Tag: Oval

Fragments Of Cricket And Tennis, Radlett, Lord’s & Oval, 1 to 10 May 2019

I saw several bits of cricket matches in the first 10 days of May, squeezed between lots of work, real tennis and other activities.

Wednesday 1 May 2019: Radlett & Lord’s

Originally, I had planned to block out that day for cricket, but I needed to fit a client meeting in mid to late morning, so had all-but abandoned the idea of seeing cricket that day.

Then I got a message from Fran to say that she and Simon were packing their sun cream, tee-shirts, thick winter coats, galoshes and brollies with every intention of going to the match come what may.

It also turned out to be a week for me being press-ganged into extra real tennis at Lord’s, so after I had stayed on court for an extra hour the day before to get some doubles experience, one of the pros asked if I could be a late stand-in at 20:00 on 1 May for a tough singles.

So the combination of the Fran message, the timing of that tennis press-ganging, together with some favourable weather and an interesting match position…

…persuaded me to jump into Dumbo to join Fran and Simon for a few hours at Radlett, where Middlesex were hosting Somerset, before driving home via Lord’s.

This was Dumbo’s first visit to Radlett since the 2016 visit, reported (surprisingly recently) on King Cricket:..

A Middlesex Second XI v Lancashire Second XI match report (from 2016)

…although I did spend a splendid day with Fran, Simon and Charley The Gent at Radlett last season:

An Unusual Day In Radlett And At The Oval, During Which Middlesex Came Second Twice, 17 May 2018

So, I got home from my client meeting, had a quick bite to eat while watching the closing overs of the Middlesex innings on the Chromecast/TV and then jumped into Dumbo who “rode like the wind” to Radlett. We arrived just after 15:00.

Dumbo wasn’t very impressed with the large public field in which he had to park – his previous visit, to a second team match, enabled him a parking space with a bit of a view.

I, on the other hand, was pretty impressed by the scale of the enterprise and how well organised the outground team seemed to be on a match day. Very friendly and helpful.

Having learnt from our rather chilly experience in the shade last time, Fran and Simon had grabbed some excellent seats on the sunny side. It was one of those “layers of clothes” days, on which I ended up in rolled up shirtsleeves when the sun came out and then donning my thick jacket, scarf and hat by the end of the match after the sun had gone in.

It was really pleasant to sit watching cricket with Fran and Simon again – they are very knowledgeable cricket followers; there was plenty to discuss in the matter of county and international cricket since we’d last met. Oh, plus catching up on our other news of course.

Middlesex took its time to take the last wicket and I had almost decided to give up on waiting to be sure to get out of the car park and back down to Lord’s in good time, but the trusty satnav kept insisting that the journey wouldn’t take long against the main flow of rush hour traffic.

So I did stick it out to the final ball and we did find it surprisingly easy and relatively quick to get out of the car field – the stewards operating very efficiently to keep the funnelling out of the ground decorous.

So Dumbo and I got to Lord’s nice and early. Moreover, as a special treat for Dumbo, it transpired that there were no functions on that evening so he was allowed to park in the Allen Stand gap and look out onto the field of play.

Don’t tell Dumbo that there was no cricket on; I’m not sure he noticed.

Dumbo and I returned to Lord’s for tennis on the Friday morning (3rd) when, very unusually, Dumbo was again allowed to park in the Allen Stand gap, as a result of works vehicles blocking the way to his regular Car Park No 6 spot. Actually the above photo was taken on the Friday morning.

The next day, 4th, I played a representative tennis match for the MCC at Middlesex University, reported here and below.

Who Ate All The Pies? A Convivial Match Between Middlesex University Real Tennis Club (MURTC) & The MCC, 4 May 2019

Wednesday 8th May 2019: Lord’s & Oval

I had long-since pre-arranged a tennis lesson on this morning, so rumours that I was having the equivalent of a “naughty boy net” after our somewhat bruising visit to Middlesex University at the weekend are simply not true. Fake news. Perhaps I shouldn’t have spread those rumours myself in the first place.

Anyway, I found myself at two major cricket grounds on the same day for the first time ever, I think, as a result of being asked to attend a somewhat last-minute ad hoc London Cricket Trust meeting with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), for which the only convenient venue was the Oval, where England were supposed to be playing a one-day-international against Pakistan.

It was a horribly rainy day and I thought it unlikely that there would be any cricket at all, but heck, I wasn’t really there for cricket, I was there for a meeting. Still, the way to get us in to the ground on a big match day was to provide us with comps, so I did have an OCS stand ticket for a rather good balcony seat.

Strangely, as there were no rooms available for the meeting, we ended up on the top level of the OCS stand having the meeting on outdoor (albeit covered area) tables and chairs. Even more strangely, the rain stopped and some play was possible for just over an hour, which coincided almost exactly with the hour we spent meeting.

Some people in the meeting must have been making very profound points, because as soon as they had finished their sentence the crowd oohed and aahed – especially if the speaker was talking during one of Jofra Archer’s overs. I didn’t manage to time any of my pearls of wisdom to coincide with an ejaculation of crowd noise, sadly. Perhaps my pearls of wisdom are not so spectacular after all.

After the meeting, AccuWeather told me that there might be 15 minutes or so before the next short but heavy rain storm, so I thought I might as well make full use of my comp for three or four overs before heading home.

A rare glimpse of sunshine on a very wet day
As seen from the OCS Stand 2nd tier balcony

I did well, thanks to AccuWeather, as I managed to get home between showers too.


Friday 10th May 2019: Lord’s…Just Lord’s

Just one cricket ground that day? What was the matter with me?

Still, one ground, two purposes; real tennis and cricket. I had arranged to play real tennis on the Friday afternoon long since, with no expectation that Middlesex might have a home draw at Lord’s in a knockout tournament. After all, it is several decades since Middlesex has had one of those, so it hardly falls into the “expectation” category.

I watched the start of the Middlesex v Lancashire match on the TV at home, while having lunch. My plan, which worked well, was to head off for Lord’s in Dumbo at around 14:30, enabling me to put Dumbo onto a four-hour meter near the ground and then not have to worry about him for the rest of the afternoon/evening. Plan worked.

So I watched about 30-40 minutes of cricket before getting changed for tennis. Janie (Daisy) informed me that she’d probably arrive while I was playing tennis, which she did.

Daisy tried very hard to distract my opponent, Stuart, with sledging and left-field questions, but seemed better able to distract my concentration than Stuart’s. All the more so when she was joined in the dedans gallery by Dominic and Pamela…followed soon enough by John Thirlwell. The more they tried to help me with their crowd noise, the more they seemed to help Stuart.

Actually it was a very good, close game of tennis, which I lost very narrowly and felt I’d done well to stay that close, given how well Stuart was playing.

Meanwhile, by the time I got changed, Middlesex were in all sorts of trouble and it looked as though our evening watching cricket might be severely foreshortened.

Still, Janie hunkered down with some wine and nibbles up on the top deck…

…then soon after John Thirlwell joined us.

“And how are you today?”
“Better than half-a-yard”

James Harris (no relation) got Middlesex infeasibly close to the 300+ target having been 24-5 at one point, but (as I had suspected throughout the innings) it wasn’t quite enough to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Still, it was a very pleasant couple of hours of cricket watching and chat. Janie and I rounded off the evening by picking up some of our favourite Chinese grub from Four Seasons, Queensway on the way home.

An Unusual Day In Radlett And At The Oval, During Which Middlesex Came Second Twice, 17 May 2018

On which day did Middlesex come second twice while Middlesex Seconds came first once?

Now that would be a really good sports quiz question…if it were located somewhere other than this clearly dated blog page.

Confused? Let me explain.

I arranged to go to Radlett with Charley “The Gent” Malloy to see Middlesex v Essex. Long overdue, was our joint visit to Radlett – we had planned to go together to a second team match about four years ago but the rain put paid to that plan, although I did write up our replacement culinary gathering for King Cricket – click here or below:

Middlesex Second XI v Essex Second XI at Radlett

Tempting the rain gods yet further, I contacted Fran to find out whether she and Simon intended to visit Radlett that day. Our previous attempt to watch cricket together at Uxbridge had been well soggy – click here or below:

Two Forms Of Soaking And Two Friendly Gatherings In One Day, Uxbridge and Southwark, 13 September 2017

Anyway, Fran and Simon were planning on showing up at Radlett, so we planned to all sit together.

Then Richard Goatley (Middlesex CCC’s Chief Executive) asked me if I could join him and some others that evening at the Oval for a London Playing Fields Foundation Sports Quiz Fundraiser. Not really my cup of tea, but given the functional connection with the nascent London Cricket Trust charity, for which I am a Trustee – more on that anon – I thought I should go. Richard promised me a lift from Radlett to the Oval if I wanted to help save the planet by limiting the number of cars criss-crossing London that day – I eagerly accepted that offer of a lift.

In fact, getting to Radlett by train was a doddle…

Radlett station signage

…certainly compared with Chas’s ludicrous hike across from Malloy Manor, which should have taken him 40 minutes and took more like an hour-and-40. I managed it door to door in not much more than an hour.

That enabled me to nab a few decent seats at the front, with Fran’s vertical challenges in mind. I also thought best to avoid the relentless sun, although I didn’t realise quite how cold the shade would be.

The night before the big day, I had a memory flash that Fran had written to me while I was in Mauritius in 1979 and that I still had the letter. She had…I did…I scanned & printed same and took the incriminating evidence with me to Radlett. Click here or below to see the letter and how all that went down:

A Letter From Fran To Me While I Was In Mauritius, 7 August 1979

Anyway, that correspondence proved an interesting conversation piece for the middle part of the Middlesex innings, during which time Middlesex turned a very promising start into a potential disaster.

While Middlesex rebuilt the innings to something approaching respectability (only 30-40 runs short, rather than the 60-70 runs short that the innings at one point threatened), Fran and Simon observed the Chas and Ged picnic much as a pair of field anthropologists might observe a remote tribe. They had read of such picnics on King Cricket and Ogblog of course, but never actually witnessed anything quite like it.

Not really picnickers themselves, Fran and Simon did bring some cashew nuts, enabling us to share and test the relative merits of Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Lidl in the cashew department. Result: little distinction in flavour, but the more expensive M&S ones are larger and would look posher served up in a bowl.

Unfortunately, just before the end of the Middlesex innings, Fran’s mum, who has been poorly of late, called with a minor emergency which Fran and Simon, kindly and dutifully, went off to attend. I hope I’ll be able to catch up with them again soon – e.g. at Merchant Taylor’s School.

Meanwhile I tried to convince Chas (and myself) that 250 might just prove to be enough runs (ha ha) while Essex set out to prove that even the 280-290 par score might not have been enough if Middlesex kept insisting on dropping catches all afternoon.

Mercifully I had to leave before suffering the indignity of the final nails being driven into Middlesex’s coffin by Essex – click here to see the scorecard and details – in short, Middlesex came second.

Then the drive across London, starring James Keightley behind the wheel, Bob Baxter (Chair of Middlesex Cricket Board) in the front seat, with the back seat navigators being Richard Goatley & me…especially me once we hit traffic and I figured that Waze might solve our navigation problems for us.

We got to the Oval in good time.

The opening overs of the charity event were stunning – it was a glorious sunny evening and we took drinks on that OCS sun deck.

Our team/table also comprised William Frewen (like James, from Teddington CC), Ed Griffiths, his nephew Alex (Richmond CC) and a young gentleman named Bruce (I think).

It soon dawned on me that everyone on our table, apart from me, was bringing quite a lot to the sports quizzing party. It also dawned on me that Richard and the others had sort-of assumed that I might be a useful addition to a sports quiz team. Oh dear.

Oh well, I am what I am, an’ I’m not ashamed.

Strangely, I was able to make a few useful contributions, more through general knowledge questions and sort-of knowing how quizzing works than through sports knowledge itself.

Example: as we were going in to the meal/quiz, James mentioned to me that the master of ceremonies/quizmaster/former Rugby Union international, Martin Bayfield, has appeared as Hagrid’s body in the Harry Potter movies. “Park that piece of trivia at the front of your brain, James,” I said, “that’s bound to come up in one of the questions.” It did.

Martin Bayfield cropped
I am what I am, an’ I’m not ashamed.
Here is a link that tells you all about the LPFF sports quiz.

It was a reasonably relaxed atmosphere on our table, at first. But as we started to do better and better on the leaderboard, the competitive spirit on the Middlesex table started to really take hold.

Heading up the Middlesex competitive spirit big time was Ed Griffiths. I have got to know Ed quite well over the last few months, as he is leading on our London Cricket Trust initiative, to put cricket facilities into parks and commons across London. I have a huge amount of admiration for the way Ed is gently but relentlessly driving our initiative forward. I’ll be writing a fair bit more about the London Cricket Trust in the coming months.

If you cannot be bothered to click the links, Ed was the uniting Chief Executive of the South African Rugby Union in the early post-apartheid days and latterly Chief Executive of Saracens.

So I suppose it should come as no surprise that Ed is a very competitive chap. But his response to the conclusion of the sports quiz, when it was announced that we had come second (out of sixteen), had to be seen to be believed.

At first I thought Ed was joking, as I might have done, melodramatically bemoaning our “close but no cigar” outcome. But when he nearly smashed a glass in frustration and then went to the quiz adjudication table in order to audit and question the results, several of us realised that Ed really was a ball of combative anger.

Ed returned to our table with the news that we had lost by a mere two points, which, given the charitable circumstances, was news that would satisfy less driven individuals (e.g. me) to conclude that we had done really well and that it was for charity after all and that, but for fortune, we might even have won.

Yet the closeness of the defeat seemed to anger and frustrate Ed yet further. He nearly smashed a wine glass again. Writing this up five days later, I think Ed Griffiths might just about be over the disappointment now…but perhaps not. Middlesex had come second again. Albeit this time in a field of 16 rather than a field of two.

Earlier in the evening, the admirably dedicated Ed reported that he had spent the day in Southend-On-Sea watching Middlesex Second XI defeat Essex Second XI – click here for a match report on that match. Middlesex Seconds had come first.

Coincidentally, sitting at the next table to us, was a lady who kept looking across at us and who eventually came over to introduce herself; Tom Lace’s mum. Tom is one of our up and coming second team players who, as the coincidence grows, also plays for Teddington CC. Tom’s mum went on to take selfie photos of herself with William and James from Teddington. I am absolutely sure that breakfast time in the Lace household the next morning will have thrilled young Tom, when mum showed him the evidence of her fun evening with the Middlesex CCC/Teddington CC great and good. In my (limited) experience, youngsters love that sort of thing.

On the evening, I chose not to mention that Tom Lace is (the coincidence simply grows to bonkers proportions) my long-form kit sponsorship player this year. I surmised that such news would have been a relative sub-plot to what was already a bit of a sub-plot, so I kept schtum about that.

But I don’t suppose anyone at that fundraiser was left in any doubt that Middlesex had attended and contributed to the evening big time. Not only did we come second in the quiz (I will get over it eventually, really I will) but two of our number bid very generously in the auction. Ed Griffiths bought tickets to a show he didn’t even know existed (until he was bidding for it), while William Frewen procured one of Harry Kane’s football boots.

As William lives quite near me, I offered to cab him and his new boot home on my way. But I signally failed to find a cab or Uber at the end of the evening…

South of the river? Do me a favour!

…so William and I  walked to Vauxhall together and journeyed by tube, with William carrying an unfeasibly expensive soccer boot in a presentation box that had been cunningly disguised, through the use of a simple cardboard box exterior as…

…any old cardboard box. Fiendish.

William and I sat on the Victoria Line train discussing the finer details of Middlesex Cricket Board governance and its integration into Middlesex Cricket…like you do.

Harry Kane (24685589756)
How can I win England the World Cup with only one soccer boot?
It was a fitting end to an odd but hugely memorable day.

An Enjoyable Excursion Into Domestic Cricket Neutrality, Surrey v Essex, T20, Oval, 19 July 2017

The Oval At Nightfall

In early May I received an e-mail from John White, out of the blue:

I have been invited to the Oval on 19th July and have been asked if I would like to bring a friend!  It could only be you Ian.  Are you free?  We will be the guest of WE Communications and we get to go in the members area.

My first thought was that this must be the test match, but when I looked up the date I discovered that it was an evening domestic T20 match between Surrey and Essex.

It occurred to me that I haven’t been to a domestic cricket match as a neutral (i.e. without my county, Middlesex, playing), since I was a kid. Those experiences, as a kid, were all at The Oval, as it happens. This scorecard – click here – might be an example of one of those – I need to check the old diaries but for sure I saw once saw Barry Richards dominate the bowling there, while all others made it look like hard work.

Indeed all my early experience of seeing professional cricket was at the Oval – here is one especially odd set of experiences at the Oval from 40 years ago, including an encounter with Bob Willis on the tube after play, which I have already Ogblogged.

John’s e-mail was not terribly informative and (after accepting the invitation with relish) I didn’t give the event a great deal of thought again until it was imminent.

As it happens, on the day, I was working from home, interrupted only by a marathon session of tennis mid morning at Lord’s.

On reflection, I should have pipped John an e-mail about the extent to which this might be formal entertaining, mode of dress, etc., but instead I picked up Marcus’s e-mail, Googled WE Communications and decided for myself that this must be corporate entertaining of some scale and that I’d better turn up suited and booted. I even put my little case of business cards in my jacket pocket.

As it turned out, the evening was in fact a very informal set up with Marcus (who is a Surrey member), his colleague Josh (who is in fact a fellow MCC yellow-carder), me and John. All the others were in “dress-down, evening out” attire.

It was a very enjoyable evening. Really good company; people who know and enjoy their cricket while at the same time keeping the conversation suitably varied and interesting on many topics.

I really liked that feeling of neutrality at the match. I was watching cricket, simply hoping to see a good match, without any emotional equity in the result. It was strangely refreshing. In particular I think the neutrality worked for me because I was in good company.

After the game, although John was demob happy, he was keen to start his long journey home and I was keen to get home quite early as I had a long working day ahead the next day.

The evening was great fun; I’m sure we’ll do something like that again next season – perhaps at Lord’s, so that Marcus can experience that slightly oblivious feeling of cricket watching neutrality.

Bore Draw – NOT!!, MTWD Piece, Surrey v Middlesex Day 4, The Oval, 9 May 2009

This turned out to be one of the most exciting days of cricket I have ever witnessed.

It was one of those strange situations in which everything worked out for the best.

Janie and I were all dressed up / picniced up with no place to go that Saturday, as we had Day 4 test match tickets for a Lord’s match which had somehow managed to conclude in three days.

So we went to the Oval and saw a screamer of a Day Four County Championship day there instead.

We attributed the resulting MTWD piece to Daisy feat. Ged:

Daisy watching cricket at Lord’s on a subsequent cold feet, cold hands  day

Here is that Daisy Feat. Ged MTWD report: Bore Draw – NOT!! – click here.

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 – Bore Draw Not

If you want to see the scorecard, which barely does justice to this extraordinary match – click here.

Try To Remember/The Way We Won, Middlesex v Lancashire T20 Quarter Final, Oval, 8 July 2008

“The grass was greener
The skies were bluer
And smiles were bright”

…as Gladys Knight used to put it, back in the good old days.

I’m not sure that the grass at the Oval was greener than the grass is at Lord’s, but Middlesex had to play its hard-won home quarter-final away from Lord’s, as Lord’s was already taken for a traditional match of some description; armed services, varsity, eating an arrow, or whatever.

I’m not sure the skies were bluer in SE11 than they were in NW8 either, although the Oval is that tiny bit nearer the equator than Lord’s I suppose.

My smile was especially bright, not only at the end of the match when Middlesex won, but even before the match. I know for sure that I had gleaming gnashers that day, because my trusty diary tells me that I went to see Carita, the best dental hygienist in the world, that very morning.

My smile was certainly absent about 15-20 minutes into the match. Godleman, Shah, Joyce and Scott all back in the hutch for diddly-squat; not just defeat but the prospect of embarrassing defeat loomed. Televised potentially embarrassing defeat too.

I was sitting with MTWD stalwarts in the Oval pavilion. I particularly recall Neil “Lord of the Chairs” Walker and Chris Thomas. We also saved a seat for the late Barmy Kev who I think joined us while we were in the depths of despair. Jez I seem to remember was away, hoping to get back in time, but didn’t/couldn’t show in the end.

In brief, Dawid Malan saved the day, initially with Eoin Morgan, then subsequently with Typhoon Tyron Henderson, avoiding embarrassment and then posting a challenging score. Indeed, it turned out to be a winning score.

Here is a link to the scorecard.

Here is a link to the MTWD match report, an emotive piece by LizzieJ.

The mood in our group improved, to say the least, as the evening wore on. I don’t remember all that much about it, except that huge swing of emotions as the mood turned from despair to hope and eventually joy. I’m pretty sure there was some consumption of beer, unless there was some consumption of wine. I think more likely the former or a fair bit of both.

Perhaps some of the people who were there with me that evening have better memories of it and would care to chime in with some memories.

It was one heck of an evening. And if you were a Middlesex fan, you didn’t need to have seen Carita the dental hygienist that morning for the smiles to be bright, so bright.

England v India, 3rd Test, Day 2, Oval, 10 August 2007

I remember very little about this day. It was between dad’s passing away on the Monday and the funeral, all scheduled and arranged for the following Monday.

I considered not going, but mum and Janie both saw no sense in me moping around at home instead – there was nothing left to arrange. My original plan had been to go Beer Festing with the Z/Yen crowd the night before, but I am sure I pulled out of that event that year; there had been and would be other years.

But with the Oval so close to mum and dad’s house, it would be an easy hop over to mum’s after stumps, which is exactly what I did.

The guests that day were Harish Gohil (Charles was down to join us but ducked out, I think because he had needed to take so much time off for other reasons that summer), David Highton (formerly of Broadcasting Support Services), Shums Cassim (who was trying to get SpecialZm going), Stuart Caplin (a very charming gentleman from St James’s Place – Shums choice of guest).

Judging from the scorecard – here – India spent the day making England suffer having made England suffer the day before – gosh India were a strong test side at that time.

I think I made my excuses a little early to beat the crush and get to mum’s at a reasonable hour. I guess I travelled to the house from the Oval using the tube and then a minicab from Balham – not the pocket-money-preserving tuppence bus fare of my childhood.

Janie came to the house and I recall mum was in a very dark mood by that evening. We tried to distract her and lighten the mood a little (which I think is what you are supposed to do in these circumstances) and then got told off for inappropriate levity.

England v West Indies, 5th Test, Oval, 31 August 2000 but not 4 September 2000

Thursday 31 August 2000

I have documentary evidence to prove that I went to the Oval on the first day of the fifth test. Not much was arranged by e-mail in those days, but I wrote an e-mail to TMS. I was reminded of same, today (13 January 2017) as a result of some discussions about left and right-handedness on King Cricket – click here – which triggered a memory that I possess a great essay on the subject in The Boundary Book: Second Innings.

I found the book. Marking that very essay in my copy of The Boundary Book: Second Innings was a printout of the following e-mail, to TMS:

In the hope & expectation that Nagamootoo will be selected for the Oval, try this limerick for size.

There is a young man Nagamootoo,

Who the girls find it hard to stay true to;

He’s a little too shy,

Like the song by that guy,

Named Limahl from the group Kajagoogoo.

Do look out for us today, near the front of the Peter May North Stand. A monkey, a green rabbit, four chaps (including two American rookies trying test cricket for the first time) and a yellow duck named Henry.  Henry bears more than a passing resemblance to Henry Blofeld.

Ian

Earlier that same summer at the first test with the Heavy Rollers, plus Hippity the Green Bunny, Henry the Duck but no monkey. The monkey joined our household later.

We met Bananarama Monkey-Face in Pickering in early July 2000. This photo from 2014, after he’d established his own small-time writing career.

FALSE MEMORY PARAGRAPH

I have a feeling that the first day of the fifth test must be the occasion that Jeremy, Michael and I went together, with the additional American Rookie being a client or prospective client of Michael’s who turned out to have the attention span of a flea. He watched for about 5 or 10 minutes, got bored, wandered off and made us feel thoroughly irritated, as we knew loads of people who would have loved that hot ticket. As Michael said afterwards, “I’m not making that mistake again”.

CORRECTED MEMORY PARAGRAPH

Following an e-mail trawl for other summer 2000 matters, I realise that the above memory is false, or rather a memory from a later year/test match day. On 31 August 2000 the attendees were:

  • me
  • Michael “Timothy Tiberelli” Mainelli
  • Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett
  • Bob “Big Mac” Reitemeier (this pseudonym previously unused, but in the grand tradition of On The Waterfront characters as pseudonyms).

Both Michael and Bob were suitably interested in the cricket and indeed both have attended first class cricket and/or played several times since their initiation that day. Perhaps Charles also has some memories of that day. Big Mac e-mailed to say:

I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the day.  I must admit that I did follow the events on Friday, Saturday and Sunday with some interest following my induction on Thursday.  Great stuff.   The hook has been planted…

What about Monday?

But far more importantly, Aggers clearly liked my limerick a lot, because I heard him read it out at one point and learned that he broadcast it more than once during the day on that first day of the match.

I got very excited on the Friday, as Clean Business Cuisine (still available at all good bookshops, both on-line and real world) had just come out and we were promoting it heavily, so I got our book PR lass, Tanya, to bike a copy of the book to the TMS team at the Oval with a note of thanks re the limerick. I am now sure that such effort and expense is utterly futile. We live and learn.

That evening (the Friday) Janie and I saw Anthea and Mitchell. My diary says so. On the Saturday evening we saw Maz – my diary says so. I think it was her goodbye party ahead of going off to Malawi. A trawl of Janie’s diaries (and other people’s memories) at some stage in the future might well retrieve more stuff about those two evenings.

Monday 4 September 2000

Somehow, England, a shocking test match side at the time, had got itself ahead in a series against the (once) mighty West Indies (heck, they still had Walsh and Ambrose in those days, ageing though they might have been).

Going into the final test, England were 2-1 up. And now England were poised, in a great position to win the historic match and series on Day 5.

Click here to see the match scorecard.

I was reminded of all this 18 months ago (summer 2015) when King Cricket cricket wrote a piece about the summer of 2000 – click here.

Several of us recovered our memories for that piece and commented. Here’s my comment about 4 September 2000:

I remember taking an early call from Big “Papa Zambezi” Jeff on the final day of the series, wondering whether I wanted to join him on a walk-up expedition south of the river (Thames, not Zambezi) to the Oval. He reckoned we’d still get good seats walking up Day 5 and it turned out he was right. But I had unmovable client commitments that day (long since forgotten by me and probably the clients), so he walked up and got splendid seats for an historic day without me. I made amends by buying Day 5 seats for the Oval in 2005 as a precautionary measure; Big “Papa Zambezi” Jeff was one of the beneficiaries of that forethought.

Well I have now looked up my diary and can see exactly what I did that day. I was sort-of on a deadline with an important report. Plus lots of calls. But I did have some slack that week.

Could I have burned some midnight oil and caught up? Of course I could.

Should I have gone with Jeff that day? Of course I should.

Oh well.

My First Ever Day At A Test Match, With Graham Majin, England v Australia Day 3, Oval, 27 August 1977

Bob Willis, photo by Brittle heaven~commonswiki, CC BY-SA 4.0

The diary entry is pretty blasé about this momentous day:

Went to test match. Mostly rained off etc. V good what we saw (Graham and I).

I’m pretty sure this was my first ever day at the test. But it seems that I was so laid back in those days, perhaps my first one entirely passed me by.

Graham Majin and I had spent a great deal of that summer together making our second animated film, Speare Trek. More on Speare Trek will appear on Ogblog in the fullness of time. (Including a link to the film once I work out a way of digitally patching it back together again). We’d finished filming earlier in August and I think (reading between the lines of the diary) the last of the rushes had returned to us from the processing lab earlier in the week of this test. Younger readers will need a glossary and a book on the history of film to understand what on earth I’m on about.

Anyway, one of Graham’s uncles was a journalist who tended to be given test match tickets for the Oval. A pair of hot test tickets for the Saturday filtered down to us.

The only problem that day was the rain. Lots of it. I suspect we got about an hour of cricket the whole day – here’s the scorecard.

I have a few good memories of the day. I remember the Australian players wandering around and chatting to the few hardy souls (which included me and Graham) who stuck around in the hope of cricket.

The Aussies had been beaten up in the test series (they were an insurmountable 3-0 down before this test started). They were also, unbeknown to us, riven by the Kerry Packer business, news of which was soon to break. Yet still they did their bit for the attendees. Respect.

I especially remember Kim Hughes as part of that wandering, sociable pack; I also remember some young women, near us, drooling over Hughes. Graham and I wondered what he had that we lacked.

Graham late summer the year before
Me late summer the year before: trophy but no cigar

Despite our extreme youth, the crowd-deprived bar folk of the Oval seemed only too happy to serve us beer. Thems was different times. I do not recommend that 14/15 year old readers try to emulate our behaviour.

But the central character of the day was Bob Willis. Renowned as a terrible batsman (he famously once went out to bat without a bat), he scored 24 not out in this innings, almost his personal best. After the innings break, he then took a wicket before stumps were drawn.

Graham and I still had beers in our hands when stumps were drawn and certainly weren’t inclined to drink quickly or rush away from the ground, so we stuck around a while before wandering down to the Oval tube station.

When we got down to that southbound platform, there, with his cricket coffin, was Bob Willis. We asked him where he was going. Bob explained that he had friends in Streatham and was going to stay with them for the Sunday – a rest day back then.

I don’t remember where the conversation went after that, nor indeed exactly how we all went our separate ways, each to subtly different parts of Streatham.

Graham might remember, but I doubt it. Bob’s even less likely to remember.

Meanwhile, that sighting of Bob Willis on the underground has gone down in King Cricket/Cricket Badger folk lore as the very pinnacle of “cricketer spotted” activity – click here for recent (at the time of writing) validation – an accolade indeed.