Travel, Theatre, Music, Cricket, Tennis, Writing, Life
Oh joy – ’twas the new cricket season and I took a day off work to see cricket with Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett.
I rather like that write up in retrospect. I think you get a sense of the joy to be had just passing a day with a friend (or friends) watching cricket.
If anything ever happens to King Cricket, I have scraped the above report page to here.
If anyone reading this is desperate to know what actually happened in the cricket that day, here is a link to the scorecard.
I had a funny feeling I skived the Middlesex AGM in 2014. My diary says “day off”, but by reviewing my electronic records, it seems that I took most of the day off, then went to the Middlesex AGM via a bit of work at the flat.
I don’t recall much/anything about that AGM, but I did exchange e-mails with Richard Goatley about it afterwards, setting up a lunch with him the following week (9th), so cannot deny that I was there.
I better recall the Seaxe Club AGM, which took place four days later. We were still in the old Middlesex Room that year. My memory of that event assisted by the report in an electronic version of the subsequent newsletter – a novel development for the Seaxe Club that season, partly as a result of “youngsters” such as me and Barmy Kev pushing the idea.
The panel discussion was an especially good one that year; Gus Fraser, Mark Ramprakash and Ryan Higgins.
An evening at Lord’s in the nets followed by dinner afterwards with Charley & Chris. Chinese (Goldmine or Four Seasons) if I remember correctly.
Almost everything that needs to be said about the evening (including “how my first thirst extinguisher got its dent”) was in my King Cricket match report – click here or below.
If anything ever were to go awry with the King Cricket site, click here for a scrape of the page.
Timothy Tiberelli is, of course, Michael Mainelli. I even used that thin disguise when wroting anecdotes about Michael in The Price Of Fish,
Photo from September 2016, when the despised Lower Compton was empty
Almost everything that needed to be said about this wonderful day was included in my King Cricket match report at the time:
(If anything should ever go awry with the above links, click here instead).
Except, of course, that King Cricket match reports cannot talk about the cricket itself.
Whereas King Cricket himself is allowed to waffle on, with his mates, for hours, in excruciating detail about the ridiculous aspect of cricket matches – and three cheers for that ability, because The Ridiculous Ashes is a fun listen.
Here is a link to The Ridiculous Ashes podcast for this match.
The following link is to the recent King Cricket posting about this match which includes some text and vids about the most ridiculous bits:
If that is too much clicking for you but you are desperate for some vids, here is Geoff Lemon’s seminal vlog rant about Shane Watson from the Lord’s East Gate (now renamed the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Gate. One of the things I love about it is the passers by noticing and/or feigning not to notice this ranting Aussie holding forth. I recognise several of the faces as Lord’s regulars:
Or, if seeing Chris Rogers’s freak dismissal is more your bag, the following vid will feed your desirous eyeballs:
I remember being especially taken with THAT ball from Graeme Swann, not least because I did once take a hat trick with balls that were not too dissimilar to that one…except that at least two of mine were definitely hitting the stumps:
If you actually want to know about the actual score in the match (by which I mean Lord’s Ashes Test 2013, not Alleyn’s 9 July 1975) and the sort of details that official professional sites publish about matches of this kind, then click here.
The thing that stands out the most about all this for me, in reflective Ogblog mode, is the enormity of the picnic that I took for just me and Daisy (Janie) for one day at Lord’s. I’m sure King Cricket won’t mind me scraping my own words:
Naturally, I had prepared the picnic. We made early headway into assorted delights of my picnic bag – some mini croissants from the artisanal bakery that kindly opened a couple of years ago no more than 50 yards from my front door. Then on to the smoked trout bagels I had lovingly made, with my own special recipe horseradish butter and lemon. The fishy delight needed white wine; I brought a very interesting little Austrian Riesling. Some readers might already know that Ged and Daisy abstain from all forms of Australian wine for the duration of Ashes series. I thought the choice of Austrian was a little edgy, but safe enough.
After the smoked trout, smoked eel bagels – embellished in similar fashion to the trout. Daisy found the eel a little rich for her taste. Bags of pork scratchings and some portions of soft fruit kept the afternoon interesting enough in the food department…
…home made shortbread (not home made by me, you understand)…
…later, the ham sandwiches on tomato bread encouraged us to launch into the bottle of red – a jolly little Tuscan number.
Blooming heck!
Well I have made my excuses for my poor memory of the Lord’s Test Match that year (Olympic summer blah blah)…
…they apply similarly to the ODI a couple of weeks later.
Here’s the scorecard – a happy ending for England this time.
It has the look of one of those “win the toss, bowl, win the match” one day matches that you tend to get at Lord’s in September.
I vaguely remember it being slow going and always feeling that England should be able to time and therefore win the chase, which they did.
But in truth, I think Janie and I had our minds half on our Paralympics day, which was all set for the next day.
Still, there’s no such thing as a bad day watching cricket at Lord’s, so for sure we had a good day.
I recall very little about this two-day visit. Perhaps it was the excitement of the Olympic summer that made this match pale, because looking at the scorecard the match was an absolute cracker:
I can’t even work out who joined me on the Friday; I think Janie came with me both days in the end. I can only find one e-mail, to Ian Theodoreson, quite late in the day, explaining that I had clean forgotten to sort out this match in all the excitement. He had to decline.
I recall arranging to meet Heinrich Groenewald and perhaps one or two others from his entourage during intervals, so I guess they had sorted themselves out with tickets way ahead. I know Janie was with me for those gatherings, which is one of the reasons I’m coming round to the idea that she joined me for both days that time.
I vaguely recall sitting in the Edrich Upper (or perhaps the Compton Upper) with Janie for this match. I think this might have been one of the occasions we had our ears bent by a pair of former Reuters journalists, who told us exactly the same old stories the second time as they had a year or two earlier, without twigging that we had sat next to them and heard their stories before. But whether this match was the first time or the second time we endured that pair I cannot recall. I think the second time…
…update! I am even more sure now that this was the second time, as I think I have uncovered the first time – click here or below:
England v India At Lord’s Days One And Two, 21 & 22 July 2011
But what a match (the 2012 one). Bitterly disappointing for England that they couldn’t quite turn things round and level the series, but on balance I think South Africa were the stronger side (just) at that time.
Yup, I blame the London 2012 Olympics for suppressing most of my memory of this one; unusually blank for me, this.
Our little group for this day of test cricket comprised Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett, Mac Small (who used to look after our cars, Noddy & Nobby, at Ruislip Honda), me and Daisy.
Daisy and I both recall that I was on picnic duty that day, so I no doubt did the smoked salmon bagels thing, plus probably some ham and cheese rolls or something of that ilk.
Everyone brought their wine/beer ration which made for a jolly day in the spring sunshine. Not “o-t ‘ot” but certainly “very very warm for May”. We were either in the Upper Compton or the Upper Edrich – I cannot remember which. Good seats, I do remember.
Here is a link to the scorecard.
Mac hails originally from Barbados. Charley seemed convinced that Mac must be related to the great Gladstone Small. Indeed Chas failed to hide his extreme disappointment when Mac informed him, rather emphatically, that he and Gladstone were not related. Mac and Chas spoke little after that.
In truth, Mac is a fairly quiet chap and seemed to be enjoying his day at Lord’s in a rather Zen style, while Chas and I chatted incessantly about cricket, as usual. Daisy drifted between a quiet state and joining in the conversation.
England were doing rather well, it has to be said. We saw Andrew Strauss score a ton, which was always a bonus for us, especially for Daisy, who single-handedly revived Straussy’s career with a pep talk back in 2008 – a matter to be Ogblogged in the fullness of time.
We vaguely recall that Mac left a little earlier than the rest of us, but not very early. Daisy and I are pretty sure Mac enjoyed his day, as afterwards he often referred to it, in only positive tones.
Here is a vid with some match analysis:
I needed to do some archaeology in my e-mail system for this match to work out who I went with on which days.
Turns out I went with Graham Stedman …latterly known as Iain Insteadman…:
Three Days At The Lord’s Test, England v West Indies, 7 to 9 September 2017
…on the Thursday, then with Janie on the Friday.
I hadn’t thought about this before, but Graham seems to be a bit of a rainmaker, if the story of his 2011 and 2017 visits to Lord’s might be deemed to be a reasonably-sized sample.
We only got just over half a day’s play on the Thursday; quite slow stuff at that.
Whereas Janie and I got a giant-sized day of cricket on the Friday, with fair weather and a Kevin Petersen double-hundred.
Here is a link to the match scorecard.
Still, Graham seemed to enjoy his day out:
Thank you very much indeed for an excellent day at the cricket. I thoroughly enjoyed it and it was a very welcome distraction from the office. I am only sorry our enjoyment was cut short by the rain.
I will follow the remainder of the match with extra interest.
I replied to his message by saying:
It was a pleasure and was good to see you. Janie felt badly on Friday that she and I did so much better weatherwise that day!
I am pretty sure this was the first of the occasions that Janie and I had our ears bent by a pair of retired Reuters journalists who told us exactly the same anecdotes, more or less word for word, both times.
But you do get a decent type of bore at Lord’s, you really do.
At some point in the future I might…just might…be able to provide a multi-faceted piece on this particular evening at Lord’s.
At the time of writing (January 2018), only my King Cricket piece, published October 2011, survives to tell the tale.
Yet tell the tale it does, I think – certainly from my perspective. Internationalism, scandal and some improbable, impromptu games…not bad.
Just in case anything ever happens to the King Cricket site, I have also scraped that report to here.
For those who have the stomach to look (i.e. most often neutrals and Surrey fans for these occasions), actually it looks as thought his was a pretty good match, despite the fact that I must have missed quite a fair chunk of it – click here for the scorecard and reports.
One extra bit of evidence on who, from “Ged Ladd & Co”, attended that time, in addition to “The Tiberellis”, comes from Jez’s e-mail to me a few week’s before the match:
Mark
Monique
Steph
Ben
Rich
David
Simon Strez would also like to come as it’s his last chance to see a cricket game in England before returning home to New Zealand. I also have 3 friends that will be coming to the game.
This match had unusually started on the Friday, so the plan was for me to go on the Friday and the Monday. The Friday went like this:
Janie and I were supposed to go with Hari and Mawju, both Sri Lankan people we know, Hari from the Lloyd’s bank in Ealing and Mawju from the Atari-Ya Japanese fishmongers (long story, don’t ask).
Also don’t ask why Mawju didn’t turn up and didn’t call to excuse himself or return his ticket.
Anyway, we had a very pleasant day at the cricket with Hari, who loved our picnic and we loved the cake he brought from home as his offering. It all sounds a bit TMS commentary box, doesn’t it? In some ways it was.
The match had been badly rain-affected the day before so we got an elongated day on the Monday. England did very well to turn a seemingly nailed-on draw into a possible winning position by the end of the day, although we had a sneaking suspicion that it would end up a draw anyway.
Spoiler alert – the scorecard – click here- will tell you what happened.
