Tag: King Cricket

Reflections On The Day England U19s Won The Cricket World Cup In South Africa, 1 February 1998

I am writing in January 2020, on the day the U19 Cricket World Cup in South Africa is starting.

Last time the U19 Cricket World Cup was in South Africa was early 1998. That was also the last time (and so far the only time) that England won the U19 World Cup.

Here is a link to the scorecard of the final, in which England beat New Zealand.

My friends over at King Cricket will be delighted to see Rob Key’s name on that scorecard.

Rob Key is “a thing” on King Cricket:

Rob Key

Rob Key had a fine tournament, although not such a magnificent final.

It was Stephen Peters who topped the scoring/batting averages for England in that tournament and who scored the “man of the match ton” in the final.

It turns out that Peters was Essex in those days and hails from Harold Wood – Charley “The Gent” Malloy territory.

That thought made me realise that, in February 1998, I had only recently met Charles through our work at The Children’s Society and I had neither met Nigel “Father Barry” nor “Big Papa Zambesi” Jeff…yet. At that juncture, Charles was working mainly with Mike Smith. Coincidentally, Janie and I spent the evening with Mike and Marianna less than two weeks ago as I write:

A Gentle Start To 2020, Including Music & Food With The Smiths & The Neighbours, Early January 2020

It wasn’t until that summer, 1998, by which time I was also working with Nigel and Jeff, that I learnt that Chas, Nigel, Jeff…they all had a passion for cricket.

It must have been July, that topsy-turvy 1998 test series between England & South Africa was well under way. Jeff and I were going to visit a project in Mitcham – I had arranged to drive over to Clerkenwell, meet to plan the visit and then drive Jeff out to Mitcham.

When we got to the car, I tentatively asked Jeff if he would mind if I put the test match on the radio while we drove out there. Jeff’s trademark big beaming smile appeared on his face and he said,

I’d been trying to work out how to phrase that question politely to you…

…we listened all the way to the project (while also discussing cricket of course) and then again when we left the project. I arranged to drop Jeff at one of the Northern Line Tootings or Balham before I went on to see my folks.

It was a very hot late afternoon and I took the roof off Nobby – one of the very few times I did that. Big Papa Zambesi Jeff must have been grateful for the extra head room in a topless Nobby (as it were).

Janie, with Nobby, at his last resting place

I recall England taking a wicket when we were stopped at traffic lights somewhere around Tooting and we must have looked a right pair of charlies in that car leaping for joy at an announcement on the radio.

But returning to the U19 World Cup Final match on 1 February 1998, I realise that Nobby was just a twinkle in my and Janie’s eyes on that day. I think we had seen Mack the day before that final and arranged to buy Nobby. The deal was done the following Saturday…

…and I think it was the Saturday after that, in deep midwinter, that Janie and I visited the Mainellis in Nobby to see their newborn baby, Xenia, at the end of which Rupert Stubbs and the other visitors insisted on seeing us drive off with Nobby’s roof off. We drove round the corner, put the roof back on and tried to stop shivering all the way home.

I was trying to recall how I followed the tournament and that 1 February 1998 match.

To some extent, I think

No on-line all the time Cricinfo in those days. Ceefax was the only source of constantly updating cricket scores.

But I think also, in those days, Janie and I could hear sky commentary on her Videotron cable TV arrangement. She didn’t have the additional Sky sports subscription in those days – most of the cricket was terrestrial, free-to-air, but the scrambled channels, such as the sports ones, had sound all the time with the picture scrambled. I have a feeling we followed bits of that final that way.

But my main reflections are of how long ago all of that was and the journey I have shared with so many of those characters over the decades…

…and of the cricket careers that have come and gone for those (then) youngsters who fought that final. Most of the finalists went on to professional careers, many international ones. Some glorious, some less than glorious, but all interesting.

Here’s that U19 World Cup Final 1998 scorecard again.

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

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

The diary entry is pretty blasé about this momentous day:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keith The Cat Displaying Indifference To My Mother’s Embrace, mid 1950s

The King Cricket website has an occasional running feature about cats displaying indifference…mostly to cricket.

Reading a shout out from a friend there desperate for relief from the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic and bad news stories about cricket in the opening overs of 2022…

…I felt powerless to help. I don’t “do” cats. My family hasn’t done cats since before I was born.

But wait – I have a couple of cat pictures in the family archive collection, from the mid 1950s.

The one above is a portrait of Keith, the Harris family cat.

The one below is of Keith in the arms of my mother. I think it is fair to say that Keith looks indifferent to the charms of my mother’s embrace.

Enjoy.