Perhaps the worst sports team of all time are the Wake Forest Demon Deacons of the mid-’70s. Certainly no other team, to the best of my knowledge, has had a song about losing in life overall named after them (Deacon Blues, for those interested). After six consecutive losses leading into this week, the V&A sought to turn our recent fortunes around and avoid going their way. We batted first. Tom Bird and debutant Zaf rushed ahead in a rare case of us starting an innings at the pace usually expected in a limited overs match. By the time Zaf let the ball hit his toe in front of middle stump, we were on 50-odd off nine overs. Unfortunately, this left Zaf with what most of the club thought was a broken toe. Adam, later asking about next week’s availability, was adamant that it was merely a bruise. Jasper came in […]

I’ve written one match report for the V&A prior to this. Funnily enough, it was for our game against the Jesmond Jaguars last year. Writing our match report for this fixture is swiftly becoming a yearly tradition. If you don’t yet know what Jesmond is, and want to change that, you can go back to that report. Jesmond was well summarised by one person as being ‘not a bad’ postcode to be in in Newcastle. The Jags played rugby together at university. The game was initially delayed by some pretty torrential rain. The power went out multiple times in the Stonor pavilion. The dogs were deeply displeased. The children were scared. Steph reported leaks. Nevertheless, this was a chance for the first game of one hand one bounce I’ve seen in the Stonor pavilion. The rubber matting in the home changing room created deep cracks for bowlers to exploit, along […]

As both the V&A and the Jesmond Jaguars descended on Stonor, cloud cover had gathered in the humid air. Google tells me that Jesmond is an “upscale suburb” in Newcastle, with “posh clothing boutiques and cafes” and “chic cocktail bars” (the Roundhay of Newcastle but without any future Conservative party leader to tarnish its reputation). For a moment I thought it an honour to have a team travel so far, from such a seemingly utopian place to play the humble V&A. I then learnt that none of the team actually live in Newcastle, and they just happened to go to university there and play rugby together. This disappointment set aside, Christiaan’s (7-1-40-1) eyes lit up at a chance to start off the bowling in the cloudy conditions, after we either won or lost the toss. He started a tidy spell, with his first five overs going for only 15. In […]