Tag: Uncail Marcas

England v Sri Lanka Day One, Lord’s, 3 June 2011

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

England v Bangladesh Day 2, Lord’s, 28 May 2010

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):

England v Sri Lanka, 3rd Test Days Two, Three and Five, Lord’s, 10, 11 & 13 June 2016

But I digress.

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.

The scorecard suggests that we saw England have a very good day – click here.

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?

England v Bangladesh Day 2, Lord’s, 28 May 2010

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.

Photos lifted from Facebook with implicit permission from Paul Deacon.  Paul took lots of photos that day, which Facebookers can see by clicking here.

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.

Here is a link to the scorecard for the match. England prevailed in the end; but the end wasn’t until the Monday.

Paul’s next visit to Lord’s, I think, was more than seven years later with family in tow – click here.

Netherlands v Pakistan and New Zealand v South Africa, ICC World Twenty20, Lord’s, 9 June 2009

This was the first of four days I spent at Lord’s during the ICC World Twenty20 tournament when it was held in England in 2009.

If that sounds a little excessive in the booking, it probably was but there was method to my madness.

The county members’ application form made it clear that the last Sunday of the rounds (when England were due to play) and the following Sunday, Finals Day, were completely sold out. My only hope for those days was to tick a box asking to go into a ballot for debenture returns for whichever days I wanted.

Frankly, I thought my chances of getting debenture returns were close to zero, but I ticked the box and said I’d be interested in either or both of those Sundays. Expecting nothing to come of that returns business,  I also booked a couple of the less fashionable match days at Lord’s, so I’d at least get to see some of the world cup tournament.

Needless to say, I got a pair of superb debenture tickets for each of the fashionable Sundays as well as Warner Stand pairs for the two midweek dates I also booked.

I asked Mark Yeandle to join me for the first of the visits, an offer which he eagerly accepted.

Hippity, who was in the middle of his writing surge that summer (mercifully never to be repeated in quantity) wrote this one up for the King Cricket website – click here.

Just in case anything ever happens to King Cricket, I have scraped the piece to Ogblog – only click the link below if the link above doesn’t work:

Pakistan v Netherlands World Twenty20 match report

I’ve not a lot to add to Hippity’s straightforward narrative and definitive reporting, except to provide links to the scorecards for the two matches:

It possibly goes without saying, but the second match was a cracker of a low scoring thriller, which made up for the damp squib that was the first match.

Repetitive – moi? Moi?? Moi???

Avid Ogblog readers might detect some similarity between Hippity’s story for this match and his MTWD report just a few week’s earlier. Recycling for different audiences and/or honest reportage of extremely similar experiences – read into it what you will. The little green monster is semi-retired now and anyway you cannot plagiarise yourself, you can merely repeat yourself.

The Second Tufty Stackpole v The Children’s Society Cricket Match, Much In Need Of Improved Memories, 4 August 2002

Another e-artists’ impression of village cricket by Dall-E and me

By way of contrast with the first Tufty Stackpole v The Children’s Society match, which I remember well and have documented in some detail…

The First Tufty Stackpole v The Children’s Society Cricket Match, 15 July 2001

…and even by way of contrast with the third match, which took place in 2004…

…the second match has almost totally evaded my memory. It existed. I have e-mail and diary evidence for it.

Here’s Charles “Charley the Gent Malloy” Bartlett’s shout out from 9 July 2002:

CRICKET MATCH – SUNDAY 4 AUGUST

I am delighted to say that we have arranged a cricket fixture a against a village cricket side called Tuffty Stackpole at their home ground in a village called North Crawley – it’s a 15 minute drive from the Milton Keynes turnoff on the M1 Motorway.

Some of you may remember we played them last Summer, it was a great day, great cricket, great food, great pubs and in beautiful surroundings – there is a small cover charge towards the food and refreshments.

I originally met members of Tufty Stackpole on TCS Treks in China and Peru, they are keen supporters of TCS, and monies from the cricket match will go towards sponsorship for other TCS Treks (sadly theirs not mine!).

The match will start around mid-day and be a 40 over match (that’s 40 overs
each!) – we will probably need a number of 12th men, for cover and substitutes, along with scorers as there is a full size scoreboard.

There will be a number of cars travelling, so transport should not be a problem, I expect everyone to be fixed up with a lift – there and back.

Please advise me on your availability ASAP.

This time around, Janie and I took the precaution of booking out the whole of the Monday following the match. We had a busy weekend ahead of the match, with a night at the Proms on the Saturday preceding.

Reflecting on my absence of memory for this fixture, I even wondered whether the match had been cancelled at the last minute due to an inability to get a team together or inclement weather.

But no.

Janie remembers attending one in which Tufty Stackpole soundly thrashed The Children’s Society – to such an extent that everyone agreed that it would not make sense to repeat the exercise unless or until the Children’s Society could muster a better eleven to give Tufty Stackpole a decent game.

That must have been this second match. The thrashing factor, together with the need to pull together a better squad, might at least in part explain why the fixture didn’t happen again until 2004.

We had no Biff this time around, no Martin Hinks and no Nigel “Father Barry”. “Big Papa Zambezi” Jeff Tye was there, as was Harish “Harsha Goble” Gohil. Janie thinks she remembers having a long and pleasant chat with Liz Tye on that surprisingly inclement August watching occasion, although that nice chat might have been another year of course.

The only other clues in my e-mail archive include a note from me to Chas on 31 July 2002 suggesting initials for some of us in a desperate attempt to make us sound more like real cricketers:

Perhaps

CPU Bartlett
JFDI Tye
ICT Harris
HTTP Gohil

Also an e-mail exchange between me and Chas after the event, on 16 August 2002, which shows we clearly had “strengthening the team for Tufty on our minds.

ME: Z/Yen is probably close to signing a lapsed but formerly decent club standard player, who would also be suitable and willing for the Tufty fixture.

CHAS: I think I am concerned at this remark by you – because I do not believe it. It is clearly designed to strengthen your team for the annual fixture at Regents Park against TCS!!. Will you stop at nothing to win that trophy?

ME: Nothing.

That hiring, I should say parenthetically, was Mark “Uncail Marcas” Yeandle, who did turn out for Z/Yen a good few times, but never did turn out for TCS against Tufty Stackpole. Probably, in Chas’s memory, Mark is best known for what he does best at cricket…watching. He has joined us several times, e.g. the never-to-be-forgotten 5th day of the 5th Test at the Oval in 2005 and the occasion at Lord’s in 2010 which Chas refers to as “The Day Of The Monster Strawberries” which came courtesy of Mark:

England v Bangladesh Day 2, Lord’s, 28 May 2010

Returning to August 2002, the other thing that will have weakened my memory for this Tufty match is that it was just a few days before we headed off for our Heavy Rollers adventure at Trent Bridge that year:

How Could We Sing The Heavy Rollers Song In A Strange Land? England v India At Trent Bridge, 8 & 9 August 2002

Despite what happened in the cricket at Tufty in 2002, I’m sure the tea and libations after the match were up to the usual Tufty standards – see the report on the first match for all those sorts of details.

The First Tufty Stackpole v The Children’s Society Cricket Match, 15 July 2001

In short, I need help from other people who were at this second ever Tufty Stackpole v The Children’s Society match if we are to pull together anything more authoritative about the match than this.

Perhaps some of the Tufty folk have better memories of it and might be encouraged to chime in with their thoughts. If there is a scorebook somewhere in the North Crawley archives, with the details of the Tufty Stackpole v The Children’s Society matches, scans of those pages would add greatly to the record here.

We have no pictures from 2002 either. So, as it is, I have had to collaborate sparsely with Dall-E to generate some sort of pictorial record of the two sides.

Tufty Stackpole cricketers in 2002

The Children’s Society cricketers in 2002