Match Reports
Match Reports
7th September 2022
Chris M-T did everything in this 35-over game. He raised the team, captained, catered. And he did everything with his customary tact and aplomb. You don’t get histrionics from a top PR man. And, said Christiaan, ‘he captained very astutely.’ A bowling change was key. No man is a hero to his valet but that is the valet’s fault. Mrs. M-T may not appreciate the jewel she lives with, the beauty of his bowling and run-up, his roast pork, his massive hook. The track was green but the ground was still brown. Around 12.30 it pissed down but stopped and then was dry. Batting was easier in the afternoon but we batted first, opening with young Leo Nieboer (nephew of the more famous Lachlan) and an old Jags mate of Chris M-T’s, a super batsman, Nick Scott-Dalgliesh. The bowling was good(ish) but the batsmen were soon 50 for no wicket, […]
29th August 2022
V&A v HOWITZERS, and MARK BRAID X1 SAT. AUG. 27 and SUN. AUG. 28 CONINGTON, CAMBS. A double header with a team much like ourselves, but rather more virile I thought, more manly, more Adam Knight than Adam Jacot. They had a rotund bloke who played league cricket (very strong in these parts) and smacked a half-century with ease, and then bowled without wheezing despite carrying the evidence of the good life. Very nice people, very chivalrous and if they kept up a barrage of banter in the field it was directed at their own incompetents rather than ours. Our incompetents were in evidence. The ground is lovely, the pinnacles of Conington’s magnificent church soar above the trees. Mark Braid, our host and a wine chum of Tom Bird, bought the Georgian manor house a few years ago and runs the Howitzers (originally a pub quiz team) who play on […]
22nd August 2022
We’ve been playing at Stonor for about 35 years, and playing the village almost as long. Our hosts deserve respect. At the annual Stonor quiz in the pavilion, I always suggest it would be less bumptious if the V&A came second; but clever dicks like Jonkers and Vin ignore diplomacy and keep getting the answers right. When we had the brilliant all-rounder Vib Fonseka, the V&A would thrash Stonor at cricket which was embarrassing. But his absence on Her Majesty’s pleasure evened things up. Vib was an unfair advantage; Lachlan is a fair one. He appeared in natty Spanish conquistador beard (c.1620) and sports convertible (c.2010) around 2.30, just in time to come in at No 4 and start smiting quick runs. The ground was brown, the park was brown, the pitch was bare; balls leapt alarmingly. Adam was skip (in a declaration game) and elected to bat, much to […]
1st May 2022
‘Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric.’ On Liberty, John Stuart Mill, 1857 Is Neil Parish a loveable eccentric or an arse? When caught watching filth I have used three excuses: it was a) research b) an accident c) I was trying to access information about tractors. I have always found the last one ineffective with my missus. Joe Tetlow worked for five years with Parish. ‘A decent bloke’, apparently. Joe might need to adjust his CV. Watching hetero porn is always iffy, as it involves victimhood (the woman); whereas gay porn doesn’t and the spectator, being gay, is per se a minority (or ‘minoritised’) and thus to be respected. Anyway, that’s what I argue. A FEW GOOD MEN are very nice chaps led by the Corinthian Alistair Metcalf, a decent cricketer too. [Their name almost defines the team, apart from the ‘Good’ bit […]
18th October 2021
Nick Birdy (above, headless) holding the 2006 Fixture Card with its cover featuring Sir Garry Sobers, who is seated with Ted Dexter at a Hilton Hotel function. Ted seemed a bit confused and didn’t recall his status as our President, but it was late and the evening had been convivial. Our season was mixed – lows, troughs, nadirs and some moments of light relief. The best was superlative batting by Ollie Marsh (and others), but Ollie was a class apart, possibly the best V&A batsman (not forgetting Baz Street) since Robbie Lawson and Vib Fonseka (who, like Nick Emley, fell out with Old Bill and spent time slopping out). The pitch behaved a bit differently this year, no one scored a ton; there were several last year, even in a truncated season. But Phil Goodliffe’s horticultural expertise is a great boon. We had some brilliant games; but it’s […]
6th September 2021
I am a great fan of Henry Turpie. Although he has never captained the V&A before he is clearly an experienced skipper, and doesn’t flap or lose focus or get upset by some arse talking bollocks behind the wicket like Emley or me. Actually, neither of us were playing, my athleticism wasn’t needed as we were quorate and Emley sent a text at 11.30 a.m. to say he’d been herded by diversions into the car park at Heathrow’s Term. 3 and so – ‘fuck it, am fucking off to fucking Wiltshire’. You can always tell a Cambridge man by his command of English. Perhaps Emley picked up his patois doing porridge. Jonkers learnt more useful things like picking locks. Turpie had none of my advantages of birth. He went to a grim boarding school in Dorset, with Baz and Jago, but he remained uncorrupted. They had girls at Bryanston […]
26th August 2021
IN MEMORIAM TED DEXTER CBE (1935–2021) PRESIDENT OF THE V&A CRICKET CLUB Our President, ‘Lord’ Ted Dexter, died on August 25. He became President around 1978. He lived down the road from me in Ealing, and was a friend of Simon Foster’s family, who was then one of our finest all-rounders. I wrote to Ted who said he’d be delighted to grace our club as President, but to remember to include his CBE in the credit. I used to see him locally and wave to him and he always waved back but with a slight air of not knowing who I was. When Andy Fraser and I met him at the Hilton 20 years ago (at a function in honour of Garry Sobers) we said hullo and mentioned the V&A, and showed him a V&A scorecard. I had hoped he’d say that being our President was his proudest […]
23rd August 2021
Stonor CC are much like ourselves, a mixture of chaps who’ve seen better days, and yoof – in their case the Lovelands and a 12-year-old (Blumfield) who is going to be a super bowler but got whacked rather tactlessly by Jago and Vin. I was umpiring and if the ball had hit their left ear I would have given an instant LBW to punish their rudeness. We batted first in a timed game, that offered a draw as a possible third result. Vin and Jago opened and faced an awkward pitch where balls popped and shot. Phil Goodliffe says wormcasts might be to blame, or rolling them. He can explain more fully. Jago was majestic, his first 5 scoring shots were fours, his next was an errant single and then a six; and then he was adjudged LBW by umpire Jonkers. As always with the Chelsea Potter […]
16th August 2021
[Virile young V&A cricketers and Christiaan Jonkers enjoying the rain at Lord’s last Thursday.] ‘Nothing matters very much and few things matter at all.’ This wise comment by Prime Minister Arthur Balfour is the antidote to that Scots obsessive Bill Shankly and his nonsense about football – ‘Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. It’s much more important than that.’ Shanks also said: ‘Of course I didn’t take my wife to see Rochdale as an anniversary present. It was Rochdale reserves.’ I don’t think he was joking. Anyway, the point about quoting Balfour is that he got it right, but that he should have added that one thing is important and that is ‘walking’ at cricket. Martin Bowden told a story of how an Aussie he was playing with seemed to snick a ball to the keeper, it was audible from the pavilion, but […]
2nd August 2021
V&A PLAYERS: J. Tetlow (c), C. Jonkers, L. Nieboer, A. Jacot, A. Knight, C. Mounsey-Thear, C. Hunt, M. Wright, N. Emley, P. Goodliffe, N. Bird The Thebertons are run by Tim Young QC, and named after a street in his native Islington. As he said during my luncheon peroration we have been playing each other for over 35 years or so. He was about Charlie Hunt’s age, once, but mature; you could tell he was a lawyer ‘cos he said things like ‘be that as it may’ and ‘I put it to you with respect’ but he was always modest about his cricket, with good reason. Anyway, the ‘Thebs’ are a diverse lot nowadays. Yes, they are replete with barristers, but they have some solicitors too. Though they seem to be pretty white and gender-specific unlike ourselves with that actor chappie with dyed hair (who claims it was for a […]