I hadn’t thought about this before, but Graham seems to be a bit of a rainmaker, if the story of his 2011 and 2017 visits to Lord’s might be deemed to be a reasonably-sized sample.
We only got just over half a day’s play on the Thursday; quite slow stuff at that.
Whereas Janie and I got a giant-sized day of cricket on the Friday, with fair weather and a Kevin Petersen double-hundred.
Thank you very much indeed for an excellent day at the cricket. I thoroughly enjoyed it and it was a very welcome distraction from the office. I am only sorry our enjoyment was cut short by the rain.
I will follow the remainder of the match with extra interest.
I replied to his message by saying:
It was a pleasure and was good to see you. Janie felt badly on Friday that she and I did so much better weatherwise that day!
Janie and I were supposed to go with Hari and Mawju, both Sri Lankan people we know, Hari from the Lloyd’s bank in Ealing and Mawju from the Atari-Ya Japanese fishmongers (long story, don’t ask).
Also don’t ask why Mawju didn’t turn up and didn’t call to excuse himself or return his ticket.
Anyway, we had a very pleasant day at the cricket with Hari, who loved our picnic and we loved the cake he brought from home as his offering. It all sounds a bit TMS commentary box, doesn’t it? In some ways it was.
The match had been badly rain-affected the day before so we got an elongated day on the Monday. England did very well to turn a seemingly nailed-on draw into a possible winning position by the end of the day, although we had a sneaking suspicion that it would end up a draw anyway.
Unusually the first day of a Lord’s test match on a Friday.
That day I went with Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett, Ian “Iain Spellright” Theodoreson and Mark “Uncail Marcas” Yeandle.
The following extract from my e-mail to Mark and Chas the day before reveals the expectation of a very hot day:
Weather looks set fair for tomorrow.
Please could you both bring plenty of water with you. I’ll have my hands full and Ian T was muttering about “fancy juices” as his contribution to the soft drink side of things, but I think we might all need good old fashioned (still) H2O. Especially given the weather and the picnic I have planned.
Don’t forget your booze rations also – as if I had to remind you about that!…
Mark threatened (and saw through his threat) to bring some Frittenden strawberries with him. His strawberry offering the previous year had gone down an absolute treat. If you look closely at the picture of Charles below from that report, you can make out the colour and shape of a Frittenden strawberry. The 2011 batch was delicious, but I believe the 2010 batch was “peak strawberry”.
Click the photo or the link below to see that May 2010 match reported in full
A few years later there was a potentially ugly fruit incident, as Ian and Mark were reunited with me at the test on the same day. Mark brought famous Frittenden strawberries while Ian brought a giant bag of plump cherries that he had been unable to resist en route. This competitive soft fruit showdown could have been very bloody indeed, but it mercifully led only to MAD (mutually assured delectation):
Back to planning for a very hot June day in 2011. Chas wrote back threatening to soak me in factor 30 sunscreen.
I don’t recall the exact nature of Ian T’s fancy juices, but I think they might have been the flavoured water variety, which does work rather well on a ludicrously hot day.
Ian T seems to specialise in weather extremes when he comes to Lord’s with me. Our 2014 visit (which will eventually be published on King Cricket, I believe) was one of the hottest days I ever remember at Lord’s and Ian nearly melted.
I suspect that I was quite careful with the booze, because I was going to see a late night concert of Paco Peña at the Wigmore Hall after stumps. I suspect that all of us were a bit careful with the booze, partly because it was a very hot day.
I do recall this one, despite the heat, being an especially enjoyable, dreamy day at Lord’s. England were hot off the back of an away Ashes win and had even won the first test of the summer the previous week. What could ever, possibly go wrong again for the England test team?
Janie’s diary suggests that we had a gathering in Sandall Close with Kim, Micky, John, Mandy, Lydia & Bella, but I think that idea fell through in the end. We might have had Kim & Micky over for a casual supper, but possibly not even that happened in the end.
14 August 2010 – The Boundary With Anthea & Mitchell
We certainly did have dinner with Anthea & Mitchell the following week, at The Boundary. Janie remembers a superb platter of fish. Janie remembers that we took drinks after dinner on a rather splendid roof terrace. We both recall that all of us thought the place very good – indeed I thought it so good that we ended up booking it for Z/Yen’s Christmas party four months later.
I also remember that we enjoyed a lovely evening in the company of Anthea & Mitchell.
21 & 22 August 2010 – An Ironic Weekend Of Kinesiology
Janie did a weekend Kinesiology course with Lisa Opie. The irony comes from me forgetting to cancel our tennis court and therefore using the slots to try and teach myself how to serve left-handed.
Note to self: don’t overdo an extreme movement such as the tennis serve using a shoulder that you have never previously used for that purpose.
Suffice it to say, Janie got a lot of practice using her kinesio tape (other therapeutic taping methods are available) on me in the aftermath of her course and my excesses.
Forearmed is forewarned – a few months later in India strapped up for cricket
24 August 2010 – A Net With Charley the Gent, Then Dinner At Seventeen
It took a review of the e-mails to find evidence on this one. Here is Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett’s take on the evening:
I am a complete mess this morning i am so unfit. It was great to have the net but to get some real benefit from it i do need a better level of fitness. My bowling disappointed me, felt ok about my batting and tonking you around the park. Your bowling is better, well at least somewhere the the timbers, your batting well anyone could hit my bowling at the moment. I need a return, maybe october sometime? Thanks for the meal it was very good. Best to all Chas
The meal was in Seventeen, by Royal Oak. Still there and still well regarded nearly 10 years on as I write in April 2020 – at least it was pre-Covid. Strangely, I do recall the meal being good but I have never returned there. I guess I am spoiled for choice in Bayswater and it is normally just a tad off my beaten track.
28 August 2010 – Day Three England v Pakistan Lord’s Test
A birthday treat for me at Lord’s with Daisy. I believe we were in the Upper Edrich for this one or it might have been the Upper Compton.
The match had been weather affected the first two days, so England were still accumulating their first innings runs at the start of the day.
With grateful thanks to Dan Steed for the pictures
There could be a fierce debate among the Heavy Rollers as to whether this match qualifies as a Heavy Rollers event at all.
The match was scheduled to start on a Friday and half of Edgbaston was a building site for this match, so most of the rollers chose to absent themselves this year. Also, Anita was in hospital recovering from an op, so I think David & Dan were unable to join us the evening before the match.
Anyway, the Edgbaston party comprised four diehards: me, Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett, David and Dan Steed.
Chas’s e-mail to me, cc: Dan & David after the event provides some evidence:
Just a quick note to all and thanks for a great day – so lucky with the weather.
Ian, special thanks for your generosity, so much appreciated, I will look for an Essex match within the next few weeks and also let you know about the face off at lords when I have that date!
David, Thanks fro taking us to the Hospital to see Anita, so pleased she is recovering well – keep me posted
Dan, don’t forget the link for the photos.
I will research the matches for next year. To include Edgbaston, Lords and the Oval, so far it looks to be India and Sri Lanka.
Regards
Charles.
PS – just thought I would mention it that I did say England needed 400 in the first innings, so not to bat again, its gets boring being so right so often!!
We stayed at Harborne Hall and my records show that my generosity extended to a meal at Henry Wong‘s on the night before the match – I think just me and Chas.
I recall that, before dinner, Chas and I visited Anita in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, which was brand new that summer. She was in good spirits while recuperating and was in superb spirits when we saw her again, in more convivial circumstances, the following year.
As for the cricket, I recall Edgbaston looking quite sad in its building-site-fulness and the Day One crowd was quite sparse.
We were in exile in the RES Wyatt Stand, some distance from our normal seats in the Priory Stand (subsequently a few blocks round in the Raglan Stand).
I also recall many locals (including Dan) griping about the prices that year – they felt that Warwickshire CCC had failed to notice the unattractiveness of this match in the circumstances and still tried to charge “Ashes prices”.
Not the best Pakistan performance we’ve ever seen
I’m not quite sure how Chas’s point about England scoring 400+ is vindicated by the ultimate scorecard, click here, but he must have known what he was talking about at the time.
Shilpa Patel, Alec Stewart, Michael Vaughan and Jonathan Agnew all furiously debating whatever it was that Charley the Gent might have been going on about.
Here’s the note from Dan in response to Charley’s note:
Few photos from the building site – didn’t take too many! The score board ones say it all really. Great day, apologies its taken me a few weeks to send.
Ian/Charles, Take care all and see you again next year at the Oval…….hopefully?!!
P.S. Ian, forgot to give you your Z/Yen cap back – if you need it let me know your address and I will post it?
I never got round to asking for my cap back. I wonder (in April 2020, nearly 10 years later) if it is too late to ask?
Paul Deacon, taken a few week’s earlier at England v Bangladesh
The Pakistan cricket team had just started their 10+ year sojourn following a terror incident in their homeland. England hosted a couple of neutral tests and I was keen to sample the delights at Lord’s.
To join me that day, Paul Deacon (this was to be his last hurrah of test cricket before he and his family went into self-imposed exile to Canada) along with Mat and Tim from the gym.
Paul clearly enjoyed himself at the neutral match but did not take (or at least did not post) any photos on the second visit. The headline picture and the one below are from the Bangladesh day.
But Paul did write this:
Hi Ian
just to say another big thank you for a fantastic day at Lord’s. Thoroughly enjoyed it. A nice tumble of wickets today!
Will fix a time for us + partners to meet up for a meal. Do you like Indian? Chinese? Thai? Or all 3 on one plate even?
A day at Lord’s with Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett, Mark “Uncail Marcas” Yeandle and a final hurrah with Paul Deacon before he abandoned us all for the Great White North.
You’ll have to take my word for it that Mark Yeandle is there between me and Paul.
Looks as though I am polishing off one of my smoked salmon bagels when that photo was taken, presumably by an amiable neighbour.
Mark Yeandle, despite hiding between me and Paul in the photo, made a momentous contribution to the day (and to the picture, if you look closely at Chas’s right hand) in the form of a monster ration of his local, outstandingly good Frittenden strawberries, picked specially for the occasion. By my reckoning, that particular day was “peak strawberry” day – the very best ones ever…or I should say to date (writing in late 2017).
England were doing rather well
Very much a batting day, was Day 2, although we got to see some (mainly tail-end) wickets too.
By the end of the day England were working hard in the field to little avail.
We had superb weather for a May test match and I recall a very pleasant day in every respect. We were lucky – the next day the weather was less than special and there was very little cricket.
Big Papa Zambezi Jeff Tye presenting me with my Heavy Roller shirt– thanks to Charley The Gent Malloy for the image – grabbed from his vid.
I have been encouraged to write up this particular Heavy Rollers visit now, in December 2021, as King Cricket and his partner in crime Dan Liebke have arrived at this test match in their podcast series, The Ridiculous Ashes. This test is Series Three, Episode Three – click here or below:
I haven’t listened to that podcast yet – my plan is to write up The Heavy Rollers experience and then listen.
For reasons I don’t quite understand, I have no photographs from 2009 in the “Charley The Gent” collection – just a video of Big Papa Zambezi Jeff Tye handing out the Heavy Rollers shirts on the morning of the first day:
It might just be that the photos from that year never reached me and therefore are omitted from what I thought was a canonical collection. If Charley furnishes me with photos in the fulness of time, have no fear, they will find there way to this piece.
My log records that it was a bumper year for Heavy Rollers, attendance-wise. Ashes years tended to be like that. Here is the Heavy Roll call (did you see what I did there?):
Big “Papa Zambezi” Jeff Tye;
Nigel “Father Barry”;
Charley The Gent Malloy;
The Boy Malloy;
Harsha Ghoble;
Biff;
Tufty Geoff Young;
David “Peel” Steed;
Dan “Peel” Steed;
Ged Ladd.
Others might well be able to chip in with additional memories, but my recollections of this one are slight and a bit idiosyncratic.
The Night Before – 29 July 2009
On arrival the night before (29th July), I recall that there was a bit of a scramble for the “better rooms” at Harborne Hall, although by that year (our second at the venue) I had concluded that the larger rooms at the top of the old building had some disadvantages to them such that my own preference was for a well-located slightly smaller room. I thus avoided the potentially contentious debate by deferring to my elders while still getting what I wanted.
I’m fairly sure it was this year, 2009, when I ran into my friend Maz (Marianne Tudor-Craig) at Harborne Hall, which, at that time, was still a VSO training & conference venue and Maz was still a VSO-nik at that time. It was strange seeing her in that setting while I was having a cricket break with my mates.
Day One – 30 July 2009
Obviously the single most important event of the day is captured on video for all to see – here’s the link again if you missed it above:
The rest of Day One was a bit of an anti-climax, certainly cricket-wise, as it rained for much of the day. I’m pretty sure that The Steeds would have smuggled in some wine boxes disguised as picnic-bag chillers and a fine picnic to go with it too.
I recall that nephew Paul “Belmonte” was at the ground that day and joined us for a while during one of the many rain breaks.
I also recall that, at one point, I was so “mentally unoccupied” while wandering around in a rain break that I allowed a young blond Npower saleswoman persuade me to change energy suppliers on a promise of, I blush to admit it, £200 off my energy bills for switching. Npower retained my business for several years after that.
In the absence of a 2009 photo in our maroon-coloured shirts, here is a picture of eight of us (only Biff and Tufty Geoff missing) from the previous year in the same place (Priory Stand front row) in our dark-coloured shirts:
Day Two – 31 July 2009 – Ridiculous Moment Of The Match
Forget whatever Alex “King Cricket” Bowden and Dan Liebke tell you in Series 3, Episode 3 of The Ridiculous Ashes, the most ridiculous moment of the match was around our seats at the start of Day Two.
By this stage of our proceedings, Charley “The Gent” was curating a fair bit of the Day Two picnic. As is Chas’s way, he was busying himself sorting out the contents of several bags of goodies at the start of play.
Despite several of us saying to Chas that the day’s play was about to begin, Chas was looking down in his bags when Graham Onions took a wicket with the first ball of the day.
Chas was disappointed missing that ball, but then returned to busying himself with his bags.
Despite several of us warning Chas that Onions was running up to bowl his second delivery, Chas continued busying himself, eyes down inside the bags…
…missing the fall of Michael Hussey for a primary – the second ball of the day.
Naturally Chas then gave the game his undivided attention for the attempted hat-trick ball and several subsequent deliveries of the ordinary variety.
We got plenty of play to see on the second day, although the mood of excitement was lessened because the weather forecast for Day Three was shocking, so (even during the exciting Day Two) there was a sense that the match was inevitably destined to be a draw.
I do hope I can supplement this piece with memories from other Heavy Rollers.
Where did we eat the night before the match? And the evening after Day One? I don’t think we played at all that year, but maybe we did. Hopefully the hive mind of the Heavy Rollers will help.
For several years now I have written occasional pieces about cricket for the King Cricket website, under my nom de plume, Ged Ladd. Janie and I have called each other Ged and Daisy since the mid 1990s.
The King Cricket website has very strict rules about match reports: “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 particular day was a rather important one; this was the day that England defeated Australia at Lord’s for the first time for 75 years, but none of that is apparent in my King Cricket Match Report, click here.
We have Charles Bartlett to thank for the most wonderful relic from this trip: a superb stack of pictures – 80 of them – click here to see them all. I’ll pepper this piece with just a few.
30 July 2008
This was one of those rare occasions that the test started on a Wednesday and so we actually travelled up on the first day and watched days 2 and 3.
Thus we gathered for pre match cricket in David Steed’s local park in Stirchley.
Adam was not impressed with his batting performance
Never mind Adam’s body language above, that muck-about game on David’s local green went well for Adam and did not go at all well for me, as evidenced by this page of my jotter.
Nigel “Father Barry” (and son) did well, as did a local lad, Craig, who wandered along and asked if he could play with us.
Harish (Harsha Ghoble) also had a good go, although I do recall bowling him on one occasion with one of my moon balls which descended vertically onto the stumps. “How are you supposed to play a ball like that?”, complained Harish. Nigel then dispatched my next, similar ball for six. “Like that”, said Nigel.
I also recall lots of bites on my legs afterwards. Yet I was (uniquely amongst those in the following photo) wearing long trousers.
As darkness fell…
…then on to David and Anita’s place for a super barby:
Super barby at Steed Towers
31 July 2008
Chas and perhaps some of the others must have gone for a good walk the next morning, in the grounds around Harborne House…
Signs of some walking around Harborne House…
…while Harish and I, great athletes both, exerted ourselves with some morning sports activity:
For those looking in black and white, Ian’s the one dressed in red…
Some signs of mis-spent youth there; not least Ian’s ability to play a little better after a couple of bevvies.
Then the annual Heavy Roller shirt ceremony…
…for some reason Chas got a unique, pink one. As I’m the Middlesex supporter among us, “it should have been me”…
…then off we go to Edgbaston.
All action it was. Could this have been the year that someone started a row with Nigel 20 minutes before the start of play asking him to sit down?
We had the honour of witnessing “that” over from Flintoff to Kallis:
The crowd was just a little bit involved.
We’re all standing now (apart from Hippity and Monkey-Face)!
I think we went to Zizzis that night – correct me if I’m wrong, folks
1 August 2008
We did it all again! But Chas didn’t take pictures that day.
I made my own way home by train, as oft I do. Unusually, though, Nigel and Chas stayed on an extra day, having decided to brave the Eric Hollies Stand.
Aftermath – Chas and Nigel in the Eric Hollies
There are plenty of pictures in that photo album, but I’d really like one or both of the lads to write a short side piece describing their very different day “on the other side”…
…the dark side…
…with brigades of Amy Winehouses…
…and extra police protection. Had the fuzz been tipped off that Chas and Nige were coming?
