This was another of those days when I hoped to see some cricket at Uxbridge but the weather was set foul. My track record over the years on days when I want to go to Middlesex out grounds can only be described as terrible…almost as terrible as Middlesex’s 2009 season.
Middlesex were having a shocking season that year, so it was hard to get reporters. Hence Hippity volunteered to go to Uxbridge and then write this one up…at least that’s what the editor was told.
Hippity’s writing career mercifully tailed off after the 2009 season, with just the occasional piece for MTWD or King Cricket subsequently.
Here is the 15 September 2009 report: Soggy Tail From Uxbridge.
Just in case anything ever happens to MTWD, I have scraped the piece to Ogblog – only click the link below if the link above doesn’t work:
Middlesex till we die – Soggy Tail From Uxbridge
Here is the scorecard from the inevitable draw.
For the record, rabbit-friendly “Uncail Victor at Uxbridge” is Vic Demain, who has gone on to grander things – at the time of writing he is groundsman at Chester-Le-Street. Not so rabbit-friendly “Uncail Micheál at Lord’s” is Mick Hunt.
I vaguely remember Tim Groenewald being taken poorly towards the end of this match and there being a resulting health scare (unfounded as it turned out) about both squads. The details are lost in the mists of my memory, although linger somewhere on the message boards. I do remember him being a bit of a thorn in Middlesex’s side on subsequent meetings over the years though.
As for the scurrilous suggestion that Middlesex might end that rotten season coming bottom of the second division, that was an outrage. Middlesex in fact came second from bottom, a full two points clear of the county championship wooden spoon – click here to see the table. Middlesex are yet to “win” that particular wooden spoon ever, I believe.