Match Reports
Match Reports
6th July 2024
The forecast was poor. England were playing in the European Championships at 5pm. When Lachlan pulled out in mid week, due to a bad back (which he didn’t want anyone to know about), I thought “here we go”. But actually, very few V&A players take any interest in football. In fact, Christiaan despises it. “Ah, we’re suffering a pincer movement on the cricket owing to bad weather and the footy, are we?” he guffawed in the changing rooms. We were going to have to play. The pitch squelched underfoot and there were puddles on the square, but the beauty of the hallowed turf at Stonor is it dries fucking quickly. A tactical early lunch was called and an afternoon T25 was agreed with Alistair Metcalfe (skipper of A Few Good Men). Lunch was an assortment of beef, salami, sausage rolls, hard boiled eggs, potato salad, tomato salad, but no booze […]
29th June 2024
Facial hair tells us a lot about a man. And a lot about cricketers. There is the lazy stubble of the ultra-cool. Though, admittedly, this can double as the lazy stubble of the increasingly moribund. There is of course the villainous “moustachio” worn as part of a wider assembly of beard, twirled occasionally when batsmen take liberties. A look favoured perhaps by second hand booksellers. One of the earliest documents of the usage of moustaches can be traced back to the Iron Age Celts. Graham Gooch took on the look. W.G Grace got carried away sadly and I think we can all agree that his great rhododendron of a beard was a bit de trop. Douglas Jardine, Jack Russell…we acknowledge the effort, but the originality feels strained. And Jack Russell is an awful painter. But then there is the “Woke Wayne Larkins”. The perfect moustache. It involves a nod to […]
22nd June 2024
Bacchus XI are, by now, regulars at Stonor. It is the cricket team for former members of the Oxford University Wine Society. The team’s name, purpose and location suggests frenzied rites and undergraduate revelry of a now unfashionable kind. Such associations do not, however, spring immediately to mind on shaking hands at the start of the day with Patrick Hudson, the team’s articulate and self-deprecating captain, a writer for “The Tablet”. The discussion that followed was a diplomatic assessment as to how we might maximise the cricket and enjoyment of the day to follow for all concerned. The chosen mechanism was a modified time game – 80 overs for the day with a maximum of 42 overs for V&A as the team batting first, with the option to declare at any time. Bacchus hitherto have not fielded strong teams at Stonor. However, they more than compensate with the exuberance and […]
8th June 2024
Given the fact that the V&A has, finally, entered the 21st Century and begun using a WhatsApp ‘Noticeboard’ for weekly selection (the metrics of which I had to explain to Jacot, Jonkers and Bird Snr.) you might be forgiven for thinking that we are in danger of becoming a ‘modern’ cricket club. You would be entirely mistaken. Jonkers still wears flannels and uses his silk tie as a cummerbund, like some regimental pre-partition sahib. He also fields in round, tortoise-shell spectacles; he assures me that this is purely for aesthetic reasons. One of our number was partially responsible for The Hundred, but he issued an apology and has been forgiven. Nicky Bird’s humour roots him firmly in the 1890s. We aren’t modern because we do still, albeit rarely, play that rarest form of cricket: the timed game. Do people understand it? Not anymore. Does that matter? Not unless you’re […]
24th September 2021
V&A PLAYERS: A. JACOT, J. TETLOW, A. JONES, C. MOUNSEY-THEAR, C. JONKERS [SKIP], R. TAYLOR, OWEN GRUNDY, OTTO GRUNDY, V. GRANTHAM Nicky was away at the Duxford Air Show, commemorating the Battle of Britain, so we had no 12th man, or tea lady. In fact, we only had nine players, and significantly less when you take fundamentals like cricketing ability into account. The opposition were the Refreshers CC. They are a team of barristers (and some paralegals, as it transpired). “Paralegal” sounds exciting, but it is not. Court sitting hours in England and Wales are civilised: a 10:30 start, one hour for lunch, and a 4:30 finish. The Refreshers were keen to emulate that schedule on Saturday, arriving promptly, whereas the V&A are a ramshackle bunch of booksellers, potters and drunks. Not quorate at midday, we agreed to bat first. Dr Grantham and Tetlow obliged, trudging to the middle and scoring at a turgid three […]
14th September 2021
V&A PLAYERS: Rob Taylor (Skip), Adam Jacot, Nicky Bird, Matt Cade, Norman Reid, Nick Constantine, Ali Cheema. Tom P-G, Nick P-G, Marc Terblanche, Dario Simpson The week building up to the game against the Battersea Badgers was one of the most stressful seen at the V&A. With the majority of the battled hardened cricketing regulars not available, a search for good players soon turned into a search for able players, which soon turned into a search for “all appendages a bonus”. Emails beginning with “Hello, how are you?” soon turned into “Can you play/know anybody that can?” But as my dear granny used to say, “when times are tough, you gather no moss” (she enjoyed her Sherry). It was Wednesday evening and a game taking place was looking unlikely. This was when a hero in the form of Adam Jacot arose. Persistence, a large address book and a description of the […]
6th September 2021
I am a great fan of Henry Turpie. Although he has never captained the V&A before he is clearly an experienced skipper, and doesn’t flap or lose focus or get upset by some arse talking bollocks behind the wicket like Emley or me. Actually, neither of us were playing, my athleticism wasn’t needed as we were quorate and Emley sent a text at 11.30 a.m. to say he’d been herded by diversions into the car park at Heathrow’s Term. 3 and so – ‘fuck it, am fucking off to fucking Wiltshire’. You can always tell a Cambridge man by his command of English. Perhaps Emley picked up his patois doing porridge. Jonkers learnt more useful things like picking locks. Turpie had none of my advantages of birth. He went to a grim boarding school in Dorset, with Baz and Jago, but he remained uncorrupted. They had girls at Bryanston […]
23rd August 2021
Stonor CC are much like ourselves, a mixture of chaps who’ve seen better days, and yoof – in their case the Lovelands and a 12-year-old (Blumfield) who is going to be a super bowler but got whacked rather tactlessly by Jago and Vin. I was umpiring and if the ball had hit their left ear I would have given an instant LBW to punish their rudeness. We batted first in a timed game, that offered a draw as a possible third result. Vin and Jago opened and faced an awkward pitch where balls popped and shot. Phil Goodliffe says wormcasts might be to blame, or rolling them. He can explain more fully. Jago was majestic, his first 5 scoring shots were fours, his next was an errant single and then a six; and then he was adjudged LBW by umpire Jonkers. As always with the Chelsea Potter […]
16th August 2021
[Virile young V&A cricketers and Christiaan Jonkers enjoying the rain at Lord’s last Thursday.] ‘Nothing matters very much and few things matter at all.’ This wise comment by Prime Minister Arthur Balfour is the antidote to that Scots obsessive Bill Shankly and his nonsense about football – ‘Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. It’s much more important than that.’ Shanks also said: ‘Of course I didn’t take my wife to see Rochdale as an anniversary present. It was Rochdale reserves.’ I don’t think he was joking. Anyway, the point about quoting Balfour is that he got it right, but that he should have added that one thing is important and that is ‘walking’ at cricket. Martin Bowden told a story of how an Aussie he was playing with seemed to snick a ball to the keeper, it was audible from the pavilion, but […]
2nd August 2021
V&A PLAYERS: J. Tetlow (c), C. Jonkers, L. Nieboer, A. Jacot, A. Knight, C. Mounsey-Thear, C. Hunt, M. Wright, N. Emley, P. Goodliffe, N. Bird The Thebertons are run by Tim Young QC, and named after a street in his native Islington. As he said during my luncheon peroration we have been playing each other for over 35 years or so. He was about Charlie Hunt’s age, once, but mature; you could tell he was a lawyer ‘cos he said things like ‘be that as it may’ and ‘I put it to you with respect’ but he was always modest about his cricket, with good reason. Anyway, the ‘Thebs’ are a diverse lot nowadays. Yes, they are replete with barristers, but they have some solicitors too. Though they seem to be pretty white and gender-specific unlike ourselves with that actor chappie with dyed hair (who claims it was for a […]