Match Reports
Match Reports
18th October 2021
Nick Birdy (above, headless) holding the 2006 Fixture Card with its cover featuring Sir Garry Sobers, who is seated with Ted Dexter at a Hilton Hotel function. Ted seemed a bit confused and didn’t recall his status as our President, but it was late and the evening had been convivial. Our season was mixed – lows, troughs, nadirs and some moments of light relief. The best was superlative batting by Ollie Marsh (and others), but Ollie was a class apart, possibly the best V&A batsman (not forgetting Baz Street) since Robbie Lawson and Vib Fonseka (who, like Nick Emley, fell out with Old Bill and spent time slopping out). The pitch behaved a bit differently this year, no one scored a ton; there were several last year, even in a truncated season. But Phil Goodliffe’s horticultural expertise is a great boon. We had some brilliant games; but it’s […]
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 […]
26th August 2021
IN MEMORIAM TED DEXTER CBE (1935–2021) PRESIDENT OF THE V&A CRICKET CLUB Our President, ‘Lord’ Ted Dexter, died on August 25. He became President around 1978. He lived down the road from me in Ealing, and was a friend of Simon Foster’s family, who was then one of our finest all-rounders. I wrote to Ted who said he’d be delighted to grace our club as President, but to remember to include his CBE in the credit. I used to see him locally and wave to him and he always waved back but with a slight air of not knowing who I was. When Andy Fraser and I met him at the Hilton 20 years ago (at a function in honour of Garry Sobers) we said hullo and mentioned the V&A, and showed him a V&A scorecard. I had hoped he’d say that being our President was his proudest […]
24th August 2021
Kensington CC had pulled out of our original fixture, so we searched far and wide within the Royal Borough and invited the Chelsea Arts Club back. They had also been cancelled on, by a team called ‘The Butterflies’, which got me thinking about the butterfly effect. More on that later*. The forecast was poor, but having squandered a few fair days this year, the dice was rolled and the coin tossed. Andy Jones put us in to bat, with Matt Wright and Christiaan negotiating five an over from the first half a dozen on a seeming greentop. Matt Wright had been performing at the Hundred just that week. He was playing the drums at half-time, not batting, and was out LBW for 13. Christiaan was also out LBW (though never is) for 12. That started a minor collapse. Constantine threatened his talents for one, bowled by Peake, a […]
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 […]
21st July 2021
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. […]