…perhaps the rest of the day’s story is best told by way of a photo diary, with thanks to Monique Gore for the photographs…
…luncheon in the Sir Pelham Warner Restaurant……then we retired to our box in the Tavern Stand, courtesy of Middlesex CCC……a very relaxing afternoon……Jez and I provided informal tours of the Lord’s pavilion for those who were keen to see it……the field of play as seen from the pavilion sun deck……Monique on that sun deck……even the Middlesex score was smiling upon us…
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.
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
It is sad to reflect on Phillip Hughes, who played such a huge part in that early part of Middlesex’s 2009 summer and who was so sadly cut down in his prime just five years later.
The last T20 group match was at the Oval against Surrey. I know I missed it completely, because Daisy and I were taken out for dinner by Jamil and Souad – I’m pretty sure we went to Noura in Belgravia, but Daisy’s diary should confirm or deny when we get around to checking – see “A Couple of nights out”.
Following a working week that looked quite light on meetings and evening engagements, but did include another Z/Yen Boat Trip on the Wednesday, on the Friday, I took a day out at Uxbridge. Middlesex were hosting the visiting South Africans in a warm-up match.
A relatively quiet weekend culminating in a lunch out with my mum at Gastro in Clapham. I had not seen this Jay Rayner review – click here – when I booked it.
Actually, Janie and I rather liked the place, but I do recall that the Sunday menu was not quite as advertised and in any case the dishes on offer were of an kind unfamiliar to mum, who got a bit shirty about it all.
I’m not too sure how the matter got resolved but I seem to recall the lunch event being salvaged somehow, I think through some good staff making appropriate amounts of fuss around mum and looking after her nicely. Or did we move on to another place to get that fuss? Janie might remember.
I do recall resolving not to book such a place again for mum – the familiar “old-fashioned Italian or French bistro” places she’d been to before being the best bet for her now. Oh well.
Our visit to the Lord’s match against Surrey had been fraught with ticket difficulty. I had no problem getting a ticket to Alan Cooke and arranging to give him an informal pavilion tour before the match, but one other guest, Sean from the Salvation Army, was left potentially ticket-less when his ticket got held up in the post. The kind folk at Lord’s took our word for it and issued us with a replacement Members and Friends ticket for him – problem solved.
I can’t remember who else joined us that day, but I think it was mostly Z/Yen staff for the Surrey match and we did our normal thing of bringing our own drinks and a bit of collective picnic but basically everyone chipping in for an informal sharing evening.
We don’t seem to have any pictures from that evening. Oh well. Jez might remember better.
It was hard to believe it, but Middlesex beat Surrey well that evening to make it four out of four. It was a good game too. Middlesex always seemed on top but it was not a foregone conclusion until right at the end. Here’s the scorecard – click here.
I can find no e-mail trail to ascertain whether we attended that night or indeed why we didn’t – perhaps my diary will yield a reason…or perhaps we intended to go and the rain simply put us off.
Postscript
Jez writes:
Ah, yes, I do remember that one now – in fact, very well. It is one of the two occasions I have got Sarah to Lords (she left when it started raining because she was bored). Not sure if that was a works outing either – I suspect it may have been, as was tradition around those years anyway.
That in itself was almost as good as the day in 2008 – Surrey really struggled after a good start, Ramprakash particularly, who really couldn’t get it out the park that day. After an early wicket, our chase never looked in doubt (apart from to the Middlesex faithful that had never seen us beat Surrey until then).
Ah, yes, I vaguely remember too. It is in my diary to attend and I think I did go. I don’t think many (if any) other people from the Z/Yen office joined us – I think there was a relatively large group of Jez’s old mates from Uni plus Jez’s brother Ben plus Sarah.
I certainly remember going on one occasion when Sarah was there looking mighty bored and then she left early, politely saying that she “had a bit of a migraine”.
I also remember one occasion when brother Ben seemed incredulous that Middlesex could possibly have won that micro London derby.
The MTWD report from that night is from the “lost masterpieces period”, i.e. the period for which Sportnetwork lost all of its features.
But Ged Ladd’s archive has been safely in the cloud throughout, so I managed to dig out the unedited version of Lizzie J’s charming report, which was published under the above headline.
She was/is such a good writer, I probably hardly edited the piece at all:
Middlesex v Surrey
Twenty20 Cup
Lord’s
Pre-match
To my relief, I was relieved of my duties as being a “responsible adult” as two other members of the PE staff decided to come on this school trip, so I could go back to my original plan of having nothing to do with the small children. Especially as I’d been portrayed as some kind of “Miss Middlesex” some of them seemed to think I was going to get them free stuff. Er. No!
Anyway. About thirty paces away from Lord’s it absolutely bucketed it, complete with thunder and lightning. As I was in shorts [it was sunny when I left Slough!], wasn’t too impressed. And while I was getting searched, they elected to take out my Spanish notes and read them, so they got soaked. Good. Quick change into trousers, I resembled a drowned rat. Headed off into Lower Compton, we’d won the toss and elected to field, 19 overs aside.
Surrey Innings
Chadders and Dial M opened up the bowling, while Benning seemed to have fun spanking fours all over the place before being bowled by the excellent Henderson. Brown went first, caught Joycey bowled Murts, and was delighted to see Ramps go for six to the bowling of Henderson! Umbrellas went up at 49-1, but the shower passed fairly quickly. JD got the last two wickets, having Butcher stumped for 5 and Batty caught by Murts for 6, before at 13 and a bit overs it decided to rain. Again. This time heavily.
Rain Break
Couldn’t be bothered to move, I was too cold, so I spent the interval huddled in my England fleece which I’d bought earlier, and then realised still had a electric tag in it. Was quite uncomfortable. Had no idea how I made it out of the shop. Still. We’d already opted for the extra half hour, and play reconvened at five past eight, with us needing 73 off 10 overs. Excellent, I reckoned. We’d do it.
Middlesex Innings
Out came Smiffy and Morgs to Lily The Pink, which I was happily humming, I’d barely made it past the chorus when the Skipper skied it to Benning for a duck. Oh. Hmm. Wasn’t happy. But Joycey and Morgs put on a brilliant stand, especially when Joycey hit three successive boundaries. Joycey unfortunately fell to Schofield, but JD and Morgs saw us home, JD with an impressive 26 not out off 15 balls. Had some champagne to celebrate, finally the Surrey jinx was over!
Nano Banana 2.1 (AI) Depiction Of Surrey v Kent, Midweek, Oval, 1976. (My “small crowd, plenty of kids” description has been taken too literally – I love it!)
Saturday 10 July 1976 – went to A[nil] Biltoo for afternoon. TV Joan Crawford film [probably The Command, which was Joan Weldon, not Joan Crawford!].
Monday 12 July 1976 – went to Oval: members seats!! TV Star Trek, Get Some In.
This is Anil Biltoo’s first mention in my diary. In truth, I don’t remember our friendship forming until the following academic year, but clearly we had initiated our friendship towards the end of the 3rd year and saw each other more than once during the holidays that summer.
This photo of Anil from the summer of 1979, in Mauritius. The stick he is wielding is sugar cane.
Not a mystery, just one of those temporal slips that my memory tends to make.
The main memory slip mystery item from those first few days of the summer holidays is the visit to The Oval.
I most certainly remember the visit and I remember being shown around the pavilion, walking around no doubt open-mouthed at the pictures of great players and events from days of yore.
So stuck in my brain was the memory of being shown around, that it returned to me by way of a dream the night before my next visit to that pavilion – 21 September 2005.
Of course I had been to The Oval many times between those visits – not least nine days earlier, to see the magical 5th day of the 5th test of 2005. Other Ogblog pieces will/already do cover such other visits.
But the night before my visit to see Surrey v Middlesex, secure in the knowledge that my reciprocal member’s rights would enable me to use the pavilion, I dreamt of walking through that building. When I awoke, I wondered whether my dream had been an accurate representation of the place or just a dream-like replica. But when I got to the Oval and actually started walking around the pavilion, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, as I realised that my memory, in sleep, had accurately dredged almost every permanent detail of that building. It wasn’t a sense of deja vu – because I HAD been there before; more than 29 years before. If you had asked me 24 hours before that second visit to describe the inside of the building, I could not even faintly have done so.
The memory really is a weird thing.
Irritatingly, my memory has entirely suppressed…
…and my diary is no help with this…
…the answers to the following two questions:
WHY did I have members’ access on Monday 12 July 1976?
Who was I with for that visit?
My gut feeling is that it was a sort-of end of term Alleyn’s School field trip, organised a few days after the end of term to coincide with a match that was worth visiting. That sort of field trip has Colin Page’s fingerprints all over it.
Micky Stewart – after whom that pavilion is now named, is, of course, an Alleyn’s School alum. He might have been a helpful conduit for such a visit.
But in truth I don’t recall. I just remember the open-mouthed pavilion tour and watching what I thought to be some very good cricket. It cemented my view that I wanted to bowl like Intikhab Alum, if only I could work out for myself how to deploy leg (wrist) spin. Spoiler alert: I NEVER worked out how to deploy leg spin.
