Match Reports
Match Reports
18th May 2022
Digging into the archives, Rupert Morris wrote this in 2018: “The Nomads are a serious team, who have been going for more than a century and include several former first-class or professional cricketers…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.” It’s amazing how times change, and how quickly. Rupert is now retired in France, Dennis in Barbados, and Ross in the wilderness. Lachlan is 40. The Nomads remain a serious team. If no longer bristling with ex-pros, they are a wily looking outfit, sporting various club cricket tops and furrowed brows. They include, according to N Bird, a delightful chairman in Michael Blumberg. A timed game was agreed, with 20 overs after 5:30pm. They were put into the field on a glorious and cloudless day. The V&A is […]
11th May 2022
There is, I’m told, a pseudo-intellectual argument among classical melomaniacs that not a single piece of music penned between Bach and Stravinsky is worth it’s salt. That discounts Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert (actually that I understand), Wagner, Rachmaninov… the list goes on. Its equivalent in cricket is the immortal adage: ‘Win the toss and bat’. Absolute tosh. We live in the ‘Modern’ era of the chase. But the music line was fed to me at the lunch interval by CPW Jonkers, so there’s no wonder its tosh. ACME have returned to the fold after a brief absence from our fixture card and the season is much the better for it. They, like us, have been around since 1975 and colourful veteran of the V&A, Martin Bowden, has been a talisman in their number for many years. They boast the first mother/daughter cricketing duo to grace the field at Stonor, […]
1st May 2022
‘Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric.’ On Liberty, John Stuart Mill, 1857 Is Neil Parish a loveable eccentric or an arse? When caught watching filth I have used three excuses: it was a) research b) an accident c) I was trying to access information about tractors. I have always found the last one ineffective with my missus. Joe Tetlow worked for five years with Parish. ‘A decent bloke’, apparently. Joe might need to adjust his CV. Watching hetero porn is always iffy, as it involves victimhood (the woman); whereas gay porn doesn’t and the spectator, being gay, is per se a minority (or ‘minoritised’) and thus to be respected. Anyway, that’s what I argue. A FEW GOOD MEN are very nice chaps led by the Corinthian Alistair Metcalf, a decent cricketer too. [Their name almost defines the team, apart from the ‘Good’ bit […]
30th April 2022
Match reports are tricky. The rules are to be complimentary of the opposition; the tea lady; Stonor CC; and to say whatever you like about your teammates. The outstanding player on the day is usually exempt from writing them, for fear they will do their triumph a disservice, either by underplaying or overstating their contribution. Lachlan rarely gets offered the job. It is best left to someone who is a) reliably going to write the match report, and b) is worth reading. Hearing impediment, blindness and memory loss are no barrier, as Nicky Bird can attest to. Ollie Marsh was meant to be writing this report, but he’s an accountant by trade, so it wouldn’t have been worth his time or ours (especially when we already have a scorebook). If it’s any consolation to Ollie, if not the expectant V&A, Jonkers still hasn’t filed his match report for […]
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 […]