Match Reports
Match Reports
2nd July 2016
“It is poor form to take offence at personal comments in a match report”, whined old has-been, Tim Young to me over lunch. He might regret that. The rest of the Thebertons team where rather young and fit (or in the case of local estate agent, Alexander Risdon, young).
25th June 2016
A tricky call in the morning, heavy showers forecast from 1 pm. But a chance they would miss Stonor, or at least allow intermittent play.
11th June 2016
Lachlan Nieboer took his pads off after his dismissal and said, “I decided that we cannot be beaten by this lot”. Almost single-handedly, he ensured V&A victory. A victory that ebbed away and flowed back to the V&A twice in one game.
4th June 2016
It is said, to get on, it matters not what you know but whom you know. This is why I am second hand bookseller. Dennis de Caires knows plenty, but is also well connected in the cricketing world, a useful attribute when selecting a team.
28th May 2016
I WAS SKIPPER in a 35-over game on a glorious day. I managed to assemble a team of 14 on Wednesday, 13 on Saturday but for some reason when we started at midday we were a traditional eleven. So were the Hermits. They included that nice Mr Palmer who got so cross with us a couple of years back when he called us a bunch of wankers and cheats, after some perhaps over-enthusiastic V&A appealing. He was in the ball park with the ‘wankers’ bit but perhaps ‘cheats’ was unfair. Anyway, he was a bit distressed on Saturday by some umpiring eccentricities and by some facetious banter in the field but he did not combust. I’d had a word with our chaps beforehand and asked them not to be naughty and upset him; and in the main they didn’t, although Nick Emley managed to get up his nose by some […]
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, […]
7th May 2016
THE ALL SORTS were founded almost 40 years ago by three Old Harrovians, the cricket correspondents Ivo Tennant and Geoffrey Dean (who is also a wine man) and our own Simon Jacot, father of the more famous Louis, and brother of Adam, our skipper for the day. Adam appeared to have lost his razor again. It is always a pity when a middle aged man lets himself go, you don’t get Christiaan turning up in unpressed trousers, or egg on his stubble. Louis told me last week that the All Sorts were ‘like us, mostly old with a few young ones to help in the field.’ Bollocks. The first six All Sorts to turn up were virile young men who promptly started warming up and throwing balls around professionally. They looked fearsomely good, and so they proved. The older members weren’t deadbeats like ours, but ex county or club cricketers. […]
30th April 2016
Tom Bird’s stag game was a family affair, with his fiancée’s parents catering nobly, his Dad umpiring, his Auntie coming for drinks and lunch in that order, his Uncle Nicky skippering for the oppo, his Grandfather rising like Lazarus to watch the game from his car. The day was bright if cold and plagued by occasional rain and hail but no locusts or boils. Tom’s mates were once our Yoof element. Ollie Bamber, Ed Churchwood, Ollie Newton, Andy Sharp, Steve Coltman, Johnny Stokes, Will King, Freddie de Vas all played pretty regularly until work and babies took them from us. Ollie Bamber’s charming wife Sophie was once accosted at a V&A party by one of our more lecherous members who had taken strong drink. I had to explain to our stalwart that Sophie was off the menu. I am afraid I rather let myself down yesterday by declaring my interest […]
23rd April 2016
There is, about the start of The Cricket Season, a quite tangible sense of excitement: anticipation of flannel clad heroics to be performed over the coming months. It is a sense, amplified by the fresh smell and rising sap of spring, which I have been aware of from the earliest days of my cricketing youth. Cricket is essentially a bucolic game which, although it has its headquarters in London and is played throughout the world, owes its origins to the South Downs and its soul to the English countryside. There can be few better representations of this than the cricket ground at Stonor, which occupies an elevated site to one side of the ancient Assendon valley, overlooking the Stonor Park estate with a view of rolling patchwork farmland down the valley. It was this scene which greeted us as we arrived on a bright but decidedly chill morning. Well, most […]
12th September 2015
A splendid day to end our season. Charming opposition (alumni of Durham University), a warm sun, no Muzak in the Park, a fine lunch (voted Best Cricket Lunch by AFGM) and tea (both prepared by the Catering Committee: N Bird, N P-G, the Morrises, Jessica, Megan) with only a naturist to disturb the view.