Match Reports
Match Reports
25th August 2018
V&A PLAYERS: Andrew Jones [Skip], Adam Jacot, Andy Taylor, Ross Ashcroft, Tom PG, Adam Knight, Vin G, Rupert M, Ben H, Nick PG, R Morris, N Bird (12th man) [/highlight What should have been a Bank Holiday double-header – matches in successive days for the V&A at Stonor – was scuppered by the weather. Heavy rain meant that Sunday’s scheduled match against Stonor CC was abandoned on the morning, a shame for all concerned, especially those like Bowden, Goodliffe, Emley and Mounsey-Thear, who decided to play just one game that weekend and picked the wrong one. One need not feel quite so sorry for the hardened athletes who gathered in the Golden Ball after Saturday’s pulsating encounter with the Gardeners, then went on to the Pritchard-Gordon gaff to carouse the night away, confident that their services would not be required the following day. Saturday’s match had given them much to relish […]
20th August 2018
Another Saturday at Stonor, another sensational game. We’ve had some brilliant finishes this season, but this one may well have topped the lot, for its many ups and downs, individual heroics, and pure quality. The Nomads are a serious team, who have been going for more than a century and include several former first-class or professional cricketers, of whom two or three were playing on Saturday. They have several overseas tours every year. Dennis de Caires arranged this fixture before his departure for Barbados, and warned Ross that he would have to pick a powerful team. Ross did accordingly, and instructed his team to muster at 11am to welcome the visitors – a polite gesture with the added benefit of possibly making their later arrivals feel a little hurried. Was that why Tom Brockton, on winning the toss, decided to bat? Whatever the reason, Ross was surely not displeased, for there had been plenty of rain […]
2nd July 2018
The parks of England are paved with sunburned bodies, Saddleworth Moor is on fire and sales of orange squash are rocketing as cricket matches require frequent drinks breaks. Yes, we’re in the middle of a heatwave – a meteorological phenomenon that has inspired pop lyricists down the ages. Martha and the Vandellas did it for me. The younger generation may be more familiar with a rap song by Wiley. Whatever your preference, the message is similar: sunshine is sexy; it loosens inhibitions. Poor Annette Jacot, who might reasonably have hoped for some female company on such a glorious day at Stonor, was immediately mobbed by chaps determined to solve her crossword clues for her, and then, at lunch, obliged to listen to a lot of smutty talk from Radio Bird. This blight on the airwaves, which resembles Radio 4 under the guest editorship of Peter Stringfellow, is famous, or rather […]
19th May 2018
The V&A’s cricket fixture against The Times was not the only big match being played on Saturday, 19 May.
5th August 2017
Variety is the spice of life, and this was a spicy day in the best possible sense. Not in the euphemistic sense that implies angry argument if not actual fisticuffs. There was none of that.
3rd June 2017
A beautiful day and an enthralling match with the most gentlemanly opponents, a magnificent lunch and tea masterminded by Estelle de Caires, concluded in the penultimate over...but not everything went according to plan.
14th May 2016
After a glorious weekend a week earlier, it was back to thermal underwear for the old codgers of the V&A who turned out to brave the northerly wind and the youthful vigour of Andy Taylor’s XI on 14 May. There was an eerie silence in the pavilion with Radio Bird temporarily off air. We had been told that our founder and spiritual leader was celebrating his 40th wedding anniversary with his wife, in Venice. No one really believed this, especially since the only person who claims to have seen Nicky’s mythical spouse is Martin Bowden, a man of notoriously fanciful imagination. Back in the real world, the two captains strolled out to toss a coin – an unnecessary ritual since Andy Taylor was determined to bowl, while my senior professionals had been urging me to bat first. Nick Emley and I set out to see the shine off the ball, […]