Where Indicated (This one by a steward, probably Paul Guppy, on Charles’s camera)

Even before we got to Edgbaston, the 2005 Heavy Rollers gathering was going to be one of the most memorable ever, by dint of the wonderful late afternoon and evening we had spent at Tye Towers the previous day, playing cricket and enjoying a glorious summer barbeque together.

We all stayed at Tye Towers. Janie recalls that I sent her a lengthy SMS message (now lost in the mists of time and/or recoverable only by the security services) waxing lyrical about the wonderful time we were having.

Charles got up early the next morning and took a stroll around “the estate” with his camera, taking all the following pictures before 7:00 am.

We thought we had allowed bags of time to get to Edgbaston & into the ground for the first ball. We were used to going to Edgbaston for the first day of the test match. But we hadn’t accounted for the massive early queues (previously unprecedented at Edgbaston – at least in then recent times) and the additional security required, as there had been a major terrorist incident on London transport only a few weeks earlier. Indeed, Nigel’s son, Adam – himself an occasional Heavy Roller and guest star in our charity cricket matches – had been on one of the bombed trains; mercifully Adam far enough away from the explosion not to be injured.

Adam Hinks – rolling with us the following year

Returning to the queue on the morning of 4 August 2005, our mood regarding the match to come was one of great hope but diminished expectation, on the back of England having played a poor game at Lord’s leaving England 1-0 down in the five match series. I had spent a couple of days at that Lord’s test…

…a link to my Ogblog postings on that match will appear here in the fullness of time…once those postings are writ…

…we all knew that England would need to up its game considerably to catch up and overtake Australia in the series. This Edgbaston test was crucual.

Then, suddenly, one of our number (I think it was Charles but it might have been Harish) took a call from Kyle Bullock, who was working at The Children’s Society HQ at that time.

Kyle had played in the annual Z/Yen v Children’s Society cricket match in Regents Park a few weeks earlier. Kyle had cruelly dismissed me in that match with an off-spinning delivery that bounced and spun even more than I had anticipated, clipping my glove and thus yielding a catch. To add to the cruelty of that dismissal, the spitting cobra of a spinning ball had clipped a joint on one of my fingers which, despite the so-called protection of a glove and the relative slowness of the ball, had led to trigger finger pain that was sustained for several months. Kyle simply thought this was funny whenever I mentioned it to him.

Kyle at Tufty Stackpole Match 31 July 2005

On the positive side, Kyle had played an important part in one of the most exciting cricket matches I have ever played, click here or below) just a few days before we set off for Bedfordshire and Edgbaston.

At the time, we thought of Kyle as “an Aussie”. In fact, he is, like many people, someone whose nationality and sporting allegiance is somewhat divided between Australia and England. In fact, Kyle’s allegiance for those Ashes leant towards England, we subsequently discovered.

The reason I labour all of this seemingly superfluous material, is the fact that Kyle informed us, by telephone, that Glenn McGrath, Australia’s most reliable bowler at that time, had injured himself in warm-ups and was out of the match, possibly out of the series.

At first we all thought this was a wind up. I had already suffered that summer at the hands of Kyle’s spin and was not going to buy this unlikely-sounding story easily.

But within moments a whisper started to go through the queue and the ground, as plenty of people around us were listening to radios and/or taking calls from friends. The truth of this perhaps-series-defining story was confirmed.

We soon also learned that Australia had nevertheless elected to bowl having won the toss.

Our hope (and that of England fans everywhere) was well and truly restored.

Intriguingly, Nigel’s recollection of the McGrath incident is quite different from mine, as he, Jeff Tye and The Steeds came in separate cars from me, Chas, Nick and Harish. They were entering the ground at a different (probably slightly earlier) time. Nigel writes:

It was the amiable Brummie steward [Paul Guppy] who informed me/us of the ‘unfortunate’ McGrath accident…[Paul] appeared joyful in the sense of “ I know summink amazing that you don’t”. He sensed our doubts as he had, until then, had a tendency to enjoy the odd wind up, to put it kindly. “I should know, I helped put him into the back of a car”. His insights may have been shared elsewhere, but we self importantly formed the impression he had made a beeline for us! Word started to spread as a result…hopes began to escalate.

Paul Guppy a couple of years earlier winding me up

Here is a link to a match highlights video that, like this article, covers the first two days of the match. You’ll need to survive some adverts before you see just over 30 minutes of footage.

Above embedded video from The Daily Motion.

The video shows the queue of people entering the ground through the Pershore Road entrance, which is the entrance we use, but the queue was much longer than that shown when we arrived in it.

The video highlights for the first two days of this great match also include an infeasibly large number of shots showing us Heavy Rollers in the crowd – especially shots from the first session of the match. I suppose we stood out for the cameras that year, being lined up in our red Heavy Rollers shirts.

Here’s an example screen grab from the above video. Don’t ask how much fiddling around it has taken to grab that. It is c4’36” into the film.

David (floppy hat), Jeff, Dan, Nick, Chas, Hippity, Monkey-face, Nigel, Me, Harish (obscured) – this photo grabbed from the Daily Motion as video above.

Lunch was a typically wonderful picnic (see Heavy Rollers reports passim), I think a joint effort provided by the Steeds supplemented by the Tyes – not least Liz Tye’s iconic scotch eggs, which Nigel recalls her contributing on several occasions…surely this being one of them… and Samina’s samosas – Samina being a colleague of Nigel and especially Jeff’s from the Bedford office of The Childrens’ Society. Samina contributed samosas for our trip on several occasions.

This picnic actually from 2003

This picture of a home made scotch egg by Kolforn (Wikimedia), CC BY-SA 4.0

This picture of home made samosas by Fantaz, CC BY 2.0

Chas, Nigel & Jeff were still star struck from their previous exploits blagging their way into the old Edgbaston pavilion – see Heavy Rollers write ups passim, in particular the 2003 one linked here and below…

In 2005 they did it again, with Chas taking several photos including the following:

Kevin Pietersen, taken while wandering at or just after lunch

The following ones from within the pavilion on the stroke of tea Day One…don’t ask!

And one just after tea, proving that Chas, at least, hung around for the whole of the tea interval.

You were a bit obsessed with KP at that time, Chas. Pinning hopes…

The evening meal was at an Indian Restaurant (or should I call it a Balti House in Birmingham?) on the recommendation of the Steeds (“Peels”) and a jolly good recommendation it was too, as evidenced by the following sole photo of the evening.

Some faces and arms almost as red as the red curries

We stayed the night at Harborne Hall – our first of several stays there. Why we rejected the place in 2006 in favour of the worst hotel ever in the entire world…

…is a bit of a mystery. But I digress.

Another mystery is why Chas took one…but only one…picture on Day Two of the match.

Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff

I can only imagine that Chas felt that he had failed to catch an image of his favourite player on Day One, so returned with his camera determined to put matters right on Day Two…which he certainly did with the above image.

We had a great time on Day Two, much as we had on Day One. David Steed once again did the honours with a splendid picnic and all seemed well with the world as we left the ground at the end of that day.

Shane Warne’s dismissal of Andrew Strauss towards the end of Day Two kept us all thinking that, despite England’s healthy-looking lead, the game was far from over…

Photo by PaddyBriggs at English Wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

…and oh boy was the game far from over.

Here and below is a link to all of Charles’s photos from the match itself.

IMG_1621

The wonderful Daily Motion highlights reel (repeated below) shows an insightful view of those two days of unforgettable cricket. Top viewing for Heavy Rollers and non-Rollers alike. For The Heavy Rollers, it was an unforgettable, life-affirming gathering over three days as well as an unforgettable match.

Above embedded video from The Daily Motion.

On The Eve Of The 2005 Edgbaston Test, A Heavy Rollers Extravaganza At Tye Towers, 3 August 2005

Jeff said that he’d cut a strip for our evening game…he REALLY cut a strip

(All photos kindly supplied by Charley “The Gent Malloy” Bartlett)

So much has been written about the astonishing Ashes series of 2005, not least the extraordinary match at Edgbaston. We Heavy Rollers were fortunate enough to witness the first two days of that classic match.

Yet one aspect of our wonderful experience of that match was truly unique to us Heavy Rollers: the evening and night before the test at “Tye Towers”, Big Papa Zambezi Jeff’s Bedfordshire residence, where we played cricket, enjoyed a magnificent barbeque and bonded like a band of brothers.

Our banner unfurled that afternoon, before we played

Make no mistake – Jeff’s wonderful offer to provide us all with accommodation that night and to turn his garden into a temporary cricket ground and barbeque venue was not our only option. Charley “The Gent Malloy” Bartlett had blagged us into the Edgbaston Cricket Centre for an hour in the nets that evening. Who knows how Chas used to pull off such coups? But we ended up rejecting Edgbaston’s kind offer in favour of Jeff’s place.

[A King Cricket piece describing the choice of venue for our pre test yard cricket will appear some time soon and be linked here when it does.]

Jeff’s Bar and barbeque backdrop

Jeff showing off the bar

I’m pretty sure that I journeyed to Jeff’s place reasonably early in the afternoon with Charley and Nick. For several years, Charles would kindly arrange to meet me at a suitably convenient Central Line station (was it Redbridge or Gants Hill or Newbury Park?) and then we’d travel up together. I’d get a train home. There would sometimes be lively debate as to the music we would listen to on these journeys. I might be mistaken, but I have a feeling that Neil Young had some prominence as the in car entertainment that year.

Anyway, for sure we three were all at Tye Towers quite early, as evidenced by the photographs Chas took mid to late afternoon.

There’s me, in whites, sorting out the stumps. Jeff supervising, Nick indifferent

I have no idea what the following picture of Nigel is about. Presumably he was owed ticket money by some and was much relieved to have received it.

Or is this evidence of yard cricket match fixing?

Once the yard cricket got underway, Chas put away his camera until the after match festivities, so we have no images of the pitch once it was completed, nor of the action.

Memory will have to serve for the match itself and I might well need the help of others.

I believe I can compile a complete list of the people who played:

  • David “David Peel” Steed;
  • Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett;
  • Harish “Harsha Goble” Gohil;
  • Me;
  • Nick “The Boy Malloy” Bartlett;
  • Dan “Dan Peel” Steed;
  • Nigel “Father Barry” Hinks;
  • “Big Papa Zambezi” Jeff Tye;
  • Geoff “Tufty Geoff” Young (the only participant who did not also attend the match with us).

In the matter of playing conditions, I recall that we had some additional fielders to try and keep the batsmen honest:

  • The roller depicted in the above photograph, fielding at slip to the right-handed batsman;
  • In front of the flag pole, a mermaid statue (or something of that ilk) – those two objects combined to field at leg slip to the right-handed batsman.

Hitting one of those artefacts on the full was deemed to be out caught.

I contrived to get caught by the statue on one occasion. Lots of people had near misses with the roller and possibly even the odd dismissal on the off side, but I think I was alone in managing to strangle one to the mermaid.

Harish had an especially good evening at Tye Towers, as did Tufty Geoff, who was one of those irritatingly excellent yet self-effacing cricketers who tended to hide himself in the lower reaches of the Tufty Stackpole team yet consistently perform well for them when needed. Here and below is a link to a report on a subsequent Tufty match :

Anyway, Tufty Geoff won the trophy that year, for both bating and bowling, while Harish picked up a “man of the match” or “play of the day” award, I think for his bowling. Indeed I think Harish pulled off several fine dismissals including my strangle down the leg side snaffled up by a statuesque fielder.

Tufty Geoff picking up his miniscule trophy from me

Harish collecting his slightly larger trophy from yours truly

Nigel reflects on the match and trophies as follows:

Can’t recall who was snaffled by the inert metal object but someone certainly was.

Jeff was equally displeased when I picked out the roof of his prized cabin-bar for two “maximums” using my prized Hansie Cronje Rawalpindi bat.
I expected glory not abuse! (Sadly I never owned a bat during my playing days and can only wonder what my numbers might have been if such equipment had come my way earlier? The bat was given to Hansie who didn’t like it so gave it to his brother who became the pro at Todmorden where it fell into the hands of my brother then me). Chas had earlier compared my running style between wickets to that of a “trotting pony”. Maybe that provoked some big hitting?

I supplied the trophies. It was a last minute decision. One each for batting and bowling. Having called in to a modest local establishment it was a question of enquiring “what have you got that I can take now?” Consequently the quality of the awards left much to be desired despite the price. So, it was no surprise that one of them required a small repair before it left for Bedford, thus provoking the comment, “you were done” from Liz Tye while we were preparing for the tournament.

I recall your comment after calculating the final scores, if not verbatim. “Perhaps there should be some recognition for the runner up?” Because the same player came a close second in both categories. (Clue- it wasn’t Harish). So near but……….

Looking again at the awards ceremony photos, I seem to be tucking in to a glass of full-bodied red wine there, which, given the very little I can remember about the rest of the evening (other than that delightful, oblivious, impressionistic sense that we were having a wonderful time) must have been pretty good.

Dan Steed recalls the event as follows:

My favourite Heavy Roller memory! What a few days, starting with such a wonderful afternoon/evening!

Well worth the trip from the edge of Birmingham to drive back to Birmingham the next day for the first two days of the “Greatest Test”!

Oh and the Banoffee pie….wow 😋, and watching a combine harvester at work at some late hour!

At this juncture we should recognise the enormous contribution that Liz Tye made to that wonderful evening, in the background, producing much of the food – not least Dan’s beloved banofee pie, and generally being a “hostess with the mostess” in every way.

The next few photos show the barbeque and festivities in full sway. I think we have used enough words to conjure a sense of the mood.

The next morning, it seems that Chas got up early and went for a stroll around the estate taking some more photos. I’ll use those in the next piece, but here and below is a link to all of the photos Chas took at Tye Towers, both the evening of 3rd August and the morning of 4th August:

IMG_1591