Image “Diving For A Tie” produced in collaboration with Dall-E
The headline is a little deceptive, because Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett and I were not in Barcelona the City, but we were, along with a great many Z/Yen people and one or two other Children’s Society people, in Barcelona, the tapas and wine bar in The City.
I had spent the whole day in the City. My diary says we had a PAYE inspection that day. I think it might have been that magnificent day that the inspector challenged us for claiming that we had an expenses procedure dispensation (which of course we did have) as he could find no record of us ever having been issued with such a dispensation. Linda Cook went to the archive files and dug out our dispensation letter which happened to have been issued by “Phil”, the very tax inspector who was before us that day. He almost apologised, claiming that files had been lost in an office move. He didn’t stay long after that.
But of course you don’t win tax inspections; the best you can hope for is an honourable draw or a tie.
Which brings me to the World Cup Semi Final.
But before that I need to explain why Charley The Gent was at our offices that day. You see, Teresa Bestard, who was one of Z/Yen’s first employees and who had done a great deal of work for The Children’s Society under Charley’s auspices, was leaving Z/Yen that day.
Teresa was (is) a Catalan with roots in Barcelona and Majorca. She chose the Barcelona tapas and wine bar as a suitable venue for her leaving do.
I arranged to meet Charley and Tony to go through some business stuff at Z/Yen around 16:00, so they could conveniently join the leaving do afterwards.
Nobody had been thinking about cricket at this juncture. Not even Teresa, who was good pals with Bob Willis, following a different wine bar incident (with me and others) in a different part of London – see relevant Ogblog piece by clicking here or below:
On arrival, Chas did ask me if I was aware of the Australia v South Africa semi-final score. I wasn’t. He told me. I said it sounded close, but edging towards South Africa. Chas said he fancied Australia for the match. He wanted to bet. I said I don’t like to bet. He suggested a one pound stake. I accepted, with the proviso that if the match was a tie, both pounds would go to The Children’s Society.
We were not expecting to follow the latter stages of the World Cup Semi-Final, but Barcelona had other ideas. They were pumping the match out on big screens throughout the bar.
Great…
…said the cricket tragics, e.g. me and Charley. Teresa did not seem well pleased. She was already vocally irritated with us for a supposed slight; we had invited Mary O’Callaghan along to the event. Teresa saw this as Z/Yen inviting Teresa’s replacement to Teresa’s own leaving do. Actually we had hired Mary before we even knew that Teresa was leaving and had asked Mary along to several events to meet the team before she joined; this was the one she could make.
Some neutrals, such as Jacqueline Goldberg, Michael Mainelli and Linda Cook, used the language of indifference towards the cricket, but in truth couldn’t help but become more and more interested in the final overs of the match, as it became clear that the result was on a knife edge and the match was a real thriller.
Here is a link to the scorecard and Cricinfo resources.
I hope The Children’s Society made good use of the £2 it scored from that bet. The charity benefited from our subsequent charity matches to a much greater extent than this wager.
Below is a video of the highlights/denouement of that match:
Teresa’s leaving do went on for hours after the cricket finished and everyone relaxed into the wine and tapas. It was a very good leaving do for a very special member of the team.
But I’m afraid the cricket tragics amongst us will remember the evening primarily for that astonishing tied World Cup Semi Final, as we lived every moment on those big screens in Barcelona.
