So this was the year that Iain O’Brien was the star of the show…
…and the year when the club still couldn’t talk about new season signings, even in late March.
The MTWD correspondents seem to spend more time discussing Barmy Kev’s ability to grab the wine than the content of the meeting and discussion. Another year, another Seaxe Club AGM through the lens of MTWD.
The diary is a bit sparse on what we actually did:
18 February Lord’s @18:00;
26 February Nets & Dinner 6:00;
12 March (Nets) 7:00 to 8:00.
The e-mail is not much additional help – me to E 14 March:
Very much enjoyed Friday evening nets and supper at Harry’s. Many thanks for treating us to the latter.
In the nets, I have a feeling we worked with Moses (Hallam Mosely) on most of those sessions. He taught me how to pivot to get a bit more umph on my deliveries.
I’m pretty sure Chas was still injured at that time, which is why he didn’t join us for nets that winter. My correspondence with him around that time is prely business related.
I’m pretty sure the girls joined us for the last two – i.e. both of the Friday evenings. Daisy recalls a restaurant in Marylebone on 26 February – we might dig out her diary or trawl Lavender’s memory for the details, but I think we treated the youngsters that night and then they treated us to Harry’s 12 March.
Further details might follow, if Daisy’s diary or the youngsters’ memories bear more fruit.
Postscript:
Not Marylebone 26 February, but The Cow on Westbourne Park Road – well remembered Escamillo & Lavender. Yes, we all agree, Harry’s for the second evening together.
Turns out it was a fairly prescient report; not so in the matter of Adam London, but Messrs Robson, Malan and Compton certainly formed a nucleus for Middlesex’s improvement and success, following the dog days of the late noughties.
Lord’s probably looked a bit like this on those days…
I spent a fair bit of time at Lord’s days 1, 2 and 4 for this match.
Days 1 & 2 I was marking Payroll Giving Awards applications; I was chairing those awards back then. My habit was to take the file down to Lord’s – find a relatively quiet spot and do the marking in the open air.
Day 4 (the Friday) I was supposed to have meetings in the middle of the day, but I think they got shifted to/combined with my Thursday meetings.
I don’t recall a great deal about the cricket, other than Middlesex making a very generous declaration on Day 4 (I think we were a bit desperate for wins at that stage of the season), which Essex gobbled up with relative ease. I recall that Fletch was fuming about the declaration when I ran into him towards the end of the match.
For several years now I have written occasional pieces about cricket for the King Cricket website, under my nom de plume, Ged Ladd. Janie and I have called each other Ged and Daisy since the mid 1990s.
The King Cricket website has very strict rules about match reports: “If it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. If it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.”
This particular day was a rather important one; this was the day that England defeated Australia at Lord’s for the first time for 75 years, but none of that is apparent in my King Cricket Match Report, click here.
I have only one abiding memory from the afternoon, other than those captured in the photos above and me sinking into a glorious oblivious haze of relaxation arising from exercise, food and wine. Owais Shah’s agent, John E Barnett, for some reason “joined” us in our box for quite time, waxing lyrical about his boy Owais, enjoying our afternoon tea hospitality and watching Owais Shah himself score a top notch century.
It hardly seems possible, but there is Garry Sobers and there are we Z/Yen folk too, this photograph and all those that follow in this piece with thanks to Monique Gore
Even more sadly/ironically/inappropriately, I am here to report that Sir Garfield Sobers has suffered the indignity of watching me and the Z/Yen team playing live, in person, at Lord’s.
It happened like this.
Middlesex County Cricket Club had very kindly offered me a Lord’s box for a day of County Championship cricket, as a thank you for some pro bono work I was doing with the club at that time. I decided to organise a Z/Yen awayday to take advantage of the box, including booking out half of the Lord’s Cricket Academy for a couple of hours. Of course Z/Yen had to pay for everything other than the box, so it was quite an expensive freebie in the end, but well worth it.
Linda’s e-mail to the team sets out the itinerary for the day:
As the day is approaching, I thought you should have an itinerary of the Z/Yen Away Day to Lord Cricket Ground (Home of Cricket) on Tuesday, 30 June 2009.
9.30-9.45 Arrive at Marylebone Cricket Club, Lord’s Cricket Ground, London NW8 8QN. Map: https://www.lords.org/
10.00 Lesson and game with James Fielding
13.00 Lunch at the Sir Pelham Warner Restaurant retiring to Tavern’s Stand, Box E to watch Middlesex V Surrey
16.30 Afternoon Tea
In the end our lesson and game was mostly organised by Jamie Thorpe, not James Fielding.
Jamie Thorpe helping Becky to sort out her protective gear, which seemed to take longer than her actual cricket session……then Jamie tried to work on Becky’s batting technique. At no point did any of us hear Jamie say, “stick to the flute, Becky.”
I had told Richard Goatley (then Deputy Chief Executive of Middlesex) about our plans. He told me he had a meeting that morning but it should be finished in time for him to pop round and have a look at us in the Academy.
What Richard didn’t say in advance was that his morning meeting was with Garfield Sobers and that Richard had resolved to try and bring Sobers along with him.
Richard picks up his side of the story from there:
I can remember… …you were bowling in a bandana. When Don Bennett saw your first ball Don said, “oh Jesus, I’m done” and started to walk away. Sobers said, “cmon Don, watch a little”, but Don left pretty quickly afterwards.
The photographic evidence suggests that I was indeed bowling in a bandana……quite possibly at Jez…looks straight enough…
Anyway, Sobers was a far more discerning observer of Z/Yen cricket than “The Don”…or at least far more polite, as he did stick around for a good twenty minutes or so; longer in fact than Richard Goatley.
Then Sobers watched the youngsters who were playing in the other half of the Academy for a while, then at the end of it all stuck around for the youngsters and then us to have photos taken with him. What a delightful gentleman he is.
Eight years later and beyond, Richard Goatley still likes to milk this story and frankly so do I. Having Garry Sobers watch us play is one of those very special cricketing memories that I shall never forget.
I often say that there are only two places remaining on earth where staff and stewards still call me “young man”: Lord’s and the Wigmore Hall.
So what better places to celebrate Janie’s birthday than both of those august institutions?
We’d probably booked the Wigmore Hall late night concert before we knew/realised that Middlesex were to play Essex in the T20 tournament at Lord’s that evening. Low marks to the cricket authorities for demographic matching for scheduling that fixture at that venue that night, but they probably won’t make that mistake again in a hurry.
Anyway, Charley “The Gent” Malloy was keen to see that fixture and suggested (once he knew it was Janie’s birthday and that we had a later evening engagement at “The Wig”), that we make that match a couples outing, with Dot (Mrs Malloy) up for the idea of a T20 game and a picnic at Lord’s. So that’s what we did.
But it clearly only spoiled their fun a bit, as Chas said in a note the following Monday:
That was a super evening last Friday at Lords with all of us there; it was an absolute delight, although I suspect that the loss by Essex cost them dearly!
Music
The Wigmore Late concert was a real treat for Janie; she loves a bit of Piazzolla and this was a concert full of the stuff.
