Tag: Northamptonshire

Lord’s-related Lunches 6 & 10 April 2018, Then Middlesex v Northants Day One, Lord’s, 13 April 2018

Attempts to get John Random (aka John Burns) to see some real tennis at Lord’s had not gone particularly well, previously, with John being called up to appear in a meerkat advert last time he was due to come see.

So when John called on the afternoon before our arrangement for 6 April, because he had a last minute call to be a 1940’s MP, we both thought the worst.

But in the end, as the call turned out to be 15:00, we still had time 6 April for John to see me play. As it happens, the contest turned out to form part of an unusual type of hat-trick. This was the second of three singles matches in a row in which my opponent had a double-barrelled name. Such names are not exactly rare amongst players of real tennis at Lord’s – but three in a row must be quite a rarity. In any case, I played well (by my own modest standards)…

Hopefully I have come on a bit in the 18 months since this photo was taken

…then John and I took some lunch at Mazi in Notting Hill Gate before he went off to be an historic MP.

I’d forgotten how good a place Mazi is – and so convenient for a local lunch. So when Stephen “Stentor Baritone” Barry got in touch on the following Monday with the good news that the Lord’s tickets we thought had got lost in the post had in fact been returned to him, I suggested we meet at Mazi for a quick bite on the Tuesday to avoid further possible postal misery. A very enjoyable lunch and a good chance to catch up, as we hadn’t seen each other for some months.

The Lord’s tickets in question are for Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett and Nigel “Father Barry White” Hinks, who shall be joining me and Daisy (Janie) on the Saturday of the test match.

But Charley and I had/have some cricket to see in advance of that test match – not least and first up, the opening day of the season at Lord’s – now a traditional meet. I produced a picnic in my traditional stylee. Smoked salmon bagels, Iberico ham muffins and a fine Riesling (Alsatian on this occasion) forming the core.

Gawd it was cold at times that day. But we suffered for our love of cricket and sat it out at the front of the pavilion.

The MCC have been granted permission to use floodlights for the County Championship matches this year, which is a real coup and/but frankly overdue. I understand why local folk didn’t want untrammelled use of floodlights at Lord’s in the evenings, but they cause no disturbance during the day.

We’d probably have had no play at all without the lights and indeed, because it was so gloomy, only got a limited amount of play – about half the day’s play – even with the lights.

Middlesex had of course been inserted by Northants and I thought did well to battle it to 136/4 by the time stumps were drawn.

Click here for a Cricinfo link which shows everything you want to know about the match and more.

Charley and I discussed diverse matters, as we do – ranging from cricket to family matters to work to politics to other hobbies/activities.

The highlight for the general Ogblog reader is probably Charley’s failure to have recognised my “Easter Canticle” for what it really is:

Canticle For Lauds On The Third Day Of Easter: Deus Intellegit, Litorean Order, c1300

No shame there, though. John Random had been similarly “stitched up like a kipper” by it. Indeed it seems to have fooled most people.

I dare Ogblog readers who missed the posting over Easter to click through, watch the little vid and work out what was going on.

But enough of Lauds and back to Lord’s…

…play ended a little early and the day ended all too quickly, as always. I shall be joining Charley at Chelmsford next Friday, with the weather forecast suggesting a more pleasant climate for cricket than that gloomy opening day. But it had been worth it for the splendid company and the cricket, of course.

One In The Eye For Me and Middlesex, Lord’s & Wantage Road, 9 August 2016

Having played at least 40 hours of real tennis, I decided that I need a couple more lessons now just to try and come to terms with some basics such as playing off the back wall and volleying from the back of the court.

I arranged one of those lessons for 12:00 on this day. The weekend before, Chris Swallow phoned me and asked if I minded staying on to make up the numbers for the “senior doubles” hour, after my lesson. This seemed to me to be a good way of consolidating my learning.

I planned, therefore, to get all my work out of the way early and head straight from Lord’s to Wantage Road for the T20 quarter final between Northamptonshire and Middlesex.

Real Tennis

The real tennis lesson with Chris went fine. We concentrated on playing off the back wall, which I think I can now do with more confidence.

After the lesson, Chris went off to find one of the senior gentlemen for the doubles while two of us knocked up and then started playing some singles while we waited. The senior gentleman was nearly half an hour late due to some traffic problems. We played the senior doubles until 14:00, then Chris said that he needed to stop but that the court was free for a further 30 minutes if we wanted to play on.

So, as the clock ticked into the start of a third continuous hour on court (I realise in retrospect that this is not a good idea), the three of us who remained started playing a form of rotating (Australian) Canadian Doubles, which works quite well for real tennis. On one occasion, I served a sitter to the more senior gentleman who sent the ball back towards the far (forehand) corner.

Keen to show off my new “off the back wall” skills, I hurtled towards the ball and then realised (a little too late) that the ball would land far too close to the corner for me to do anything other than break myself and/or my racket. On pulling out of the shot in a muddle, I caught my own face with the racket between my eyebrow and my eye.

The senior gentleman in question seemed far more concerned to ascertain whether he had won the point or laid a chase before finding out whether I was OK. Quite a lot of blood, but in truth a small wound. We soldiered on until the next match arrived at half-past.

Mercifully for you, dear reader, I didn’t take a selfie of my injury, neither at the time nor the next day when the bruise/shiner went through a particularly vivid multi-coloured set of hues.

After my 150 minutes on court, I decompressed for a few minutes and ascertained that the swelling was so slight and far enough away from the eye as to leave my vision entirely unimpeded. I therefore soldiered on as planned to Northampton for the cricket match.

T20 Cricket – Northamptonshire v Middlesex Quarter-Final

I found myself in the appropriate hospitality suite well before the match, after navigating the Northamptonshire CCC stewards. Most of them seemed temporary and unable to help much/at all, whereas the regular ones (if you could find them) were incredibly helpful. Sadly the regulars were indiscernible from the temporary ones, unless you knew who to look for.

Quite a few of the Middlesex regulars were there, of course. I learnt that this was to be the first ever T20 match between our two counties. I met a few really pleasant and  interesting people. Northamptonshire put on a very tasty spread for us all. Much of the time I sat next to Keith Mein (Middlesex Committee) and Roy Virgin (former Northamptonshire player).

Middlesex seemed to be coming second for most of the evening and so the match turned out in the end – see scorecard here.

I was hoping for an easy drive home, but that wasn’t to be. Unscheduled roadworks between a couple of the junctions near Luton/Dunstable (aren’t there nearly always unscheduled roadworks there?) timed perfectly to maximise my discomfort, led to a tailback and diversions that the sat nav could only warn me about in retrospect. More than two-and-a-half hours after setting off from Northampton I got home.

It was a day for 150 minute marathons. Not my best day of the summer.

Middlesex v Sussex T20, Lord’s, 3 June 2010, Then Middlesex v Northamptonshire Day One, Lord’s, 4 June 2010

The diary suggests that I originally planned to go with Michael to Lord’s on 4 June day for a “stumpfmerde” (bullshit session at cricket), but as we had a mini works outing the night before to see a T20 match between Middlesex and Sussex, I have a feeling that Michael and I moved the “stumpf” until later in the season.

The Thursday mini works outing comprised me, Jez, Monique, Steph, Rich and Grant. That season, Jez and I were organising several mini-outings to the T20 matches, rather than the slightly larger whole team outings that became the norm in later years. The weather was especially good that June – as Monique wrote the next day:

Thanks for last night. It was so nice to be able to sit in the sun! And now to take the mickey out of Jez…

The sun failed to shine on Middlesex that night in a cricketing sense – click here for the scorecard.

Still, I took the Friday off and went to Lord’s to see Day One of the Northants match, probably taking a wad of reading with me, as was my wont.

I can see that I had an exchange of messages with Peter Sheldrake, aka Comebackgatt, with a view to meeting up at Lord’s which, on this occasion, didn’t happen.

What do I mean, “on this occasion”? It never happened. Despite several attempts.

Still, at least Comebackgatt wrote up the day for MTWD – click here.

Here is a link to the scorecard – Middlesex fans of a nervous disposition shouldn’t look.

I don’t think I stayed much past tea as Janie and I were meeting Anthea and Mitchell later:

Come, Been and Gone, aka I Like My Job, Michael Clark Company, Barbican, 4 June 2010

 

 

Middlesex v Northants Day Two With Geoff Young, Day Three With Michael Mainelli, Lord’s, 26 & 27 April 2007

Day Two – 26 April 2007

I have little to add to the extensive report I wrote about Day 2 on MTWD: Click here for a link to my MTWD match report for the day.

Just in case anything ever happens to MTWD, I have scraped that report to here.

Geoff Young is a Northamptonshire-supporting stalwart of the Tufty Stackpole team we used to play matches against as and for The Children’s Society. Several such matches will be Ogblogged in the fullness of time – here is one example, if you like a long read, which was the most recent match when Geoff and I went to Lord’s that day in April 2007:

Tufty Stackpole v The Children’s Society, North Crawley CC, “Match Report”, 30 July 2006

For those who don’t want to read the MTWD Day 2 match report, it basically says that Geoff and I had a very enjoyable day at Lord’s – a bit more enjoyable for me based on the cricket – with a picnic lunch of the “Ian/Ged” standard variety – i.e. splendid.

Day Three – 27 April 2007

In those days Michael Mainelli (Timothy Tiberelli) and I had a traditional visit to Lord’s at least once a season – usually early season, which we called a Stumpfmerde session. We had a long standing tradition of occasional “Stiermerde” (bullshit) sessions to talk about strategic matters for the business. The Stumpfmerde was a “with cricket” variant.

I could tell you about the strategic matters we discussed that day…but I’d probably then have to kill you and believe me it wouldn’t be worth it.

Michael’s follow up note started with:

Great Stumpfmerde.  Glad to see our boys crushed ’em on Saturday.

I like the way he thinks of Middlesex as “our boys”.

To see the Cricinfo scorecard for the whole match, click here.

On the Saturday, after following Middlesex’s win on the Internet Radio, Janie and I watched the conclusion of the World Cup Final on the TV – a very cricket heavy few days for me.