Our 45th Annual Dinner passed without serious incident which is a bonus. The food was entirely adequate and the wine only ran out at the end.

The season ended not with a bang but a whimper. Our last improvised fixture at Stonor was not to be. God intervened as She/He often does, though for most of the summer you’d have thought cricket was what God did, so glorious was the weather. And for much of it I was in the mountains of upstate New York in persistent rain. Fuck it. I am not sure that improvised games work, oppositions are cobbled together and inquorate. We should ensure, though, that we do not get any more fixtures snaffled by the bohemians of the Chelsea Arts Club. We had an astounding number of close, even nail-biting, finishes. Not of the engineered type I used to contrive when I was a sort of permanent captain. If the opposition looked to be needing help I’d put a wally bowler on. The trouble was the wally bowler knew why he was […]

__________________________________________________________ ‘An umpire should be a rock of insensitivity. He must be insensitive to raucous and determined appeals. He must be insensitive to being hated by 11 men, one of whom, the bowler, would like to see him impaled on a stump.’  – Simon Barnes ‘When I retired from first class cricket, I turned out for my village side. But I gave up ‘cos the pitch was a cabbage patch. And the dopey umpires were swayed more by loud appeals and a yen to get to the pub than the laws of cricket.’  – David Steele __________________________________________________________ I was a football ref for many years, at a lowly level. I was called a w*nker most days. Fair comment I thought. I now umpire at Stonor more than play, and although I am still a w*nker, cricketers are more couth and (mostly) only call me rude names as they trudge back to their mark. We […]

‘Cricket makes men of boys, sportsmen of dullards, gentlemen of ruffians, Englishmen of foreigners.’ History of Cricket, Ward Lock, 1898 ‘Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. Sport is war minus the shooting.’ The Sporting Spirit, George Orwell, 1945 Orwell was right about SERIOUS sport, but we are hardly serious. I prefer the first quote, though how playing cricket can make Johnny Foreigner an Englishman is a mystery. Our serious sporting moment in the Battersea Bandits game came right at the very end, a moment of high drama that tested our Corinthian pedigree. I am back on match reporting duties after a prolonged absence due to not playing and other people doing it better; and being incapacitated through drink, dicky knees or battlefield touring. Am just back from Normandy. A […]

Our Annual Cricket Dinner passed off without incident. The evening was graced by babies and dogs and if it didn’t match the splendour of the National Liberal Club at least the staff were younger and more comely.

We had some nice days in the sun, fabulous lunches and teas, and lovely evenings at the Golden Bollock that made the jam in between, the cricket, almost irrelevant.

THE SILK BOUDOIR XI were actually VII, because several of this youthful side couldn’t get out of bed. The V&A keep themselves nice on Friday nights so they’re perky for the match, would that others had our