I’d baked the Lord’s Throdkins and prepared the glazed drunken prawns (recipe to follow on the King Cricket site at some point way in the future) the night before. Still, an early start for me that day to get the picnic ready.
In particular, the dance music, it turns out that Al was really into that Motown and Stax stuff back then – he even saw the Stax/Volt tour in Nelson, 1967 – lucky chap. It also turns out, when I mentioned that the lists had Joe Boyd’s blessing, that Al knows him well; another peculiar coincidence.
Just one other point to add. When I took Alex round to see the real tennis court, I deposited a small packet of the Lord’s Throdkins with Rachel on the reception desk. The following day I deposited a few more with Adam. If all goes according to plan, the Lord’s Throdkin really will become “a thing” at Lord’s.
Further Postscript
I wrote up my own take on one of the many conversations Alex “King Cricket” Bowden and I had that day, which he published, in February 2018, here:
It’s strange how we sometimes don’t connect two things that have happened. Or in this case, connect one thing that didn’t happen with another thing that did happen.
Stumbling across my diary entry for Thursday 6 August 2015, I see a line through the day (which means that I had booked a day’s leave) and then the following notes:
…my old school pal who relocated to Canada with his family a few years ago now, was over for a few weeks. We had hatched a plan to meet at Lord’s that day. Paul enjoys a bit of cricket and “the girls” (Christine & Anya) liked the idea of some shopping in Central London during those hours.
Then we learnt that the threatened tube strikes for that day were indeed going ahead. We exchanged some notes the day before about trains and buses, but in the end the Deacons very sensibly decided to steer clear of Central London on a strike day.
In truth, I am not wild about 50 over cricket. Great as a day out with a friend, but I certainly didn’t feel motivated to trek to Lord’s on my tod to see that game. No.
And there was an Ashes Test match due to start the same day. So I decided instead that I’d stay home, get a bit ahead of myself with work and stuff. Oh, and of course keep at least half an eye on the test match.
This now famous utter routing of Australia became compelling viewing within 5 minutes and I basically didn’t move from the TV for a couple of hours until the lunch interval. That is not normal cricket viewing behaviour for me.
Thing is, though, from then until today (in December 2016) I had not once made the connection between my availability to see that extraordinary session of Ashes Test match history unfold and the earlier disappointment of having to abandon the proposed trip to Lord’s with Paul.
Therefore not once had I even thought to thank Paul for making his sensible decision to avoid Central London, thus allowing the day to unfold for me as it did.
We didn’t attend Day One of the Edgbaston test on this occasion, as the test started on a Wednesday. We booked our traditional Heavy Rollers Thursday and Friday at Edgbaston.
With the benefit of hindsight, it would have been great to have booked Wednesday through Friday, but you can’t have everything.
England v Sri Lanka Day 3 (14 June 2014) – linked here describes a similar encounter with Mr Johnny Friendly the previous year. I misspelt Jane Austen as Jane Austin in this piece and King Cricket missed the error when he subbed; both of us metaphorically ate our own livers for the error in private, but I decided to milk the pun. Thus this piece inadvertently became the first part of a trilogy.
The irony that I myself have now enthusiastically taken up real tennis in the months between writing this piece and it being published is not wasted on me.
To understand my King Cricket match reports you need to know that:
Ged and Daisy are nicknames/noms de plume for me and Janie. Friends are all referred to pseudonymously;
King Cricket match reports have strict rules: “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 piece is, in a way, the second part of a trilogy. It is linked to a couple of other pieces about Ged and Daisy encountering Mr Johnny Friendly, an MCC member, friend of the family and real tennis enthusiast. In reverse order:
England v Sri Lanka Day 3 (14 June 2014) – linked here describes a similar encounter with Mr Johnny Friendly the previous year. I misspelt Jane Austen as Jane Austin in this piece and King Cricket missed the error when he subbed; both of us metaphorically ate our own livers for the error in private, but I decided to milk the pun. Thus this piece inadvertently became the first part of a trilogy.
The irony that I myself have subsequently taken up real tennis with gusto is not wasted on me.
To understand my King Cricket match reports you need to know that:
Ged and Daisy are nicknames/noms de plume for me and Janie. Friends are all referred to pseudonymously;
King Cricket match reports have strict rules: “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.”
King Cricket match reports have strict rules: “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 piece is, in a way, the first part of a trilogy. It is linked to a couple of other pieces about Ged and Daisy encountering Mr Johnny Friendly, an MCC member, friend of the family and real tennis enthusiast. In reverse order:
This piece inadvertently became the first part of a trilogy because I misspelt Jane Austen as Jane Austin in this piece. King Cricket missed the error when he subbed; both of us metaphorically ate our own livers for the error in private, but I decided to milk the pun when we ran into Mr Johnny Friendly again.
The irony that I myself have subsequently taken up real tennis with gusto is not wasted on me.
To understand my King Cricket match reports you need to know that:
Ged and Daisy are nicknames/noms de plume for me and Janie. Friends are all referred to pseudonymously;
King Cricket match reports have strict rules: “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.”
It was not the most exciting day’s cricket we’ve ever seen. Daisy said the match was destined for a draw and of course she was right. Except that a nail-biter of a nine-down squeaky-bum draw is not the sort of draw Daisy probably had in mind. Of course the King Cricket report is silent on such details.
I went for an unusual and foodie menu for this match, partly because Alastair “Big Al DeLarge” Little was originally supposed to be part of our group, partly because I was also catering for the next day, when Daisy attended – click here for that report.
…and also of course King Cricket reports don’t talk about the cricket itself. So unless I insert a few points here you wouldn’t know that:
We saw Joe Root take his score from just over 100 to 200 – you don’t get to witness live many double-hundreds in your life. Charley and I were still shaking from the thought of having witnessed Ian Bell’s 199 at the same ground six years earlier;
Nigel “Jim Hawkins” Thorpe teased me when I suggested that Liam Plunkett could bat – I think Charley joined in the teasing, so I was very pleased when Plunkett demonstrated his batting skills with a nice cameo;
There were two players named Jayawardene playing for Sri Lanka that match. We tried to get a chant of “two Jayawardenes, there are only two Jayawardenes” going, but strangely that idea didn’t take off at Lord’s. Pity, really.
The Journey & The Night Before The Match; 8 August 2013
This adventure was very nearly stillborn for me and Janie, as she was very poorly in the couple of days leading up to our trip up to Durham for the fourth Ashes test of 2013. Indeed, Janie, who is normally very averse to taking antibiotics, had almost bullied her doctor into prescribing same, as her throat was so sore from whatever summer bug/flu she had caught.
Janie said she felt a bit better on the morning we were setting off; I agreed to do most if not all of the driving as long as we had breaks. Soon after we started our drive north, Janie started coughing like (in retrospect, writing this in 2022) a Covid-19 victim. I suggested that we turn around, but Janie insisted that we persevere.
I recall that I had bought/brought some Prefab Sprout and Kane Gang music to get us into the County Durham spirit and that we were listening to The King Of Rock ‘N’ Roll at that juncture.
But I digress.
It was a relatively small and diffuse gathering of Heavy Rollers that year. Nigel “Father Barry” Hinks had Viv (“Mrs Father Barry”) with him but she was seeing friends and didn’t want to join us for any cricket. They had arranged to stay in a “bijou but entirely satisfactory, and generously-equipped, terraced-cottage on Gilesgate”, in Durham, which is just a few miles away from Chester-le-Street.
Not wishing to be outdone by “bijou” in Durham, I had found a well-reviewed “boutique-style” place at a similar distance to the ground, in Seaham, The Seaton Lane Inn. In the end there were just the three of us staying there, me, Daisy and Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett; Dot (Mrs Malloy) originally planned to join us, but withdrew a few weeks before the event.
Chas was very kind and concerned about Daisy the night we arrived. She didn’t want to eat dinner – we had brought a few “easy to swallow snacks” with us. But in the end she did come down and join us for a while. Chas and I enjoyed a good meal at that place – Chas especially being taken with the Villa Wolf Riesling I well remember.
Chas took a picture of me and Daisy in the restaurant – I must say she looks healthier than me – but perhaps I had slightly overindulged in the Villa Wolf by then…or perhaps this picture was taken a little later in the trip, when Daisy was feeling much better.
Three Days Of Cricket At Chester-le-Street, 9 to 11 August 2013
The cricket was excellent throughout the match, as of course was the company. Chas had secured us front row seats in a temporary stand, which turned out to be a good location with an excellent view.
We felt safe/”protected”, for much of the match, by a fairly sizeable group of “Knights Templar”, who got louder and more tipsy as each day went on. It’s just as well they were never called upon to defend our lives towards the end of the day.
Daisy was still not feeling very well on the first morning, but I persuaded her to join us on the basis that we could always get her cabbed home within 15-20 minutes if she felt she needed to lie down. Access to and from that Chester-le-Street ground is excellent, despite it being a little out of town.
Fortunately the fresh air, good weather and good cricket started to make Daisy feel better pretty quickly.
One of the evenings (I think possibly the evening after the second day’s play) all five of us (including Viv) dined, I think it was at Oldfields in Durham – pretty good but now gone.
If anything ever goes awry with the King Cricket website, click here for a scrape of that piece. The tale of Nigel’s interaction with Jonathan Agnew for a personally-signed book and Chas’s attempt to obtain similar for no good reason is worth the price of admission alone. (There is no price of admission, btw). To quote Nigel reflecting, nearly 10 years later, on his visit to that shop with Chas…
Most [memorable]: “Boycott bingo “ and protestations to some innocent shop staff, possibly seeking a little supplementation to mounting student loans? I am certain I heard one say something along the lines of “that induction morning had precious little about this sort of thing, did it?” The other one appeared to slowly mouth “stick-of-rhubarb?” as she sought the exit.
Day Four – The Journey Home And Witnessing The Denouement On The TV
A small tinge of regret that we hadn’t booked to see four days, but still Janie and I enjoyed the last day as “driving home entertainment” on the radio and we were fortunate enough to get home in time to see the ending on the telly.
I wrote the following in an e-mail to the lads to summarise that day and the experience:
Janie really enjoyed the experience, despite her bad luck getting poorly a few days before the off. She is feeling so much better now.
What a win. We listened to the thrilling morning session and much of the frustrating afternoon session on the road.
Hippity points out that England didn’t get a wicket until he and Monkey-Face had been placed in front of the TV again, along with Hippity’s lucky ball.
Broad’s bowling once he got his hackles up again was extraordinary, especially as he did the damage with the old ball. And Bresnan’s ball to nip out Warner was possibly his finest yet.
2014 we host Sri Lanka and India. Too soon to start thinking seriously about it, I know!!
Thanks to you especially, Charles, for organising those amazing seats.
As the Kane Gang put it – “…this could be the closest thing to heaven…”
