We were blessed; blessed with glorious weather, blessed with a fabulous opposition and blessed with the return of CMT aka “Penfold”. Ernest Penfold (voiced by Terry Scott) is a timid, bespectacled hamster, and Danger Mouse’s reluctant assistant and sidekick. He is often mistaken for a mole; however, Brian Cosgrove has stated Penfold is supposed to be a hamster.             A hamster! Who knew? I always thought he was a mole, but it makes sense ….. the cheeks, the lack of digging. A 35 over game was agreed, the weather was set fair, and the pitch was very un-Stonor like; baked hard with the ball actually coming through fast but still an unpredictable bounce, some rearing up from a length and others shooting through ankle high. The seamers were licking their lips. Captain Constantine won the toss and, taking the advice of W G, he thought about it and then chose to bat. […]

Habitually, whenever match report writing has been mentioned, I have avoided any eye contact and skulked off swiftly. V&A are match reports are witty, erudite and full of words you will usually only find in a book written by Adam Jacot; penned by arty types as a vehicle to show off their knowledge of literature and culture – not my bag. No condition is permanent however and following Saturdays game, whilst relaxing over a pint at the Golden Testicle, I was caught completely unawares and mugged by T-Bird. Oozing his abundant charm he fixed me with calculating eyes and asked me if I could write up the match report? He had already posted a curly blond, blue eyed child to cover the only exit and I was in trouble. I blurted that in Trivial Pursuit the Art & Literature cheese was always the one I was struggled to get and […]