Match Reports
Match Reports
21st June 2021
JUNE 19, 2021, STONOR A DANK DAY, RAIN THREATENING (see photo of Otto and Ben) but Alex Lang, the Bandits’ jovial founder and captain, thought we could manage a 35-over game. I won the toss and batted – on a leaden pitch. ‘Do not play back’ I warned, ‘do not attempt to sweep a ball on the wicket’. Deaf ears. I rued the absence of Andy Fraser’s correctness (I refer to his technique, not character) and Lachlan’s invaluable gifts but the bugger had injured himself, possibly combing his hair, or camping. We opened with Vin and Matt Wright. They batted nicely, and even managed boundaries, not easy on such a pudding of an outfield. But both were out for 13, Vin caught spooning it up; Matt bowled going back. Jago and Rob Taylor came in and smote the bowling before Jago misjudged one on the wicket and was […]
13th June 2021
V&A Team: Nieboer (capt.), Jacot, Jonkers, Goodliffe, Tetlow, Hale, Fraser, Gleason, Mayana, Sethi, Wright, Bird, N. (12th Man) THE CHELSEA ARTS CLUB is one of our oldest fixtures. We first played them 37 years ago. Stephen Bartley, their co-founder with David Maddocks (still playing), was at school with me and was looking for arty teams to play so alighted on the V&A. We were pathetic, crippled by limp-wristed curators who nancied about like girlies in the outfield commenting on the too too delicious Poussin-blue of the sky. They had to go. There’s nothing homophobic about kicking out a bunch of preening queens and getting in butch guys like Jacot and Bowden. Jacot played on Saturday and was pretty depressed. ‘Bowled first ball and whacked for 10 in my first over, I’m giving up.’ But next over it all changed – two wickets and he was un cochon dans la merde. […]
7th June 2021
V&A PLAYERS: Emley (Capt), Bowden, de Caires, Jacot A, Jonkers, Nieboer, Constantine, Pritchard-Gordon N, Marsh, Tetlow, Bird N, (12th Man) JUNE 5 SHOULD HAVE BEEN D-DAY but in 1944 the weather was atrocious, so it was postponed a day. It was the other way round for us. It rained Friday and shone Saturday. And our day was not marred by Germans. My friend Derek Dowding (late husband of Lady Dowding who presents our awards), a Battle of Britain pilot, said he loved flying before the war but then ‘the Germans ruined the pleasure’. Too often one’s nice day out, or nice plan, is buggered by the enemy or opposition. As the Polish commander said when looking at General Browning’s plan for Arnhem – ‘but the Germans, General, the Germans!’ Or as Mike Tyson said: ‘no plan survives a punch in the mouf.’ Last week, against The Star XI, our plan […]
1st June 2021
It being a bank holiday weekend we were short and our opposition, Jesmond Jaguars, were too; so we combined and found a very nice team to play against, Star of Hackney. Many of this mostly Sikh team were new to village cricket and the vagaries of our pitch, but revelled in the view and the kites and the hens in the Golden Ball. They may not have revelled in my chatter in the pub but they got it anyway and laughed at my joke(s). I do not get that sort of politeness, however forced, at home. My present wife is quite rude and says my throat problem is entirely caused by talking bollocks. Chris Mounsey-Thear made the day. He it was who found the Star XI; AND he made the fabulous lunch of all manner of meats and salads. When I got there at 10.45 he was busy chopping and […]
23rd May 2021
V&A PLAYERS: TOM BIRD (SKIP), PHIL GOODLIFFE (W/K), JAGO POYNTER, NICKY BIRD, ADAM JACOT, JOE TETLOW, OLLIE MARSH, NICK CONSTANTINE, CHRISTIAAN JONKERS, ADAM KNIGHT. We couldn’t get into the pavilion, the key didn’t work. But Jonkers picked the lock! Is there no dubious activity beyond this Woosterish figure? I once referred to his unctuous shop-walker manner as Uriah Heepish but he objected; Pecksniffian sounds better. The Invalids were 10 and we were 10, with me. I am not an asset these days and in the field I was useless. A flattering description actually, and at one point, a ball having whizzed through my hands at gully, Tetlow asked skipper Tom Bird whether he and I should swap places. But Tom demurred, thinking perhaps that there was no place to hide me. I eventually ended as long stop, where I needed a runner. Adam chivvied me in the field, told me […]
19th October 2020
V&A CRICKET 2020 – END OF TERM REPORT BY THE CHAIRMAN, NICKY BIRD COVID WREAKED HAVOC WITH THE FIXTURES but we had half a season, which the Stonor chaps thought impossible in early July, and so did not waste money and energy preparing a strip or the outfield. Worms enjoyed themselves, bunnies too. I came for a picnic at the pavilion at that time and the pitch was a field, seemingly returned to nature and poppies and clover and birds. It was desolate; no walkers about, not even Lachlan camping in the environs with his primer stove and pocket edition of Aeschylus. I wrote to the Telegraph pointing out the absurdity of cricket being banned while netball and outdoor gym was allowed. The crap about a cricket ball being a ‘vector’ was palpable nonsense (and so it proved). Boris read my letter and relented. Stonor worked miracles to return […]
14th September 2020
I gave Nick Derewlany a lift down to Stonor. He was unhungover which always surprises. We talked of the holocaust and the banality of evil, and then moved to weighty things like Brentford missing out on promotion. Nick’s family came from Lvov, a great mistake as it was on the old Polish/Russian border and bang in the way of Stalin’s tanks going west and Hitler’s going east. Droitwich is a safer bet. And the B4090 going through Droitwich has temporary traffic lights so it’s not ideal tank country. It was a gorgeous sunny day at Stonor. Two new players graced us: Owen Gundry and his 13-year-old son Otto. Otto bowls very nicely and will be a good bat. Owen is a set designer and designed the set for Jonathan Ross’s new show. But nobody’s perfect. Adam writes for airline magazines. You have to accept work where you can. Jonkers runs […]
7th September 2020
For 20 years or more Rupert Morris has graced our game, and Kitty has graced the boundary with her pleasant banter and erudition. But not her culinary skills, at which she is ‘useless’; fortunately, Rupert is not. He can create saumon en croûte de pâte feuilletée even with a bottle of Muscadet inside him, such is his mastery of cuisine. His talents are legion – supremo of the written word, of the green baize, of Holmesiana, a distinguished journalist, Humanist celebrant and sometime publisher. Master of many trades, but not cricket alas. He came to it late, never really played at Eton or university. We scouted him while he was playing for the GTs, already middle aged, but capable of a quick opening 30 if catches were missed. The transfer was made because the V&A was not then and should not be about cricketing prowess, but about clubbability – and […]
25th August 2020
Stonor Park, 23rd August 2020 Adam Jacot did a magnificent job in securing 11 good(ish) men for this crucial fixture against our hosts, Stonor CC. He also recruited a few for Saturday’s game. He proved those who doubted his organisational genius (me) wrong. We saw the return of noted all-rounder and economist Richard Woolhouse. He – and John Langley of the National Theatre who came to spectate – raise the tone, often lowered by the lumpenproletariat of Wargrave who make up our numbers. Langley talked of Pinter, whom he played cricket with – so much more edifying than the previous day’s banter about penile dysfunction. Stonor are our hosts and we are indebted to them for playing in such idyllic surroundings. So diplomacy suggests we should lose with grace (but not deliberately) in an exciting finish. There should be no vulgar appealing, no argy-bargy. With Christiaan Jonkers and his beard […]
11th August 2020
The Townies have been playing us for about 15 years. The connection is Sarah Jenkins, who sold her Cornwall house to the Winters family – George Winters is the Townies’ founder. They used to come with a collection of WAGS but now, as Adam Knight commented, they are more Ws than Gs, and they have 2.8 children apiece plus 4X4s. They make a jolly crowd and their picnic lunches looked better than mine (a BLT without the L or, as it turned out, the B). Lachlan’s lunch is top-of-the-range, a colour supplement melange of goodies, healthy green stuff with some exotic kernels from a banyang tree or something. No wonder he is super fit and bowls at 80 mph. Someone said he is the thinking woman’s thesp. But he is more than that. He can bat too, and with intelligence; some of us are a bit too cavalier. Incidentally, […]