Match Reports



Match Reports

2nd July 2018
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V&A v The Hermits

The parks of England are paved with sunburned bodies, Saddleworth Moor is on fire and sales of orange squash are rocketing as cricket matches require frequent drinks breaks. Yes, we’re in the middle of a heatwave – a meteorological phenomenon that has inspired pop lyricists down the ages. Martha and the Vandellas did it for me. The younger generation may be more familiar with a rap song by Wiley. Whatever your preference, the message is similar: sunshine is sexy; it loosens inhibitions. Poor Annette Jacot, who might reasonably have hoped for some female company on such a glorious day at Stonor, was immediately mobbed by chaps determined to solve her crossword clues for her, and then, at lunch, obliged to listen to a lot of smutty talk from Radio Bird. This blight on the airwaves, which resembles Radio 4 under the guest editorship of Peter Stringfellow, is famous, or rather […]
24th June 2018
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V&A v The Bandits

‘Cricket makes men of boys, sportsmen of dullards, gentlemen of ruffians, Englishmen of foreigners.’ History of Cricket, Ward Lock, 1898 ‘Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. Sport is war minus the shooting.’ The Sporting Spirit, George Orwell, 1945 Orwell was right about SERIOUS sport, but we are hardly serious. I prefer the first quote, though how playing cricket can make Johnny Foreigner an Englishman is a mystery. Our serious sporting moment in the Battersea Bandits game came right at the very end, a moment of high drama that tested our Corinthian pedigree. I am back on match reporting duties after a prolonged absence due to not playing and other people doing it better; and being incapacitated through drink, dicky knees or battlefield touring. Am just back from Normandy. A […]
18th June 2018
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V&A v Chelsea Arts Club

Whatever the origin of the phrase, “giving someone the bird” is, V&ACC did it to Chelsea Arts Club at the SCG this weekend. More precisely, we “gave them the Tom Bird”. Tom had earlier been seething that our opposition arrived as late, as sporadically and as understaffed as ever. Our skipper, Dennis de Caires was unimpressed too. In a 35-overs, win, lose or draw game, the V&A batted first and plundered 260 for five with only Nick P-G (2), Adam Knight (2) and Rupert Morris (3) failing. The first two are marked in the book as “LBW (CJ) Bld Munton”. Both were sound decisions by our most competent of umpires. Rupert believed he was bowled by a no-ball beamer that hit the base of his stumps. Fairing far better were de Caires (44 off 34 balls), Ashcroft (76 off 81), Nieboer (62* from 44) and the mighty Tom Bird (52* […]
13th June 2018
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V&A v Thebertons

The day began, as every day should, with an anecdote from the rich and varied life of Nicky Bird.  His wife had been taken ill and whisked into hospital accompanied by Nicky, the dutiful husband.  When the doctor came round he if he might be excused in order to take a snifter. Nicky is a resourceful fellow and, aware that the NHS does not stretch to a fully functioning bar had brought his own. He was just pouring himself a finger or two of whisky, when he was accosted by a member of staff.  Their exchange reads rather like something from Holby City would if they had co-opted P.G.Wodehouse as a script writer. “What are you drinking?” said the nurse. “Whisky, what does it look like,” answered Bird. “You can’t drink that in here, this is a hospital.” “Why ever not, it is the cocktail hour afterall?” “We have recovering alcoholics, it […]
6th June 2018
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V&A v The Townies & the Country Folk

The Town & County Folks’ super-star South African all-rounder Ryan Dyer instructed me to do something unprintable on this site. A polite version of his instruction was, “Roger us in the match report, so we can take the piss out of each other”. But how, how much and how far should I go? “All the way”, he said. This is hard to do because “Gorgeous” George Winters’ team are a joy to play cricket against. They expect to be undone by the V&A regulars partly because they play just once or twice a year, but they know they can beat us, as they did last year. They are a very social and sociable team. V&A vs. T&C matches have a formula. The V&A bat first, face up to 10 bowlers starting with Pete Bridge and Andy Deacon, then moving all the way through to Ben Phillis and Keith Poyser. While […]
27th May 2018
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V&A CC – Salisbury tour 2018

Cometh the hour, cometh the V&A. Never in the long history of the V&A’s small band of slightly mad yet ultimately purist players (of what I still insist is the real Great Game) has there been such a triumph of organised fun as there was this recent May Bank Holiday weekend on our 4-day, 2-game tour around the sublime Cranbourne Chase near Salisbury, Wiltshire. It was months in the planning, I believe. I do remember paying some money at some point, but ashamedly that was the extent of my involvement. The entire event was organised brilliantly by Ross and Megan Ashcroft, and our veteran slip-fielder and ever-louche poet-philosopher, Nicky Bird (away this week). It would be more than churlish of me not to thank these members here and now, from the bottom of our boots, for their time and devotion to this extremely well-oiled operation. It ran like clockwork – […]
19th May 2018
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V&A v The Times

The V&A’s cricket fixture against The Times was not the only big match being played on Saturday, 19 May.
15th May 2018
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V&A v The Authors XI

  The V&A Cricket Club is fortunate enough to have one or two Vice Presidents who are pleasingly quotable. The Rt Hon Sir John Major is one such individual. In April 1993; during a speech to The Conservative Group for Europe (sorry Ross), Major said: ‘Fifty years on from now, Britain will still be the country of long shadows on Cricket grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and (…) as George Orwell said, ‘Old maids bicycling to holy communion through the morning mist’ and, if we get our way, Shakespeare will still be read, even in school.’   Well, Saturday’s beer was cold, Shakespeare is still read in school (usually badly, though) and we are indeed a club of canine enthusiasts. What he left out was that we’d also still be the country where, in May, it is common to find 22 flanneled men hiding from a persistent […]
9th May 2018
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V&A v The All Sorts XI

  The world of cricket is rather light on sibling rivalries. There were the Waugh’s, of course, from a time when The Bogans played a form of cricket that didn’t vaguely resemble the histrionics of a soap-opera. It isn’t received wisdom that Cain and Abel fell out over a backyard cricketing squabble, but I think there’s a lot that The Old Testament isn’t telling us. Liam and Noel Gallagher are more into the sport where you fizz a pig’s bladder around with your foot. They fizz tambourines at one another too, so they must have decent arms. Wasted talent.   The Jacot de Boinots, by contrast, play it hard and fair. Adam, our skipper for the day against The All Sorts XI, refrained from any scurrilous remarks as his brother took the crease. He did say loudly that his brother ‘plays it upishly’ on the drive, though, so have some […]
25th April 2018
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V&A v GTs

T. S. Eliot’s opinion that ‘April is the cruellest month’ must, I have often thought, been written with cricketers in mind. Many a downpour has dampened the early season zeal of have-a-go heroes across the country. Actually, Eliot didn’t like cricket. Harold Pinter, on the other hand, did. “I tend to think that cricket is the greatest thing that God ever created on earth – certainly greater than sex, although sex isn’t too bad either.”; clearly, he had his priorities in order. The GTs are a funny old side, captained by one of the V&A’s own. No one could quite explain to me exactly what it stood for. Jago Poynter suggested that it might be ‘Gin & Tonics’, but that’s because he’s a ceramic artist who lives off the Fulham Road. It shall, I fear, remain a mystery. V&A skipper for the day, Rob Taylor, agreed to an uncontested toss […]