This was the first ever women’s test match at Lord’s. Until very recently, women’s test matches tended to be staged at small grounds as they did not expect to attract crowds.
My previous visit to a women’s test match, with Janie, in 2003, was to all intents and purposes a crowd-free affair:
Times change, thank goodness. Women’s cricket is now a well and truly professional thing.
Day One – I thought a women’s test match might be an ideal event for a meet up with DJ. He said he’d be free from lunchtime if that was OK.
Of course it was OK.
I took the opportunity to play tennis in the morning – a jolly game of doubles with Barry Nathan and others, despite the heat. Barry enjoys women’s cricket and we agreed to watch together for the bulk of the morning session until DJ’s arrival.
I thought DJ might only want to stay for two or three hours, but he found the relaxed atmosphere in the Warner Stand and the pleasant temperature in the shade and slight breeze much to his taste, so we chatted and enjoyed the remainder of the days play all the way through to stumps.
I followed Day Two of the match from home, while also following the Wimbledon final. England pretty much unravelled that day.
Janie and I played tennis early on the Sunday ahead of setting off for Lord’s Day Three, with a view to watching 45 minutes or so before lunch through to soon after tea.
We spent what remained of the morning session watching with Jim “Dixon” Chaudry, who had, to our good fortune, taken seats in the back row of the lower terrace with his wife and kids, only for the others to go off for an early lunch just as we arrived. That row is our favoured spot for relaxed pavilion days, such as The Hundred finals day, as it makes for a perfect dance floor.
(Just in case anything ever goes awry with the King Cricket site, the link is also scraped to here).
That piece of research clearly attracted a global audience, as it was even picked up by a Brazilian sports site and translated into Portuguese. Who knew that Brazilians are so interested in women’s cricket, especially when a men’s football world cup is on.
I find it hugely reassuring to learn the the Portuguese word for knobhead is “knobhead”, and that the Portuguese phrases for parvenues, arrivistes and Champagne Charlies are, respectively, “parvenues”, “arroyos” & “Charlies de champanhe”. I now sense that my companions and I could make ourselves understood in a Portuguese-speaking country.
During tea, we saw Kranti Gaud warming up by repeatedly bowling straightOh Gaud – she got Tammy Beaumont first ball in Tammy’s last international innings
The atmosphere at Lord’s during this match was delightful. I do hope that women’s test matches become more of a regular feature at Lord’s and at other prestigious grounds.
28 June 2026: Bangladesh Women v South Africa Women, & Australia Women v India Women
Unfurl the flags…
We plugged for an elevated view on the day of the Lord’s double-header. Janie’s favourite pavilion spot for relaxed viewing is the sun deck at the top. There was plenty of space for us up there, despite our late arrival, after playing our traditional Sunday game of lawn in Boston Manor Park.
Digging the relaxed dress code
We caught the end of the Bangladesh v South Africa match, much of which I saw on the TV while Janie was getting ready to go to Lord’s. South Africa looked well set when we left home, then tried hard to choke at the end of that match, then choked in the matter of choking, thus going on to win the match with very little time to spare.
The sun deck remained sparsely populated, although we were joined by Sidney Yankson and his charming belle, Claire. Sidney is a real tennis afficionado – the Number One Real Tennis Hongkonger by his own RTO description – and the person who was daft enough to select me for one of my earliest representative real tennis matches.
Anyway, after a suitably brief interval between the two matches, we enjoyed the flag unfurling and anthem ceremony for Australia v India.
India batted first and seemed to have posted a modest score. India needed to win this match in order to knock out South Africa, whereas Australia were guaranteed top of the group billing whatever happened in the match.
We left Lord’s about half way through Australia’s innings, which seemed to be tottering a bit, but caught the end of the match on TV when we got home, by which time the Aussies had untottered.
We thoroughly enjoyed our day of neutral matches.
5 July 2026: Rita Ora, Clean Bandit, & The ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Final
Not just excited…pumped!
For the world cup final, we got to Lord’s in good time and grabbed seats close to the action – i.e. some end of row seats near the front of the terrace. This seemed to be the corner of choice for several members of the real tennis community – Barry Nathan was there with his wife, Ruth. Also nearby were Robert & Carol Muir, Brian & Priscilla Sharp were also nearby, as was Graeme Marks.
The dancing girls comprised a selection panel before the Rita Ora concert. Barry seemed a bit reluctant. I suggested that they work on Sharpy…Rita Ora caught the spirit
Did we dance? Of course we danced.
The serious business of moving and grooving
Even Graeme Marks took some illicit footage of us having a go during the Rita Ora gig:
I enjoyed the Rita Ora music, which comprised some of her best known songs:
In truth, I was more than a little disappointed that Rita didn’t perform Hot Right Now, which I believe is the paciest of her numbers. Indeed, I had been practicing for days dancing in exactly the style and rate of the artistes in the following video:
Rumour has it that the authorities thought that 176 bpm in 30°C weather might be a bit much for MCC members, given the age demographic. Health and safety gone mad.
I mean, what was the point of me having a hip replacement last year if the powers that be don’t give me the chance to dance in a Hot Right Now stylee on the forecourt of the Lord’s pavilion?
Take away the sound stage.
Hard yakka in the heatThis geezer had a method for staying cool
I hadn’t realised it, but there was also to be a cricket match, as a polite interval between the two popular music concerts; an ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Final between Australia Women and England Women.
Unfurl the flags and anthems:
We were too polite to take pictures of the cricket match itself, which rather went Australia’s way, predictably.
But when Clean Bandit came on to get us all listening and dancing again…
…Janie and I were ready to dance some more. Earlier in the day, when Rita Ora performed, Sharpy told me, rather pointedly:
your good lady knows how to dance…
…which I took to mean that he thought that I don’t know how to dance.
Well, for the Clean Bandit concert, Janie and I both got busy with the video functions of our cameras, so you can all judge for yourselves, dear readers.
Suffice it to say that we thoroughly enjoyed the event, regardless of what you think of our dancing.
That looks more like football than cricket to my tired eyes
Middlesex Double Feature: Men v Surrey & Women v Leicestershire, Sunday 24 May 2026
The end of the men’s game
Janie and I were not going to let a double header of county T20 cricket interrupt our regular schedule of playing tennis (modern) on a Sunday morning, before washing and smartening ourselves up a bit and heading to Lord’s.
The men’s game was scheduled ahead of the women’s game. We figured that seating in the pavilion was not going to be a problem for late arrivals. We were right.
While sprucing, I caught the end of the Middlesex innings of the men’s game and adjudged Middlesex to be many runs short of a competitive target. Indeed I, of little faith, told Janie that I thought we might not make it in time to see the end of the men’s match.
Actually, when we arrived, Middlesex were flattering to deceive…or providing a faint glimmer of misplaced hope…before succumbing to the inevitable before our eyes quite soon after we arrived.
There was a seemingly unnecessary long interval between the men’s match and the women’s match – almost encouraging those less devoted to women’s cricket to depart before seeing the second match.
Janie and I chatted at length with my tennis friend Barry Nathan and his good lady. Barry informed us that the men’s and women’s matches had been switched, timewise, because the TV company couldn’t imagine anyone watching the men’s cricket match at the same time as football play-offs were taking place on other sports channels. It’s all about TV sports scheduling these days – who knew?
It was a blisteringly hot afternoon, but the pavilion forecourt offered shady respite from the worst excesses of the relentless May heatwave sun. Barry recommended the view from the new Allen Stand – what there is of it at this stage – but not the very top, uncovered section, obviously.
I resolved to avoid jokes with phrases such as “Foxy ladies” (for the Leicestershire Foxes Women) or “hot totty” to describe a women’s match on the hottest May day since records began.
Janie and I gave that a try, until we realised that the middle tier, shady though it was, and excellent view though it provided, effectively had a radiator above it, in the form of the depopulated uncovered top section.
We retreated back to the pavilion, but not before I was accosted by a young man whose face looked vaguely familiar. He greeted me like an old friend and told his mate in slightly inebriated terms that he’d met me in the locker room and that I was an expert on tennis and cricket history. I waxed briefly about 1875 And All That, in the style of a minor celebrity who feels that he has to perform in his show-biz demeanour, while bemoaning the fact that my history expertise was not doing a great job of remembering this young man, nor whether he was tennis, squash or in the locker room for some other reason. I guessed tennis and probably showed the requisite amount of remembering to get a bare pass at recent history.
The “meeja” action unfolded right before our eyes…as did the “mill around until the other team bats” action
We left a few overs in to the Leicestershire innings and caught the end of that match on the stream when we got home. Much like the men’s match, Middlesex flattered to deceive for a while but came second in the end.
Tournament-wise, the men’s team are doing their normal thing of barely winning a game, whereas the Middlesex women (albeit Division Two) have only lost the one game out of five so far as I write – it just happened to be the one that we attended.
Still, an enjoyable, albeit swealtering, afternoon at Lord’s.
England v New Zealand Test Match: 4 to 7 June 2026
Day Four With Daisy
I attended days one, two & four of this match. Good pick – day three was a near washout.
Days one and two I attended alone, having arranged to play some tennis as well as watch cricket on both days.
I try to book slots on the test match days that do not coincide with the intervals in play. This is not to avoid watching cricket, but more to try leaving the pre-match, lunchtime and post-match slots to players whose tennis performances have more “showtime” potential than the tennis I play.
Unfortunately, as the weather had turned shoddy for this test match, our lowly 12:00 fixture on day one coincided imperfectly with a rain interval. The viewing gallery filled up with people. Hecklers from our own real tennis cohort in the inner part of the dedans gallery. Bemused patrons in the dedans gallery bar, who had come to Lord’s in search of international standard elite sport, yet were, instead, faced with four keen but aging gents “having a go” as best we could. Hopefully, come the third or fourth glass of fizz, visitors could barely tell the difference between international cricket and amateur tennis.
This 1 min carefully selected sample from the MCC Club Weekend tournament at Lord’s in January 2026
I played again at 5:00pm, a slightly more high falutin’ game than the 12:00 bout, mercifully without a crowd for the tennis, as New Zealand were starting their innings. I played rather well, and was delighted to hear several huge cheers from the crowd beyond, as I landed a few rare winners during a good 10 minute period. I was a little deflated to learn later that the authorities weren’t showing my winners on the big screens – it was Ollie Robinson taking three wickets in an over on the cricket pitch.
The bit of cricket I saw on day one I mostly watched from the pavilion.
I got to see far more of the cricket on day two, after playing tennis at 11:00. The weather was better and I took up one of my more regular positions near Old Father Time at the despised end of the Tavern Stand. It is the least crowded members and friends area and therefore the easiest place for nomadic members, like me, who like to wander a bit more than most. After tea, I took to the pavilion sundeck, which was pretty crowded but a good place to just mingle and watch on a bit, before sitting again in the Tavern Stand for a chunk of the last hour.
Day four was supposed to be a day at Lord’s with Janie, but we knew before the start of play that it would probably only be an hour or two. Janie is always happy with that. In any case we take a modest picnic if it is just the two of us and Janie is always happy to get a chunk of such a day back, having taken in the Lord’s atmosphere and enjoyed some action. Seeing the end of a match has a certain form of satisfaction to it, which some MCC afficionados consider to be quite unneccessary; perhaps even a bit common.
Sporting my pillbox
I had received plenty of positive feedback throughout the match on my new choice of headgear – the pillbox cap rather than the peaked cap. Pillbox caps were all the rage until peaked caps became fashionable for sports from the last quarter of the 19th century.
Robert Allan Fitzgerald sporting an MCC pillbox cap. Drawing not all totally to scale.
I have now ordered another pillbox cap that looks even more like MCC colours. I’m going to start lobbying the MCC shop to start producing and selling proper MCC ones. The pillbox cap feels like a fashion whose time should come once again.
Anyway, Janie and I saw more than 90 minutes of cricket and I got half of Janie’s ticket money back!
Not a classic test match but still, as pretty much always, enjoyable times at Lord’s.
Some Sort Of MCC Cricket Day At Lord’s With Michael Mainelli, 11 June 2026
Michael has visited Lord’s with me many times, for both domestic and international cricket. Apart from the odd rain delay, we have never previously experienced a washout.
But this day was well and truly a washout and was destined to be so for several days in the build up.
Never mind. There are worse places to be than Lord’s. I showed Michael the library where I am doing a lot of my research, then we watched the last set-and-a-half of a good in-house tournament tennis match, which went down to the wire. Then we retired to the Long Room Bar / Old Library for luncheon after taking a stroll around in what, by now, was just persistent drizzle, which prevented mopping up after the torrential rain of the mid-to-late morning, ensuring no cricket play at all that day.
Michael presented me with a fridge magnet, in honour of Ogblog, emblazoned thus:
Whatever can Michael mean? You can absolutely rely on me to report matters faithfully from my point of view on Ogblog.
After Michael departed, I spent a couple of hours at Tennis Committee and then a further couple of hours at a town hall meeting in Pelhams Restaurant to discuss gender diversity in the MCC.
I even went back the next morning for another very enjoyable game of tennis.
I do now have my own locker at Lord’s – perhaps I should consider keeping a sleeping bag there as well.
The weather chose to improve a little at the start of May – my previous attempts at watching county championship cricket so far this season had led only to some glimpses from the safety of the Long Room and/or Writing Room behind glass, April was so chilly.
I got to Lord’s just before lunch was called, then got ready for a bout of doubles tennis early afternoon, with a collection of players similar to the Bionic Quartet reported last summer:
One of our number was having his first go back after surgery, so we played for fun off the book.
I had informally arranged to meet up at some point in the afternoon with Ed Griffiths (our London Cricket Trust mastermind) and Madz, who does some photography for Durham CCC. Can it really be four years since Madz last came to Lord’s on such a mission in May?
Anyway, as it turned out, Ed was delayed until much later than he had intended to arrive, and Madz was engaged with matters photographic and the like also until late afternoon.
I thought I’d photograph Matt Potts in action this time, while waiting for the others
In the end, all three of us watched from the Warner Stand for a while late in the day. Here’s the scorecard from that match. A high-scoring draw. Why can’t they produce result pitches at Lord’s, I hear some irate, know-it-all readers cry!
The pavilion was a bit less crowded than this…actually a lot less crowded
John Fry and I had not really kept in touch at all after leaving Alleyn’s School back before the dawn of time. We were in the same class for, we think, just one year – the third year for me and the first year for him. We were both fast-tracked into the Bear Pit when just 15 – in John’s case on the grounds of talent and in my case possibly because I was in the right place at the right time to look the part.
Anyway, for reasons too daft to explain, John re-engaged with me earlier this year and invited me to a delightful lunch at his club, The Union Club, in late January 2026.
I wanted to reciprocate, but I don’t really have a club. Well, I suppose I do – the MCC, but John doesn’t much like cricket.
The solution was to invite John to Lord’s on a minor match day, when the ground is not crowded, the lunch is still a decent lunch and the cricket is as important or unimportant as you want it to be. John had never seen the place before and liked the idea.
Hence MCC Women’s Day.
I played tennis first thing against Paul Buchanan-Barrow who, coincidentally, had been my doubles partner 18 months earlier in the famous international fixture against the visitors from Newport, Rhode Island. Coincidental, because Paul and I had done battle with a women’s pair that day.
Paul wasn’t sticking around for the women’s cricket, so I waited alone for John, taking in a bit of the atmosphere of the day. Despite the early season scheduling, it was actually a bright sunny day which offered to be warm enough to watch in the great outdoors by afternoon.
But first, on John’s arrival, I thought I’d give him the informal pavilion tour. Rather unexpectedly, we ran into the Club President, Ed Smith, who greeted me warmly as we had not seen each other for some time, and later also the Chairman and CEO, all of whom were showing their faces and/or entertaining folk on this quiet but iconic day.
The potentially pompous experience reminded me of the following 2009 evening I wrote up for King Cricket…
…in which my old friend Stentor Baritone and I showed young Lavender and Escamillo around the pavilion.
That made me wonder what had become of Stentor, as I hadn’t heard from him since before the pandemic. Nor had he heard from me. I resolved to get in touch with Stentor by e-mail some time soon, but, strangely, Daisy and I bumped into him at The Royal Court Theatre the very next evening. Now that’s weird.
John seemed to be enjoying the cricket more than I thought he would, but I managed to wrestle him away from such distractions from our main purpose, taking lunch in the Long Room Bar, then showing him the library and the tennis court and the Performance Centre. There we took some tea in Filipa’s and watched the sun starting to come out in reasonable force.
That gave us the courage to watch some cricket from the Mound Stand, where normal people sit and watch and where you can take a little early season sun.
The day flew by, as Lord’s days do.
While gently watching on, John mentioned, in passing, that he had “a little bit of cricket heritage” in his family. Somewhere in the cousinhood, he couldn’t quite remember, women cricketers – twins as it happens. He’d try to track down the reference later.
I felt a surge of imposter syndrome – wondering whether my guests have more right (at least by birthright) to be hosts at Lord’s than I do – similar to the feeling I had when I took John Random to Lord’s seven years ago. Another friend who claimed no connection with cricket…except for his grandfather Herbert Ireland who was a doyen of Widnes CC to the extent that the function room at that club is named after him. See the Thursday entry “A Random Ramble Around Lord’s” in the diary piece below.
It must be something about people named John with equity surnames and left leanings.
Random as Trotsky
Joking apart, it was a most enjoyable day milling around Lord’s with John Fry.
“And the cricket?”, I hear you cry. Really? You can read all about it here. In fact, if you really want to, you can even watch it all on the stream recording, below:
The subject was Sobers, Janie was, believe it or not, sober
I spotted and booked this one on the members’ on-line system, before it was announced and several weeks before Alan Rees mentioned it to me in the library.
An interesting character, Garry (or should I say Sir Garfield) Sobers. As David Tossell said in his opening remarks about his book, Sobers has not been well served in print previously, with several books of dubious quality and little digging into his impoverished early life and his colourful career.
Before the talk, a traditional Library Book Club supper with two tasty courses, the most photogenic of which was the pud:
Then the talk.
David Tossell peppered his talk with fascinating anecdotes and well-chosen visualsAttentive. No attention deficit here. Which is more than might be said for Sobers
I can hardly wait to read the book. I expect there’ll be a reference in it to that day in 2009, which was surely a major moment in Garry Sobers cricket career…at least it was in mine.
Seriously, as always it was a most enjoyable evening; initially the dining and chatting with interesting folk around us. Then the bonus of a fascinating book talk.
The original Hinds Trophy being presented in March 2023
The following text (or an edited version of it) will shortly appear on the MCC website, along with some of the photographs taken on the night. When that happens, I'll add a link.
Sixty years ago, in March 1966, one of the most coveted trophies in global sport, The Jules Rimet Trophy, was stolen from its apparently secure display location in Westminster. A couple of days after an aborted ransom sting, a dog named Pickles discovered a parcel containing the trophy in a hedge beside his owner’s home. Pickles became an overnight sensation, the Jules Rimet was presented at the 1966 Football World Cup Final, before being retained by Brazil, then, a few years later, in Rio, permanently stolen.
The Hinds Trophy (aka The Skills Night Wooden Spoon Trophy), another of the most coveted trophies in global sport, recently had a similar journey. The original Hinds was snatched from its secure location behind the Lord’s hazard end galleries, at some point in the summer or autumn of 2024. No ransom was ever demanded, nor was any canine heroism involved, as far as we know. But just a few weeks ago, long after its replacement with a replica trophy, the original Hinds reappeared just as mysteriously as it had disappeared. The replacement Hinds will continue to be engraved and displayed. The original Hinds is now preserved at a highly secure, secret location.
Ironically, the coveted Hinds Trophy was nearly won this time by Andrew Hinds’s own team, Three Ravens. Numerically and temporally challenged in many ways, that team started with just two but ended up with four players. They need words, not numbers; the collective noun for ravens is “an unkindness”.
The ravens team was especially unkind to two teams. By performing so well on the final discipline, they knocked Souldiers Three (Hugo Fenwick, Gavin Yeats & David Pritchard) into the Hinds Trophy slot. Then, with the final scoring of the event, those unkind ravens denied Three Things In Store late surge to the top spot. Instead, Three Poor Mariners – Richard Boys-Stones, Mary Strevens & Huw Humphreys – were, fairly, reinstalled at the top of the podium.
The Close But No Cigar Award went to neophyte Gerald Slocock, whose ability to almost-but-not-quite hit a target might become the stuff of legend, if he maintains form in that regard.
The Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award went to Shaheed “Sid” Rashid, not least for being the only player to score two points off one hit on the central beam of the dedans gallery.
The Philip The Bold Golden Moment Award went to John Thirlwell, for an extraordinary hat trick of coups du pataugeoire -landing the serve in a paddling pool – which is much harder than it sounds.
There is a serious purpose to skills night; honing skills. True, most of the skills honed on such nights involve eating curry, drinking, singing and the like, but the evening does include some real tennis skills too.
Skills night unquestionably proves the skills of the MCC admin team who organise the event so well, and our tennis professionals, who make the game swing with great reliability. Which is more than can be said for most of us players’ tennis swings!
The players greet graciously; the manner in which the whole match was played
Big Match Build Up
At the end of the MCC Club Weekend, a couple of days before this match, I reassured Tom Carew Hunt that I had put aside the evening to join him at the Paterson Bowl Final. Tom said:
I’m so glad, as I am now a serious doubt for being able to get into London that evening.
I had a dreadful feeling that I would end up master of ceremonies for the post match presentation; a feeling that was utterly justified.
That sense of dread was magnified when I arrived at Lord’s to discover that the RG Paterson Bowl itself was under lock and key in the MCC museum, which meant that it would not be possible to present the actual trophy on the night.
On reflection, I realised that it is, in fact, an MCC tradition to restrict access to trophies in this way – The Australians have had nearly 150 years to get used to such limited access in the matter of “The Urn”, win or lose.
I also had a slight sense of dread, on Eddie Gray’s account, when I learnt of the handicap Ben Havey was due to receive. Both players are relatively new to the game and both are fast improving, which is rather wonderful, but Ben in particular is currently going through one of those “growth spurts” that talented players can achieve.
I had done battle with Ben only a couple of days earlier, albeit at doubles. Here’s a single rest (rally) clip of me serving to him:
Let The Big Match Commence
So, to the Eddy Gray v Ben Havey match itself. Both players started a little nervously, I thought, with one or two uncharacteristic errors. It was the first “big final” for both of them. It was also the first big final for our apprentice professional Henry de Lord, who has been working on his own game with both of these players lately. But all three of them settled quickly and then did very well.
Jonathan Potter also represented the tennis committee on the night. He was able to comment from first hand experience on Eddy’s recent progress.
Eddy indeed showed us his array of weapons, with several forces to the grille and some superb winners on the floor too. But Ben also has powerful winners, plus a very strong defensive game. That made the nine point handicap difference extremely difficult for Eddy to try and overcome.
Here is one point by way of example, in which an Eddy error results in the glorious ringing of the winning gallery cowbells…but from the wrong side. “Hell’s bells” I like to call them – they used to reside in my late mother-in-law’s apartment.
Here is another really excellent rest (rally) in which both players demonstrated their fast-improving skills, eventually resulting in Eddy landing a hazard chase.
Very soon after that one, Ben’s girlfriend, who was sitting a little nervously close by, asked me if the match was nearing its end. I said
…if I have been counting correctly, this is now match point.
Which it was:
The result: Ben Havey bt Eddy Gray 6-1, 6-1 on handicap.
As their handicaps move towards each other (hopefully both still improving) I suspect there will be some close battles between Ben Havey & Eddy Gray, plus some excellent representation for the MCC by both of them.
We held a short presentation ceremony on court, during which I said that sort of thing and presented both of the combatants with their mementoes. I also gave Ben advice on how to visit his trophy and handed him his well-earned bottle of Pol Roger fizzy pop.
My self-report card: 10/10 for a wonderful weekend, 9/10 for effort, 6/10 for performance, 0/10 for results.
I have written at length about the MCC Tennis Weekend before and certainly don’t want to bore regular readers. For those who have not read about such matters before: the 2024 report majors on tennis derring-do and nervousness about method acting…
This year I’ll focus on the tennis. To get the least interesting bit out of the way, I’ll simply say that my partner, Jeremy Norman, and I, did not do well. Group B was especially strong this year, as evidenced by our group’s runners up eventually taking the top prize – Mason Sharp Trophy. Someone has to bring up the rear in each group.
We did, however, try hard. We also provided some entertainment…in a good way. We even influenced the result of the tournament by eliminating one of the stronger pairs in our last rubber, thus providing the eventual winners a semi-final slot. The following clip shows probably our best, albeit in vain, efforts during that last round robin match.
20 stroke rests don’t happen all that often at our level.
At the very start of our campaign, on the Friday, we were up against Giles Stogdon – my partner from last year, who literally produced a “lights out tennis” moment on court:
Jeremy Norman and I are absolutely convinced that, had it not been for the lighting deficiency on court for the rest of the tournament, we would have prevailed in all of our matches. 😉 . We would say that, wouldn’t we?
As for the Chair of tennis, Graeme Marks, he seemed hell bent on using the prerogative of the chair to sneak those extra few points that can make all the difference. A net cord that still makes the winning line, a spin-backer onto the grille ledge, another spin-backer into the dedans from his partner in crime, Paul Wollocombe…
…not that such “tactics” were enough to get them through to the semis, despite recording a good round robin win against the eventual trophy winners. Such is tournament tennis sometimes.
I was able at least to relax for most of the Sunday, after playing my heart out for pride just before lunch. The semi-finals and finals were a good fun watch, not least because of the convivial (and at times almost rowdy) atmosphere amongst those members who chose to stay and watch the concluding afternoon of the tournament.
It really is always a grand finale and enjoyable afternoon, regardless of the quality or excitement of the tennis matches. This year, as it happens, the tournament built up to a humdinger of a Mason Sharp final, which went all the way to a deciding game.
Firstly, for those who want to watch it, the final of the Osborn Parker (C/D Groups). Iain Harvey & Sebastian Maurin v Andrew Hinds & Giles Watkins.
Secondly, for those who would like to see the whole match, the final of the Mason Sharp (A/B Groups). Steven Bishop & Paul Cattermull v Nigel Smith & Paul Wickman.
If you only fancy the last three minutes of the big final, having already learnt that it went to a deciding game…here is just the deciding game:
It is most unusual for a team from the B group to prevail in the final – let alone the runners-up from the B group. In this case, even more unusual because Paul Wickman went home after their round robin loss on the final morning assuming that his pair had been eliminated. In fact, as the group had panned out, the comparative scores meant that Havey and Walker needed to thrash me and Jeremy Norman in the final round robin rubber of the group in order to overtake Smith and Wickman.
I did berate Paul Wickman, while also congratulating him on a fine tournament win, for assuming that Jeremy and I would be thrashed. “I hadn’t thought it through to that extent”, was his excuse.
Fortunately, “going home” for Paul did not mean “going over the hills, far away and unable to return.” He and Nigel put on a fine show, both in the semi-final and the final. Two of their very best rests were in the semi-final, which I shall use as a closing clip for this piece.
The atmosphere at Lord’s was terrific all weekend. So much effort goes in from staff and volunteer organisers to make the tournament seem effortless on the weekend itself. The organisational effort and skills cannot be demonstrated in a 90 second YouTube clip…but, fortunately, the tennis skills and effort can:
Alan Rees chasing answers from Simon Wilde after dinner
Janie and I really enjoy these Library Book Club evenings at Lord’s. It is a real pleasure and a privilege to be able to dine and hear about a recent cricket book in my favourite room in the Lord’s pavilion: the Writing Room.
…Janie found herself sitting next to Alan Rees, which led to my discovery of the research gem for both real tennis and cricket that is the MCC library, which Alan curates. My most recent opus and talk in Newport Rhode Island owes no small thanks to that happenstance in early 2024.
Strangely, Janie & I are also no strangers to dining in Simon Wilde’s proximity. We had spotted Simon, along with John Etheridge and some other cricket writers in Sabai Sabai in Moseley on the night before the India test at Edgbaston earlier this year. I now realise I even commented on this fact in my write up of that trip:
I mentioned this curious fact to Simon over dinner, who initially tried to deny the idea that he might have been dining with friends in an up-market Thai restaurant in Moseley, but then broke down under my interrogation and confessed to remembering the place. He even admitted to having eaten there more than once.
Top investigative journalism on my part, there, I feel.
But not as toppy in the investigative journalism department as Simon’s book, Chasing Jessop: The Mystery of England Cricket’s Oldest Record, which is a forensic look at a record-setting innings by Gilbert Jessop in the 1902 Ashes test match at the Oval. Spoiler alert: England won that test match but had already lost the Ashes. Not much changes…
Gilbert Jessop could give it a whack. Giving it a whack is back in fashion now.
Anyway, point is, Gilbert Jessop was an interesting and unusual character for the England test set up in 1902 who came off big time in that legendary match. But the exact details of his record are shrouded in some mystery, with the scorebooks having gone missing and the contemporaneous newspaper records being a bit light on details – especially one detail that matters to the modern record-setter: how many balls did he take to get to 100 runs.
If this all sounds a bit geeky…it is. But geeky in an historically-fascinating way, as it brings to light the ways that the sports media and sports fandom have changed in so many ways…yet in others, such as the fascination with speed record-setting, stayed the same.
But before all that book stuff, we ate the above meal. The grub side of things is always done very well at Lord’s for these events.
I sat next to Marek from Primrose Hill Books, who was there to help Simon sell the book. In the course of a most interesting conversation, Marek told me that this was his first ever visit to the Lord’s pavilion, which he found a little awe-inspiring, and that he had, in his youth, dated both of Mike Brearley’s sisters at one time or another. Not at the same time, Marek hastened to add.
By the way, if you want a signed copy of Simon’s book, I think Marek still has a few signed copies at the bookshop, so a request through the above link might score you one of those. Naturally the book is available from all good bookshops and also other well-known sources.
Alan didn’t guard The Right Honourable Sir Spencer Cecil Brabazon Ponsonby-Fane’s cricket bat quite so carefully a few weeks ago, when I popped by the library to finish my 1875 research. Indeed Alan positively gave me permission to handle that historic bat and even photographed me doing so:
I got an almost child-like buzz out of this. Thanks Alan.
The MCC Library Book Club seems to be a bit of a magnet for real tennis types: for the Simon Wilde evening there were three of my tennis pals: Jim Chaudry, Oliver Wise and Brian Sharpe, which adds to the feeling of conviviality on thes evenings.
I had seen Sharpey three days in a row – at the Silver Racquet match on the Sunday, while endorsing MCC candidates on the Monday, and then at this event. When I broke the news to Brian that I wasn’t coming to Lord’s the next day, I think I saw him wipe away a tear. Joy? Laughter?
While we were in the Writing Room enjoying the chat about Jessop, history and books in general, in the Long Room (next door), there was a high-falutin’ dinner with parliamentarians from the House of Commons and House of Lords. I know where I would rather be – Library Book Club is more my cup of tea.
ALAN: Had Jessop been to the right sort of school? SIMON: No, and that was seen as a bit of a problem…
