(by Antony Mann – 2008)
*
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“Part I –
Beginnings” I wasn’t there at the beginning, which by all accounts
took place on December 31st 1997 at Jude The Obscure, in those days a
Jericho pub run by Noel Reilly. Jude
The Obscure remains a Jericho pub, but the landlord is no longer Noel
who, some say, made the establishment too successful for his own good, and
consequently had his contract terminated by the brewery. Noel was an Irishman
who took delight in the arts, and during his tenure at The Jude, short films, plays, book launches
and musical events were the norm. The Catweazle Folk Club
made its home there for a short while before being kicked out because all the
heads wouldn’t buy beer, man. I still remember
sitting cross-legged on the floor watching cute barefoot canal boat chicks
with smudged cheeks and marijuana eyes telling stories about the moon from
the moon’s point of view.
Early days,
outside the pub. A blurred Noel Reilly front row second from left. It was this rarefied hothouse atmosphere, this Little
Bohemia, which saw the idea of a cricket team emerge on New Year’s Eve of
1997. Credit for the founding of the club must go to Eddie Lester, an old
friend of Noel from the latter’s days as landlord of The Beehive in Swindon. Noel at once backed the plan with hard
cash for the purchase of bats and pads and gloves, some of which still remain at the bottom of the original kit bag, an
archaeologist’s dream. And, unlike so many wishful ideas conceived of on a
boozy night when everything seems possible and the practicalities are yet to
be faced in the cold light of day, the team actually came
into being. From the start, Eddie was the driving force, optimistic and
determined, in harmony with the whimsical patronage of Noel. Where cricket
had not dwelt before, cricket now would. |
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“Part II –
1998” Records for the first season of Jude The Obscure CC are understandably sketchy and incomplete,
for who could have known then that now, records would be of any use at all?
Few were kept, and of those that were, many have now been sadly lost. Of those
that were kept and not lost, many are inaccurate, and of those that were
kept, not lost, and accurate, most make depressing reading. The word went out, and players were gathered from here
and there, i.e. the pub, or places people went to after the pub had closed.
It is known that the first captain of Jude
the Obscure CC was Eddie Lester, or possibly Fred Townsend. Of players
available for selection in 2008, only Antony Mann (4 games in 1998) and Matt
Bullock (5 games) remained from that first season. A document entitled Jude The Obscure Cricket Team 1999
Pre-Season Newsletter does exist, and refers
back to 1998 on several occasions. It seems likely that The Jude won no more than two of the eight games in their first
year: a 7-wicket victory against South
Oxford Social Club (a team which no longer exists) at Cutteslowe Lower
Ground (a venue which no longer exists) in which Simon Brandon scored 86 (a
then-record which no longer stands); and a comfortable win against The Beehive in Swindon (L. Davie 67, F. Townsend 5-24, S. Pollard
2-17). There were losses against Oxford
Nondescripts, The Team With No Name, The
Beehive at home, and Research
Machines, whoever they were. It was Simon Brandon who in 1998 topped the batting
averages with 42.00 from 5 matches. He also took 6 wickets at 17.67 and
justifiably won Player of the Year. Simon was a young sporty guy, always
welcome because he brought along his girlfriend. She was a hot chick who wore
mirror sunglasses, whom God had created specifically for sitting in the sun
watching cricket, and other things best left to your imagination. Where are
they now, those two, Simon and the sunglasses chick? Where? Eddie Lester’s highest score in 1998 was 33 not out. He
was a correct-looking batsman but had a weakness for playing across the line
which would plague him in later years. He bowled looping spin with a
slow-motion slingshot action, and looked a bit liked
Lasith Malinga running through jelly. In those
days, in fact always really, up until the year he left, Eddie was the heart
and soul of the team, a tall gangly specimen with a shock of tousled blonde
hair who exuded an almost otherwordly enthusiasm
and optimism. Sometimes that faith in human nature and the weather was borne
out, sometimes it wasn’t. But the sun was always
shining for Ed. The Jude’s
first skipper, Eddie Lester. Howard Jones was The
Jude’s first real quick bowler, and he took a wicket with his first
delivery for the team. He also batted with an aggressive, natural style which
sometimes saw him go early, but more often took him into the 50s and beyond,
though he never managed to score a century. His temperament meant that his
mind wasn’t always on the game, but Howard was a
founding member who had a massive impact on the side. He’s
someone who is missed to this day. In 1998, James Blann scored
46 runs at 6.57 and took 4 catches, but is best remembered
for the time meningeal fluid leaked out of his nose as he dived for a catch.
Meningeal fluid is the stuff which is in your head where your brain is. It’s white, like runny snot. I can’t
remember now why it leaked out of his nose, but I do remember we all stood
round watching and went, Oh, really? Is
that meningeal fluid? Well how
about that, huh? Naturally James shrugged it off
and kept on playing, like we all would have. Antony Mann joined the team late in the season after
Eddie turned up at a party in Walton Well Road, looking for players for the
next day’s game. Because he was an Aussie, everybody thought he would be a
shit hot ringer, and was just being modest when he said he was crap, but the
truth was he hadn’t played cricket since he was 12.
He was determined not to be crap forever, though, and went through the entire
season not out, earning the nickname ‘Blocker’. Which is me. Matt Bullock
joined around the same time Ant Mann did, and was destined to stay the
distance as well. The wry and phlegmatic Brummie became the team’s default
wicket keeper, then over the years the Chairman, chief statistician
and primary Voice of Reason, which is often useful among The Mad. Noel Reilly
(centre) is escorted by his nieces to another den of inequity. Other Jude
players that year included the affable Martin Hurley, a left-hander who
batted like he was in the middle of a game of hurling, which was kind of a
weird coincidence when you looked at his surname, but not so weird when you
remembered he was Irish; and Chris Legg, a rough diamond who managed The Jude itself. He knew how to hit a
ball and in those days was a batting mainstay. He also bowled fast, quite
often at your head. Then there were John Moore and Richard Blann, who with James Blann and
Simon Brandon made up the team’s quartet of young dudes. Sam Pollard, with
his thin, hunched frame and wiry dark hair, who ran the second-hand bookshop
on Walton Road when it first opened. Noel Reilly himself, habitually bent
over even when not at the crease, played two games. Other people. A guy
called Kevin. As for how it was
in 1998, I don’t remember much, apart from how it
felt. It seemed as though there was now a fabric to the summer, newly woven,
a fabric which hadn’t been there before, as yet stretchy and flimsy and
liable to blow about in the wind unless held down by a big rock, but a fabric
nonetheless. But the question remained. Would that – could that – fabric be
made into an item of clothing, a shirt, perhaps? Would that shirt be a
cricket shirt, by any chance? Was that metaphor really
necessary? |
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“Part III –
1999” The Jude The
Obscure Cricket Team 1999 Pre-Season Newsletter is necessarily full of
bad jokes, but also talks in some detail about a Committee Meeting held in
March of 1999 in which it was mooted that elections for committee positions
should conceivably be held, although, what’s the rush? The possibility of
running a Saturday League team along with the Sunday side, in the manner of a
proper cricket club, was also raised. This is an idea often mooted by Sunday
pub teams, usually about once every two or three years, but it is rarely
acted upon. The transition from casual to ‘proper’ team is fraught with
difficulties. League teams need to provide a ground, train up their own
umpires, have insurance, answer to pernickety and unreasonable local
committees, and worst of all, turn up for games. Sunday teams just need to be
able to drink a lot. In addition, even though every Sunday player harbours a
secret desire to test themselves against Saturday opposition, every Sunday
player also knows that league teams are overflowing with ridiculous prima
donnas who take themselves and the game much too seriously. Sometimes these
Saturday guys turn out for their Sunday teams. You can tell who they are by
the way they screech in pathetic indignation whenever a decision goes against
them. Even in those early times, members of The Jude’s ‘ghost’ committee were
fully aware of the need to maintain an authentic Sunday ethos and to preserve
the individual’s right, while playing sport, not to be a sportsman. It is
this philosophy of Sundayism which has underpinned
the development of Jude The Obscure CC
in all its incarnations, and helped to forge the spirit of the side, creating
a small bastion of competitive fun in a world of barbarism and malaria. The Jude of
1999 was comprised entirely of Sundayists, and
there was little to distinguish them from the intake of 1998, although of
course some faces were new, and other players had got so pissed off with the
message Eddie left on their phones after they failed to turn up for the
mid-week game against St Clare’s,
they left in a huff. Of Simon Brandon, there was no sign. Nor did his
girlfriend appear to be anywhere about, nor her sunglasses. Where had they
gone? This is a rhetorical question and doesn’t
require an answer. The small, tight group of young dudes – James and Richard Blann, James Moore and John
Moore – played only six games between them in the whole season and were never
heard from again (see above, phone call, pissed off etc). But much of the core of the 1998 side remained, notably
Howard Jones, Chris Legg, Eddie Lester, Antony Mann, Matt Bullock, Martin Hurley and Fred Townsend. Fred was a big Londoner with an
easy manner who had soon married local girl Tash and headed off to Swindon.
In the meantime, he played a couple of seasons for The Jude, his career cut short by an irreparable rift with Noel
Reilly which saw him banned from the pub and thus the team. Fred thought of
himself as something of a batsman, but never scored any runs, and in the
field was most often to be found at mid-off with his thumbs hoiking his cricket trousers up past his waist. There
were new recruits as well. Alongside Clare Norris and Mike Thorburn, 1999
also saw the debut of James Hoskins, and father-and-son combo Tony and Ben
Mander. Ben (left) and
Tony Mander (suit) join the ranks of Jude The Obscure. The Jude played thirteen games in
1999 under the continuing captaincy of Eddie Lester, winning four, drawing
two and losing seven. The good teams made up of experienced players, such as Isis and The Team With No Name, usually beat The Jude easily, whereas against the poorer sides such as
Weymouth’s The Quayside Occasionals, comprising local clowns and pissheads
dragged at short notice from the pub or gutter, The Jude had more of a chance. The Jude’s sole proper victory in 1999 came against The Marlborough at Cuttleslowe
Upper Ground, the first of many encounters between the two sides in the
seasons to follow. One thing Sunday teams need is someone to play against,
and the best kind of opposition is that which comes back year after year,
allowing rivalries and even friendships to develop. Sunday teams in the same
area often end up trading players as one team dissolves and another springs up to fill the void. The average lifespan
of a Sunday cricket team is 8.2 years, although of course some go on for much
longer than that. Any Sunday team which can’t make
it to 5 years just isn’t trying, though conversely, any Sunday side which
makes it past 25, or which boasts celebrities amongst its ranks, is showing
off. Despite a fine 102 out of 166-8 from Mike Reeves, The Marlborough went down by 4 wickets
thanks to a colourful 68 from Lee Davie, one of several important Davie
innings for The Jude over the
years. This was not the last The Jude
would see of Mikes Reeves, a left-handed batsman and bowler with an unusually
large head, though not elephantine or freak-show size by any stretch. As for
Davie, he was an aggressive batsman, fine fielder, handy left-arm bowler and sharp wicketkeeper. More importantly, he was
also a renowned local quiz night specialist. Some years later, sadly, he was
to suffer a horrific plastering injury that would see a Stanley knife all but
sever his head from his body at the neck. Or maybe that was just a bad cut on
the finger. Lee Davie
sporting his new winter wardrobe. Victory against Marcham,
reaching their total of 85 with 5 wickets to spare despite playing with only
nine men, was achieved primarily through Stanton
St John Willows ringer Simon Dickens in one of his only two ever
appearances for The Jude. Called up
at three minute’s notice to fill in for the bastards who promised they’d play
but didn’t show, Dickens took 6-23 opening the bowling on an uneven pitch and
then scored 13, hitting the winning runs back over the bowler’s head while
stand-in skipper Ant Mann remained as usual nought not out watching from the
other end. At that time Simon Dickens was manager of the Threshers on Walton Street, and in
1996 had sold me the booze for my wedding. Funny how, years later, well,
three years, we would together play such an important role in a victory for The Jude, well, funny how he did
anyway. Like most players, I usually overestimate the importance of my
contribution to any game. For instance, if I make a stop or two in the covers,
take 1-23 and make 2 with the bat coming in at number eight, I still fancy I
might be up for Man of the Match for my all-round brilliance and am surprised
when some half-century scoring clod gets the award instead. It’s also a well-known fact that from
a bowler’s point of view cricket is a batsman’s game, though no amount of
whingeing about it will make a batsman give a damn. Bowlers win matches, are
generally good-looking and intelligent, kind to animals, and the sort of
people you’d want to have with you in the trenches.
Batsmen on the other hand are usually overrated, are a bit thick and tend to
be distracted easily by bright shiny objects. Being a bowler myself, I know
what I’m talking about. The best batsman in the world can walk out to the crease
and get bowled first ball, but no-one will blame him, because he ‘got a good
one’. Hmm, bad luck, that was unplayable. Nothing you can do when you get a good
one like that. Sympathy rains down on the unfortunate batsman from all
sides, just because he got a decent delivery. Meanwhile, the bowler can send
down a torrent of fantastic stuff, the best he has ever bowled, but
continually miss the edge and the stumps by millimetres, or if he does catch
an edge, have it dropped in the slips (usually made up of batsmen). But
nobody remembers that. They look in the wickets column and all they see is
the big fat zero. Oddly, though, everybody would rather bat than bowl,
especially in Sunday cricket. Batting’s just more fun, and all you need is a
quick 25 to get Man of the Match, whereas a bowler needs at least five
wickets against top-class opposition, and even then
there’s no guarantee. The Jude might well have beaten The Team With No
Name at Horspath that season after scoring only 71 all out (Lee Davie
34), if not for a torrential downpour which ended the contest with the
visitors in tatters on 8-4. Howard Jones’ spell of bowling that day was the
most venomous that any Sundayist had witnessed.
Howard was an often sensitive soul, and Fred
Townsend at mid-on, his pants as usual hitched up to his chest, spent the
time between deliveries goading him and telling him that the opposition had
been insulting him. Consequently, Howard took 3-3 against a strong top order,
in doing so showing the kind of form which saw him deservedly win 1999’s
Player of the Year trophy. His overall bowling average of 18 wickets at 13.94
(best of 5-9) was second only to Simon Dicken’s 9 wickets at 9.44. Jones also
topped the batting averages with 242 runs at 26.89 and a top score of 53. 1999 saw The
Jude’s first Tour, to Weymouth, organized through Eddie Lester’s
connections with Nigel Sawyer, another old friend of Noel Reilly from the Beehive’s honeyed days.
Nigel has since come north to live in Oxford, so track him down and buy him a
lemonade. The tour was the usual mix of fruitlessly chatting up chicks,
successfully passing out on various floors, and playing cricket at Bridehead in Little Bredy in
the private grounds of local landowner Sir Richard Williams. Indeed, “stepping onto the field
of play, the Jude team might have imagined that Mother Nature herself had
reserved this moment for them to wonder at and savour, that the splendours of
an enchanted English summer were encapsulated in this one day. The whole vale
seemed to ring with the echoes of past summers, just as their being there
today would echo into the future; just as their voices echoed now from the
surrounding hillsides.” In other words, a
non-paying crowd of buzzards, sheep and cows saw The Jude win handily
against the Occasionals. Apart from all that bucolic farmer-boy stuff, the
highlight of the tour was the entire team spending three hours on a
pebble-strewn beach throwing rocks of various sizes at a plastic football
until, with the sun setting, the ball had at last been forced down the sand
and into the water. Jeez, it makes you wonder – because I really do remember
that afternoon being a lot of fun. The Jude on tour
in 1999. Eddie Lester is middle row second from right holding a bat. Chris
Legg front middle. Chris Legg’s top score for Jude The Obscure CC
in 1999 was 49. He was second in the averages with 162 runs at 20.25, and took 13 wickets at 19.31. Eddie Lester was
third in the batting averages with 152 runs at 19.00 and a top score of 32
not out. His best bowling figures were 3-11. This season, in only six of his
eleven innings did Ant Mann finish not out, with a high score of 31. Matt
Bullock played in all 13 games in 1999, scoring 67 runs at 7.44. In Martin
Hurley’s last full season for The Jude his top score was 20. Fred
Townsend managed 5 games, 12 runs and 1 wicket before he was banned from the
pub by Noel for that ‘incident’. I can’t even
remember now what it was all about. In fact, to be honest, nobody ever told
me. Bastards. Mike Thorburn registered a series of drunken
ducks before getting his act together and scoring 51 pissed runs at a
slaughtered 6.38. Mike liked a drink, especially when he was conscious, and
was also a useful half-tanked length bowler with a knack for taking wickets
while boozed up – 5 in 1999 at 14.80. Clare Norris stood out from the rest of
team because she was an Oxford Blue who could actually play
cricket. She was also a woman, and down the years the only woman who could
play cricket to play cricket for Jude or Mad. Her only problem
was getting the ball off the square, which meant that despite her correct
play, she wasn’t good for that many runs. In that
sense, and with the long hair and all, she was a bit like Jake Hotson in a
skirt. Not that I’ve ever seen Jake Hotson in a skirt,
and to be frank, it’s not high on my list of things to look at. Ben Mander played his cricket in a rough and
ready way, almost like a rugby player. He had the rugged good looks which
many cricketers aspire to when they first start playing, and the ability to
drink 26 beers on the night before any given game, then turn up having had no
sleep still drunk and yet even then a decent bloke, but he tended to hold his
bat rigidly at the crease, and when he did hit it, it was with no backswing
at all. His bowling was head-down spin, Windmill Variety No. 3,
unpredictable, and thus often potent. His father Tony, a noted gynaecologist,
was a steady batsman who always played his best when asked to fill in for the
opposition. Then, playing against his own team, he was transformed
from a calm blocker into a violent stroke-maker and sledger. After hanging about on the Cuttleslowe
boundary watching The Jude play for most of an afternoon, James
Hoskins was finally invited onto the field and as it transpired, into the
team. In his 10 games in 1999 he scored 15 runs at 2.14 and took 3 wickets at
26.00. The friendly James – or J-Mo – soon became one of The Jude’s
core players. Competitive, naturally open and
friendly, almost at times as optimistic as Eddie Lester, James was the player
most likely to approach the complete stranger sitting on the pier and ask him
what type of fish he was trying to catch. As with many Jude players,
he started out knowing not much about cricket, but over the years developed
the skills which made him a dangerous bowler and a key part of the attack.
Possessed of an admirable resilience, James has had to deal at various times
with a horrendous dancing injury, the strange spontaneous combustion of his
car, a bunch of weirdos living in his house, some burst pipes in his
bathroom, and being continually reminded of his misfortunes by sentences such
as this, but every time, he has come up smiling. If there was a Club Reunion for the 1999 Jude
side, then would Jess Ball turn up? Would American Mike O’Leary make an
appearance, still batting like it was baseball and unable to straighten his
arm to bowl thanks to years of pitching? Would anyone recognise Phil Holt or
Gus da Cenha or Robert Phillips? Would that
sunglasses chick be there, even though she didn’t
play and was only ever around in 1998? Can someone stop me asking all these
questions? |
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“Part IV – 2000” By all accounts the Year 2000 was the turn of the
millennium, and a momentous time to be alive. There was suddenly a big ‘2’
where a tiny ‘1’ had used to be. Except for the ones who committed mass
suicide, millennium cultists everywhere were disappointed that the world hadn’t been destroyed in an inferno, though secretly
relieved that they were still alive and could now find something else whacky
to believe in. There were parties, there were fireworks, there was an
expectation of things to come. Then, after the Y2K Bug turned out to be a
global con organized by IT consultants, everyone became bitter and
disillusioned and began to hate life just as much as they had before. All the
hope in everyone’s hearts faded, just because of those IT guys, who would
never again earn a hundred quid per hour for sitting round doing nothing, but
what did that matter when most of them could now afford to retire? Anyhow,
Y2K was a big let-down and nobody gave a damn about
it in the final wash-up. The world wouldn’t be properly
changing until the 11th of September the following year. Chris Legg, manager of The Jude, played only one game for the team in 2000 before
marrying his girlfriend and moving up north to manage a sports store. Of
course, we were sad to see Chris go. Because it meant that his nurse fiancée
was going too. We all wanted that nurse, we wanted her bad, there was
something about her, something hot, something nursy.
We wished we knew what she looked like in uniform, we wondered if she ever
wore it off duty. We wanted to get injured or beaten up, go to A&E, see
if she was there. But Chris got her, and we could never figure that out. Was
he sick? Did he need looking after? Was that it? Martin Hurley was only
around for a single game too. He went off to work in Germany before moving
back to Ireland. Howard Jones, Mike Thorburn, Eddie Lester, James
Hoskins, Matt Bullock, Clare Norris, Antony Mann – the spine of the team
remained constant, but there were new players as well, some who would hang
around, others who made but fleeting appearances. Tony Mander and his son Ben
played almost 30 games between them in 2000, and young quick Greg Le Tocq from Jericho, who was not as quick as he thought he
was, played 12 in his only season for the team. Future captain Leo Phillips –
concert violinist, conductor, and son of the painter Tom Phillips – made his
debut, as did Adrian Fisher, whose own side, The Team With No Name, had lately become
The Name With No Team. Local baker Ade Fisher (in blue, second from left) on a break
from his pie making. Jake Hotson’s first game for The Jude was against Stokenchurch
at the Cowley Marsh minefield-cum-rabbit warren, in the preliminary round of
the Bernard Tollett Cup. Ant Mann was skipper that
evening, and as usual had been scrabbling around
for days trying to get an XI together. In desperation he rang his friend
Simon Image, who had never played cricket before in his life. To punish Mann
for interrupting his drinking session, he put him onto Jake. A portent of
things to come, Jake turned up late, wearing black jeans and Doc Martins, and
spent the whole game staring at the sky trying to find Mandelbrot Sets in the
clouds. Fractal, man, fractal. “Hmm,” said Stokenchurch on the way to their
120-run victory, “We had no idea. We could have put out our second team. Or
the thirds. Or fourths.” Now, eight years on, Jake has cemented his place in
the team’s history, developing into a useful batsman, skippering on several
notable occasions, and taking on the role of the gavel-wielding Judge at team
fines sessions. Not how it
started for Jake. Winning the quiz down at The Jude one night, local melancholic and poet Andrew Morley
joined the team as his prize, and went on to play 8 games that season, in a
melancholic and poetic way. 2000 saw Lorcan Kennan’s only 5 games for the
team, with 4 from Paul Drake, 3 from Nick Watney, and 6 from Paul Grant, who
was Ed’s neighbour in Bladon, and who copped my knee in his head one game
while we were both going for the same catch. At least I caught it, though. I
still remember the batsman – Mick Harrow from Nomads, who top-edged it to fine leg. Eight years after that
catch, just last weekend in fact, down at their ground in Duntiston
Abbots, I was having a chat with Mick while I umpired at square leg. Eight
years. There are people who die trying to take catches. They
run into a team mate at twenty miles per hour, who
is also running. That’s forty miles per hour of
impact. It can get nasty. On this occasion Paul didn’t
die, though he didn’t last long in the team. He met a girl who didn’t think cricket was much fun, for her, anyway. And
whilst it is true that all wives and girlfriends, without exception, don’t
think cricket is fun, and really do not understand why their better halves
have such a passion for such a ridiculous game, there are some who tolerate
the strange obsession, and some who don’t. Paul’s girlfriend didn’t, though maybe as well Paul wasn’t as obsessed as we
thought he ought to be. Andrew Morley (centre) doing what he does best. Richard Hadfield played twice for The Jude in 2000, I don’t remember now
the connection which brought him into the side. He scored 72 against OUP at Jordan Hill on debut, a record
which stands to this day. He was the co-author of a novelty book which was
big that year, The Cheeky Guide to Oxford. Richard went
off to have children, but a tiny flame lingered in his heart, never
extinguished, ever burning, a desire gnawing away at him, and six years
later, in 2006, he came back to the side, walked out to bat, and scored a
duck. All in all, 30 players turned out for side that year,
many for only one game, but it didn’t make any difference who played – season
2000 was one of several Jude nadirs
which had begun with the team’s foundation in 1998. All teams have their
peaks and troughs, but The Jude
were no idiots. They had the foresight to get all their troughs out of the
way in one go. 2000 was particularly troughy. Of 17
games, The Jude won only 4, and
once again, these victories were mainly against weaker, scratch teams drawn
from irregulars. Once again the friendly natives of
Weymouth were awoken from their pastoral idyll, stirred from their haystack
slumbers or called in from pleasant afternoons pipe-smoking and a-fishing on
The Wey. The Jude beat them twice,
easily. There was another win, too, against The Old Tom, but that hardly counted either. There were many low points. All out 65 against The Baldons. All out 45 against The Marlborough (a recovery from
14-5). All out 50 in the game against Stokenchurch,
during which five wickets fell with the score on 19..
All out 34 against The Isis, after
being 11-6. And then – the usual insult – they brought their rubbish bowlers
on, the guys who only ever got a bowl when the game was so far won that it didn’t matter. But The Jude were so
crap, that’s all they deserved, the guys could only bowl full tosses and
half-trackers at six miles an hour. The guys who sometimes hit the pitch
between the wides. Every team has them, or if they don’t,
then they should. They’re an important part of
Sunday cricket. They make it what it is, a game for everyone, and everyone
for a game. No caption
required. There were half decent performances against Lions Club and OUP – the latter of which was to become an annual fixture – but
the only ‘proper’ win of the season came against The Beehive. This was only the second Jude game played at Pembroke College Sports Ground, down
Whitehouse Lane, past the pikey van and loitering motorbike thieves, then
over the railway footbridge. By now The
Jude had a committee, with Matt Bullock as the no-nonsense Chairman,
Eddie Lester the earnest, idealistic, Captain and Secretary, and Ant Mann as
the honest but lackadaisical Treasurer, for whom the phrase ‘close enough is
good enough’ had been invented, especially as it related to accounts. The
previous year, playing Isis at
Queen’s College, we had envied the greenness of their ground and the
clubhouse and bar. We had wondered how to get one of our own, a better one,
with even more grass, taller trees, faster flowing perimeter streams, and
better-looking college girls playing on the adjoining tennis courts. As
chance would have it, Pembroke and their groundsman Kev were up for grabs.
Voila! Kev, Pembroke, The Jude, it was a three-way marriage made
in heaven, and completely legal. In retrospect, it was important to find a permanent
home. The Jude was not a village
team, so didn’t have a green to play on, and the
Oxford council grounds were already in the process of being neglected and
decommissioned. Cuttleslowe Upper and Lower soon
became just Cuttleslowe Upper, the Cowley Marsh was
always a dump, and the Horspath
nets were just a memory. On top of which, it was a rare treat when a
groundsman actually turned up to open the change
rooms. Hey, not that cricket’s very big in England, so it was no wonder
really that the local council should have zero interest in fostering the
game. The Beehive
fixture was a turning point of sorts. In these days The Jude were easy-beats, and it was
always an embarrassment to lose against them. Sure, they could take the odd
game here and there if Lee Davie turned up and played well, or if someone
incited Howard Jones to bowl like a man possessed, but this was the first time
they had won a true contest on their own merits, and a sign of the gradual
improvement to come. Set up nicely by a 73 from none other than Jones, The Jude defended 163-5 against a
strong Beehive side riddled with
Antipodeans and desperate to win, or rather, not to lose. But from 127-2, the
’Hive collapsed in the pouring rain
to all out 149 with 2 balls to spare, and for a change it was entirely due to
The Jude’s bowling and catching. In
fact, this was the year in which The
Jude’s began to have a bowling
attack, although the batting remained wretched for some time to come. Pembroke, our
Theatre of Dreams. Antony Mann was Player of the Year in 2000. Thought he
bowled stiffly like some kind of automaton, like he was on a cliff edge and
afraid to look down, his left-arm in-swingers had suddenly started to work,
and he took 21 wickets at 12.90, with a best of 4-7 against The Old Tom. He also scored 155 runs
at 14.10 with a top of 39. Greg Le Tocq bagged 18
wickets at 13.39, and Ed Lester 17 with his looping spin. Howard Jones played
only 7 games, but topped the batting averages with
221 runs at 44.30. He hit the team’s highest individual score (that 73
against The Beehive at Pembroke) and also took 10 wickets, including a best of 5-9. At his
best, he was good, moving the ball both ways at speed and hard to play. James Hoskins had settled in nicely with his slow
right-armers, taking 10 wickets in 7 matches at 19.00. Mike Thorburn once
again went through the year in an alcoholic haze, slurring and stumbling his
way to 115 runs at 16.43 and 9 wickets at 22.77. Though handicapped somewhat
by his love of the amber nectar, Mike was a sound length bowler who just
about always broke partnerships – he very rarely went a game without bagging
a scalp. In 2000 Andrew Morley took a wicket and had an economy rate of 4.57
runs per over. Ben Mander took 4 wickets, but also bashed 64 runs at 4.92.
Matt Bullock scored 65 runs at 4.65, but made a
remarkable 14 catches and 8 stumpings behind the wicket. Clare Norris scored
18 runs in her 10 games, she was still finding it hard to get the ball off
the square, while Jake Hotson scored 24 in 9 at an average of 3.43, ditto:
ball, hard to get off square. Leo Phillips actually looked like a batsman,
which confused everybody for a while, especially his own team
mates. He played in 8 games, making 177 runs at 19.50. In his first
year, Tony Mander was 4th in the batting averages, very hard to
dismiss, scoring at 19.33. Come to think of it, I remember it well, this year. I
remember Noel Reilly playing against The
Beehive at Swindon, being stretchered off after scoring 3 because 66
yards was all he could manage on his two spindly legs. I remember the
European Cup on the telly in the pubs, England bowing out on penalties as
usual. The way The Rose & Crown
brought a Cambridge Blue to play for them, and how it felt watching a proper
cricketer, how it felt bowling to him, trying not to get tonked
all over the ground. How pissed off we were because they’d
brought the guy in the first place. Trying to keep out Haider, the
Stokenchurch first team quick, on Cowley Marsh. Watching everyone else trying
to keep him out, one after the other, as those five wickets fell with the
score on 19. The new millennium, the idea hanging in the air, a new start for
everyone, another thousand years just begun, and anything was possible. The Jude’s first year at Pembroke. |
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“Part V –
2001” Anything was possible, but certain things weren’t very likely. The
Jude winning a game of cricket being one of them. Having said that for the
sake of taking a cheap shot, it’s fair to say that
2001 was much better for the team than the previous year. There was only one
pathetic collapse to rival the usual debacles, when The Jude showed up to play with just 9 against The Nomads at Liddington. They batted
like rubbish to be all out 42. There were only 13 games in 2001. There was no
tour. The Jude lost 9 and won 4,
but except for the game against The
Marsh Harrier, where Adie Fisher captained a bunch of drunkards in Doc
Martins to a heavy defeat, the wins were good ones, and many of the losses
could have gone either way. Featuring in that Nomads
game, the first of the season, were two players who had never
before worn the Jude colours
(white with a white trim, white shoes, generally white). Steve Dobner was an
Essex boy, a friend of James Hoskins who had never really played much
cricket, but who was possessed of that strange kind of natural athleticism
which made it look like he had. Pretty soon he was among the runs and
wickets. In many ways, he was an archetypal bowler. A genial and friendly guy
in the normal course, as soon as he grabbed the ball, something began to
bubble under, be it frustration at not hitting the length, or a desire to
kill the batsman at the other end. Thornton Smith was a different kettle of
monkeys – well-read, laid back, with a sharp mind and an eye for the non sequitur. As a cricketer, he was
more of a golfer, but supremely effective in his crosswise batting style,
which always brought quick runs if he could stay at the crease. Thornton Smith holding a trusty squirrel basher. 2001 saw the departure of Clare Norris, who married
boyfriend Julian and prioritized herself into moving to Australia with a
growing family. Mike Thorburn played only one game for The Jude in 2001 before shaving his head for charity and moving
up to Manchester with his girlfriend. Publicans all over Oxford mourned his
leaving as beer profits across the county plummeted, while the local
Sarcastic Comment Quota dipped noticeably as well. As for Greg Le Tocq, he left Oxford quickly to study at Nottingham, though
not as quickly as he thought he did. Otherwise, things had a settled feel to them, with
Howard Jones, Adie Fisher, Ant Mann, Matt Bullock, the Manders
(including cousin James), Jamo
Hoskins and Jake Hotson still making up the core of the side. Paul Drake was
another of the Mander clan, by marriage, who played sporadically. Ed Lester
was still around, but relinquished the captaincy in
favour of Leo Phillips. Leo was a good skipper and a decent bat, but problems
with gout among other things meant that he was around for only 7 out of the
13 games, and it was to be his last year for The Jude before he sold up and moved to the Far East, settling
eventually in Thailand. After the pathetic loss to the Nomads, The Jude
regrouped in time to lose against Marlborough
House at Corpus Christi. This was the Golden Age of the long-running
rivalry with the Marlborough boys
which went on for at least three or four years. In this Age of Goldenness,
the teams were evenly matched, and there was niggle, even sledging, and sometimes
camaraderie and mutual respect. The return match at the Warneford Hospital
ground was Lee Davie’s game, and his half century from a mere 21 deliveries
is a Jude record unlikely to be
beaten any time soon. With Howard Jones contributing a characteristically
aerial 63, The Jude easily defended
213-4, still their fifth highest score of all time. The first game of 2001 played at Pembroke was against a
new opponent, the Bodleian Library,
and The Jude chalked up another
win, by 12 runs, with Adie Fisher scoring 41 and taking 4-18 with his
deceptive two-paced multi-trajectory pie. The next game saw yet more
newcomers at Pembroke, but things didn’t turn out
quite so well. Queen’s College old boys Lemmings
were entertained by a pitiful 6 Judesters, with an embarrassed Mann skippering the motley
crew. It might even have been 7, but James Mander decided to get a haircut
instead of fronting up as promised. Thanks for letting us know, James. Hope
the cut worked out well for you. Neater and tidier, was it? But the Lemmings weren’t
dicks about it at all, and even lent The
Jude John Greany. His 70 wasn’t enough to stave
off defeat, but the Lemmings were
too nice to feel sorry for us, which can’t be said about all those other
bastard teams who kicked us when we were down. Maybe Ben
Mander should have gone for that haircut instead. The 13-run loss against the South Oxford Social Club at Horspath was notable for two things:
Lee Davie reaching 97 not out after being dropped five times – all of them
straight forward chances – and Steve Dobner, playing for South Oxford, diving
full-length into the dust on the last ball of the game to cut off the
boundary which would have given Lee The
Jude’s first ever century. Well done to Steve, who filled in for South
Oxford at the last minute and was rewarded with batting last and not facing a
ball, not getting a bowl, and fielding in the deep all day. Showing the kind
of dedication which would endear him to everyone except girlfriend Kim, Steve
had driven all the way from Stevenage to Oxford only to end up as twelfth
man, so had leapt at the chance to play some cricket. But subbing for the
opposition is always a lottery. On the one hand, the skipper is glad that he
has an extra player to make up the numbers, but on the other, he doesn’t have a clue who you are and if you can play. And
when he asks you if you bat or bowl, you’re most
likely to say something like, Yeah, a
bit of both, but I’m not very good. At which point you disappear from his
game plan completely and end up at fine leg for the duration. The season’s decider against The Marlborough was at Pembroke. It started with niggle, followed
by mutual respect, after which came bewilderment as people began to realize
that Jake Hotson had turned up to the game with somebody else’s arm, and was
using it to bowl. 5-28 was the return, with 4 clean bowled, as a useful Marlborough batting line-up fell for a
lowly 120. During this game, the redoubtable Dan Edwards fell lbw to Ant Mann
for 5, though no doubt this decision was a complete injustice as Edwards had
put in a big stride and the ball was most likely either hitting outside the
line or sliding down leg. In those days, Edwards was a true journeyman, often
trawling round the grounds of a Sunday with his kit bag over his shoulder,
his cries of ‘Anyone need a player?’ echoing across the fields. With his
broad-rimmed head sitting under his broad-rimmed
hat, Edwards was a diligent foe hard to dislodge, a lover of banter, the
forward defensive and the back cut. But this was Hotson’s hour, and during the innings
break, he held the ball aloft in the style of Glenn McGrath, and there was
much premature gloating as a team photo was taken. Some say it made The Marlborough angry, others that The Jude batted like crap. Whatever
the case, a hard-fought 88-3 soon turned to a parlous 98-8, and Ed Lester was
last man out, run out for 24 with the score on 106, 14 runs short of victory. Jake when he could bowl, holding the ball aloft. Eddie Lester
with Ruth on the left. Adie Fisher padded up. Tony and Ben Mander front row right. The last game of the year was The Jude’s finest, a 36-run win against the strong Nomads at picturesque Cuttleslowe, the best of the council grounds. The damage
was done by Ant Mann’s career high 58, and Howard Jones, who made a
characteristically aerial 57. It was a note of triumph on which to end the
season, though there was scant triumphalism. The Jude were still Sundayists at
heart, mostly pissed on the sidelines and reading
the newspaper. Occasionally a player would look up from his warm beer and
sleazy tabloid to realize that a wicket had fallen
and it was time to saunter out to flay the bowling for a handy 6 or 9, but
mostly, not. Despite playing in only five games – or perhaps because
of it – Lee Davie was Player of the Year in 2001. He averaged 77 with the bat, and took 8 wickets at 12.50. Howard Jones had another
good season, recording The Jude’s
highest run aggregate of 298 at 37.25, and taking 10 wickets. Adrian Fisher
made an impact in his first full year with the team, with 161 runs at 23.14,
and a selection of fine pastries and sausage rolls for a return of 9 wickets
at a niggardly 11.67. As for Jake Hotson, the proof that he could once
actually bowl before the yips began to eat away at his scattered psyche lies
in his bowling figures. He sent down 19 overs for 7 wickets, at an average of
10.85, with an economy rate of 4.00. That was second only to Ant Mann, who
took 17 wickets at 9.88, conceding just 2.60 runs per over. Ant Mann – the
personification of smug. Leo Phillips’ top score as skipper was 44 not out,
while keeper Matt Bullock scored 99 runs with a high of 28. Tony Mander’s highest score was 34. James Hoskins took 4
wickets and scored 40 runs at 8.00. Thornton Smith’s first 6 games for The Jude saw him score 16 runs at 5.33
and take 3 wickets with his skiddy medium pacers. It couldn’t be said that The Jude were resurgent in 2001,
because they had never been surgent in the first place. But they were hanging
in there as an entity, more or less, and that flimsy fabric which had been
blowing about a few years back was still fluttering gamely in the breeze,
though there was perhaps the need for a few more heavy rocks to weigh it down
and stop a strong gust picking up the whole fucker and blowing it to pieces. |
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“Part VI –
2002” With Leo Phillips fleeing the country at the start of
the season, an unhappy Matt Bullock took over the captaincy of the side. Not
that Matt was a poor choice, he was just the least reluctant of the various
candidates who hid under the table when the question was raised. Too slow in sliding
out of his chair and disappearing from sight, Matt
was left to clasp disconsolately what for another year at least would be the
poisoned chalice. Among other things, the new captain oversaw a new name
for the team, as Jude the Obscure
became Far From The Madding Crowd CC.
Landlord of The Jude Noel Reilly,
the team’s patron, mentor and guru when he wasn’t busy falling down pissed as
a newt, had lost his job, and the team had moved their base to Noel’s new
concern in Friar’s Entry, another pub by Thomas Hardy. Smack bang in the
middle of town, it was actually pretty close to the
madding crowd, but the madding crowd didn’t seem to know much about it,
because it was most times empty. In 2002, apart from losing Leo Phillips to the Far
East, Adie Fisher was absent due to family reasons. Howard Jones all but
retired, while Lee Davie played 2 games and vanished, though not literally.
He was still around, just not within sight. Leo was strictly a batsman, but
the other three were all of them useful all-rounders, and the void was hard
to fill, even more so as no new players appeared to fill it. This explains
why, out of a potential 121 places (11 games) during the season, only 108
were taken. The Mad were often
short, and often beaten. Many of the regulars remained. Ben and Tony Mander, Ed
Lester, James Hoskins, Matt Bullock, Antony Mann and
Jake Hotson were there for just about every game, as were Thornton Smith and
Steve Dobner. Steve Dobner (right) gets a massage off his ‘gal shortly before
his next 12 rounder. In 2002 The Mad
lost 9 of those 11 games, and it’s no accident that one of their two
victories, a convincing win against The
Marlborough at Boar’s Hill early in the season, was by a side which
featured the soon-to-be-missed Jones, Davie and Fisher. They scored 99 runs
between them, and took 5 wickets – and yet, were somewhat overshadowed in the
eyes of some by the heroics of James Hoskins, who belted his highest ever
score of 35 in a partnership of 111 with Davie, for a long time a Mad record for all wickets, and still
a record for the 4th. Losses to The
Bodleian and Nomads were
followed by a humiliating thrashing against Lemmings, a game during which Dylan Jones made his debut. Jamo’s lodger, Dylan was a Welsh rabbit with the bat, but
could bowl handily at times and often took wickets. Jones must have been less
than thrilled to be playing his first game for The Mad as the Queens’ College boys racked up a savage 276 from
just 35 overs and won the game by 196. Another mauling, again from The Bodleian, preceded a brutal
pasting by the OUP. Thank God,
then, for The Marsh Harrier, who
were even worse than The Mad even
when The Mad were worse than
everyone else. They turned up at Pembroke to match The Mad’s own depleted side in numbers
at least, but The Mad were
victorious as The Marsh dried up in
the sun. A win is a win, I guess, but sometimes it’s more like just standing
in the heat of the afternoon waiting to go to the pub. Adie Fisher was The Marsh captain that day, and he
suffered from Saturday night’s promises, broken on the Sunday as all the
pissed guys who had said they would play decided they couldn’t be bothered
and left him hanging out to dry. Adie: You’ll definitely be
there tomorrow, won’t you? Because
if you won’t, then tell me now, because I need to
know for sure, otherwise we won’t have a full team. Pissed Guy Lying On
Floor In Pool Of Own Urine: Oh yeah,
man, yeah, I won’t let you down.
The following game, a typical grudge match again The Marlborough at Pembroke, summed up
The Mad’s
deplorable season. Bowling first and skittling The Marlborough for 77 (Dylan Jones 4-17) made The Mad feel good for roughly half an
hour. There followed a lengthy period of feeling bad, as The Mad tumbled to all out 51. A violent 33 from Thornton Smith
was not enough to get The Mad home.
No surprise really, when the side’s second highest
score was Ben Mander’s 4. There were four 0s, and
four 1s, and a useful 3 from Steve Dobner. The 2002 tour was largely a washout, as the team drove
into drizzly Cornwall and registered a loss against a Callington side which didn’t really want
to be there. The Mad went ten-pin
bowling, went to the Eden Project, then went home. Best of the batsmen who played regularly in 2002 were
Thornton Smith and Ben Mander, but their averages of 14.00 and 13.50 respectively
tells the story in itself. Nobody except Lee Davie
scored over 50 during the entire season, with Matt Bullock’s 39 the next
highest mark. Ben Mander had the top aggregate – 108. In a bad year for just about everything, Ant Mann was
Player of Season again for his 9 outfield catches and 14 wickets at 10.57.
Ben Mander took 9 wickets at 21.33, Steve Dobner 8 at 23.63. James Hoskins
bagged 7, with Ed Lester and Jake Hotson both taking 5. Thornton Smith took 4
at 14.50, and five catches. Poring over a
poor 2002 – a deflated MAD. 2002 had seen a new name for The Mad, and a new skipper, but whatever hopes of success had
been cherished at the start of the year had quickly evaporated into a losing
mentality as the team realized they were no longer good enough to compete
against even the mediocre teams they were facing. They had brought the idea
of a nadir to a new low, and there wasn’t much room
left for going down. They had scraped the bottom of the barrel, taken the
bottom off, climbed down under the barrel, and were now digging into the
ground. Traditional foes were getting sick of The Mad and the easy victory they always provided. Even The Marlborough, themselves in decline
as their home pub began to ooze and flake with that decrepit, post-nuclear
holocaust style of décor so enjoyed by hard drinkers and blind people – even The Marlborough were secretly treating
The Mad with disdain and scoffing
at their plight in an excess of gloating and schadenfreude which The Mad
themselves could only dream about being in a position to do. If the team couldn’t find new players, and fast, then there was a very
real danger it would fold, in an utterly tragic and dramatic way. |
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“Part VII –
2003” They say that it’s always
darkest before the dawn, and while that is obviously a load of rubbish – it’s
usually darkest at about three in the morning – in this case, they were
right. New players were needed, and new players were found. 2003 marks the
first year of a modern Mad, with
aspirations beyond scoring a single then getting out, and the new blood that
flowed into the side back then remains to this day. The Mad didn’t
lose any regular players in 2003, but they did gain six. Thornton Smith,
Antony Mann, Ben and Tony Mander, Steve Dobner, Jake Hotson, James Hoskins,
Matt Bullock, Dylan Jones and Ed Lester were all
still playing. Joining the ranks were Ian Howarth, Martin Westmoreland,
brothers Nick and Steve Hebbes, John Harris, and Graham Bridges. Nobody yet
knew it, but a gradual process of change had begun. The smiling ‘aw shucks’
losers of the last few years, apologetic and polite, would in time give way
to a harder, more competitive Mad,
which on occasion would push against the confines of Sundayism
and wish for more. John Harris holds the record for best bowling figures, though it
was against The Marlborough. A clash of cultures was inevitable, as the die-hard Sundayists, entrenched in what they saw as ‘their team’,
muttered to no-one in particular about ‘a fair go for everyone’, while some
of the newer players began to speak of ‘putting out the best side, especially
in important games.’ This is a common dilemma which underlines just how
difficult decision-making in Sunday cricket can be – far tougher than league
or grade, or even first class or Test cricket. In Test cricket, while there
may be arguments as to who the best players are, the aim is always to select
the best, whereas in Sunday cricket, there are other, more subtle
considerations. Such as, when and how often should
the crap players get a game? Should the crap players be selected when it is
their turn, or should they only be allowed to play against crap opposition?
Should players new to the team get the same number of games as more
established players, or should they be regarded with utter disdain and left
waiting months or sometimes years before they are allowed into the starting
XI? Does a solid team player who serves on the committee/writes reports/comes
to nets/does the umpiring and scoring/generally gets stuck in get rewarded
with more fixtures than the slacker who couldn’t give a toss and just pitches
up half pissed expecting to open the batting and bowling while keeping wicket
at the same time? Being on the committee myself, I think the answer is pretty clear. Certainly it’s true
to say that if everyone worked as hard for the side as everyone else, then
there’d be no opportunity for the control freaks to be in charge. Things were further complicated for The Mad, though, because the idea of a
best team was an alien concept – previously, there never had been a best team to put out. Often, there never had been a team. In truth it took a while for
everyone to get to know one another, and to realize that they were all just
as neurotic and insecure about their place in the scheme of things as
everyone else. Some people just showed it more. Whatever faint nostalgia there may remain for the days
of that quirky bohemian loserdom which so often
characterized The Jude, there is
little doubt that the side would not have survived more than another season
of it. 2003 saw the start of better days, though sometimes they still seemed
a long way off. Chairman Matt
Bullock (right) grew weary of soulless beatings and resigned as skipper after
2002. In contrast to the usual method of electing the
committee – through consensual non-election of whoever was willing to take
the job – the 2002 AGM saw a real and actual contest for the position of team
captain. Chairman Matt Bullock hung up his coin in utter relief and vowed
never to captain any sporting side anywhere ever in the world again, and in a
controversial move, James Hoskins went head to head with Ed Lester for the
post. In a vote for the future, Barrack Obama style, Hoskins won the ballot
and became The Mad’s
fourth official skipper. Lester, Phillips and
Bullock had all served before him. How would Hoskins’s tenure work out? Things started well for the new skipper, with a good
win against a decent Bodleian side
at Jesus College. It was an unusual looking Mad scorecard that day – Martin Westmoreland 38, Nick Hebbes 28,
John Harris 21. Steve Hebbes took 2-8, while Steve Dobner, growing into his
role as an all-rounder who would often vow to never bowl for The Mad again, picked up 3-8 and
scored 17 not out as The Bodleian
crumbled to all out 55. Westmoreland, a friendly northerner who had left the
rugby league, mills and coal mines of his youth for a better life down south,
was like many batsmen at this level in that he had just the one scoring shot
– in his case, a lofted smash towards cow. The off-side has always been for
wimps and arty types, and Martin – soon to be dubbed ‘Moo’ – knew that better
than most. His bowling, though sometimes wayward, swung late, sliding away
from the right-hander, and bagged him a fair share of the wickets. Nick
Hebbes was also a right-hander, a solid opener whose only real weakness was
playing across the line to the straight one. Nick, though, was often called
on to steady a sinking ship. He also bowled effectively into the corridor
with a loping run-up, his left elbow appearing to flap in the breeze. His
brother Steve, shorter yet with generally the same shaped head, was a
deceptively clever right-arm spin bowler and at time useful batsman in a
pinch. Hebbes Jnr brought a kind of quirky good-naturedness to the side, and
it was shame that he played only the two seasons. John Harris batted with an
understated elegance which looked often as though it might have brought him
more runs. He bowled slow and often confusing spin and took great catches in
the outfield. The Mad lost to The Marlborough at Cowley Marshes, all out 82 on the mole colony
which passed for the cricket pitch there. Watching Dan Edwards bowl for The Marlborough that day reminded me
of the kaleidoscope I got for Christmas when I was eight. The hypnotic
spinning, the distracting patterns, it was all there in Edwards’ gyrating
arms. Whereas many bowlers attempt to hide the ball as they run in simply by
concealing it, Edwards was more overt in his deception, opting instead to
hide it in the flurry of his whirlpool action, producing it always at the
unexpected moment, like a conjuror taking a coin from behind your ear. Genius
or madman, it was his 4-19 that made the difference, cunningly exploiting the
rutted wicket clearly prepared by the groundsman with some kind of giant
gouging tool, then stampeded by a herd of wildebeest before being scarified
with a harvester. The depth of Oxford Council’s indifference to cricket in
general could be seen by their attitude to the footballers who used the
Cowley Marsh pitch as a playing field during the summer months. Frankly, they
didn’t give a toss, and as soon as they could be
bothered to realize that there was a problem, they solved it in the way
councils usually do, by ignoring it and letting things slide. Eventually the
unplayable pitch was finally decommissioned and given over to studs. Cowley Marshes as we’ll always remember
them. The game against South
Oxford Social Club, also at Cowley,
saw yet another Mad debut.
Cornishman Ian Howarth, originally from Oldham, had turned up at the ground
by mistake thinking it was a pub. An old friend of Thornton Smith, Ian was a
destructive and provocative batsman who, despite saving his culture for the
canvas – he was a painter and musician in his spare time – over the years
scored hundreds of runs for The Mad.
My favourite memory of Ian will always be the look on his face after I bowled
him with a slower ball while playing for The
Bodleian, as he tried to launch me out of the ground. Yet against South Oxford that day, The Mad went down by 47, in the
process finding a batsman who could score runs while still pissed from the
previous night. Howarth soon became an important cog in the Mad machine, and
was instrumental in setting up the first Mad
website, which has established an international presence for the team and
is probably the best of its kind in the world. In Wootton &
Bladon, The Mad found a
ready-made rivalry, with the sometimes abrasive but ever competitive Steve
Poole turning out to be The Mad’s nemesis at Horspath, where his disdainful and
insouciant 57 took the game out of reach. But the return match at Wootton was a different species of
aardvark. Batting first on the slow and undulating village pitch, Ian Howarth
swung at anything in the arc, and in Thornton Smith found a willing
accomplice in the carnage. Howarth (89) and Smith (58) put on 133 undefeated
for the fifth wicket on the way to 202-4. The provocation and gamesmanship was mutual, with Howarth and Poole doing their best to rub
each other up the wrong way, though it was Howarth that day rubbing noses in
it. It got so bad Tony Mander umpiring stepped in and threatened to dock the Wootton boys 5 runs for the verbals. The Mad
won by 45. It was the start of something special, especially with Pooley. Ian Howarth
with a drink to match his ego in Somerset in 2003. In July The Mad lost by 52 runs to The
Bodleian at Pembroke, with Nick Millea scoring
78 out of the Bod’s 165. It was a
good day too for the Bod’s Andy
Mackinnon, who destroyed the Mad
middle order, taking 4-11 in 3 overs of apparently awkward pie. Eddie Lester
was one of the victims, given out lbw for nought by Ant Mann, playing across
the line to a straight sausage role that would have hit just above the
shoelaces. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell with
Sunday umpiring – is it fair or isn’t it? The fact that you have to umpire
while your own team bats can make for colourful debates in the pub later,
especially in relation to the lbw law, which is properly known on average by
22 percent of any given Sunday side. Lbw decisions are given roughly in order
of seniority, so that a respected batsman who will have a tantrum if given
has a one in three chance of actually being
given to a plum shout, while a lesser player who will just shrug and wander
off the field has a three in four chance, four in five if the ball is
pitching outside leg, which is of course not out under the law, but how on
earth is everybody supposed to remember complicated details like that? There
are exceptions to this rule, namely, if the respected batsman is also a dick
and generally despised, i.e. not respected at all, then his chance of dismissal
rises to almost one hundred percent per appeal, no matter where the ball
pitched. Eddie had been having trouble with his batting, playing
across the line to straight balls which either bowled him or trapped him in
front. He was fine in the nets, keeping a straight bat and playing through
the line, flaying the bowling to all parts, but as soon as he walked to the
crease, something clicked inside him and he played a duff shot which brought
his downfall. He hadn’t scored a run in weeks. He was
desperate. This was his big chance. So Mann gave him
out first ball. It was a fair decision, but nonetheless, not fair. In 2003 The Mad
toured West Somerset and staying at The Dunkery Beacon, a huge bed and
breakfast place perfectly suited to large groups of the semi-coherent. I
didn’t go on that tour, so I don’t know much about it, though I did hear the
fascinating stories that people brought back with them, the outrageous tales
of falling down in the gutter and of wearing lampshades on each other’s heads.
I can’t remember now who won the tennis tournament,
or who ate the most pickled fennels with their hands tied behind their back
at three in the morning, and for that I am eternally grateful. There was also
some cricket on the tour, three games, and three losses – to Minehead, Timberscombe and Stogumber.
Incidentally, Stogumber is rhymed
with ‘number’. The Dunkery
Beacon hotel – home to the FFTMCC for three consecutive tours to Somerset. The Mad played four games against The Marlborough that year, winning two
and losing two to keep the old-standing rivalry on an even keel. There was
not much sign of Mike Reeves, but Dan Edwards was ever present, The Marlborough’s key performer thanks
to his obdurate batting, his spellbinding bowling style, and his
indefatigable wide-brimmed head. The last game of the season was against them, and turned out to be Ian Howarth’s greatest
near-triumph. His 97 out of 200-8 equalled the team’s highest individual
score record set by Lee Davie several years previously, and it’s just a shame that he holed out with only three runs
to go. There was still no Mad
player who had registered a century, though Howarth now looked the most
likely if he could just control himself and not act like such a twit. In his first season as skipper, out of 20 matches,
James Hoskins steered The Mad to 7
wins, a massive improvement on 2002. A glance down the averages for 2003
reveals that six of the first seven batting places were taken by players new
to The Mad. Premier batsman, and
Player of the Year was Ian Howarth, who averaged 40.69 with the bat while
accumulating 529 runs. In his bowling style he seemed often like the
reincarnation of Chris Legg, interspersing as he did his out-of-control
beamers with occasionally volatile medium pace. He took 8 wickets with a best
of 4-17. Thornton Smith stepped up a gear to hit 349 runs at 21.33 with his
flat-bat baseball style, relying as he did on a good eye and picking the
length. Newcomers Martin Westmoreland, Nick Hebbes, John Harris
and Steve Hebbes filled the next four places, averaging between 12 and 19.
Westmoreland’s highest score was 66. Pick of the bowlers was Ant Mann, who took 27 wickets
at 10.52, an aggregate wicket tally yet to be bettered. Stephen Hebbes bagged
an impressive 19 at 17.37 with his fast and skiddy spin, while Steve Dobner
and James Hoskins took 15 and 13 respectively at around 22. It was useful
attack now – Dylan Jones (12) and Ben Mander (11) were also among the
wickets, while Howarth, Hebbes the Elder and Martin Westmoreland could also
be relied on to pick up key scalps. John Harris took 4 wickets at 17.00 in
his three games. Westmoreland was also a revelation in the field, taking 12
often spectacular catches and affecting a run out. Steve Hebbes
pictured at Pembroke. Graeme Bridges didn’t have a
great year with the bat, but he was always an asset to the side, and it’s a
shame he didn’t play for The Mad much longer. He had the thin build
of a distance runner, so it’s handy that he ran
distance races. Maybe he just preferred running to cricket. And one thing you
don’t get a lot of in cricket, Sunday cricket
especially, is running. In many ways this was
a new Mad, playing harder, winning
more, with players who wanted more to win more and harder, and not afraid to
take on the opposition where it sometimes counted more than on the field – in
the mind, or in the case of Steve Dobner, the car park. But glimpses of the
old Jude could still be seen in the
team’s general good humour and willingness not to be a bunch of dicks. Sundayism wasn’t dead, it would
just have to find a new way to exist as the times changed around it. |
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“Part VIII –
2004” As it always did, the team overwintered, with most
people going their separate ways, returning to hang out with their families
or whatever else it was that players did in the off season. The fact is, for
some of the side, cricket was just about all they had in common, and the team
spirit which carried them through the summer months didn’t have the impetus
to make it through the winter as well. There was one social occasion,
however, which brought a few people out of the woodwork. Ant Mann’s book of
short fiction, Milo & I, was
published in late 2003 and launched at Far
From the Madding Crowd. A remarkable volume containing the Dagger-winning Taking Care of Frank and the
innovative Shopping, it appeared to
universal acclaim and went on to sell thirty-six copies. The book launch was
a convivial affair which, as with all good literary events, ended in
violence. Re-enacting some classic scenes from Marx Brothers movies, Ian
Howarth (Harpo) pushed Steve Dobner (Chico) off his chair, Dobner retaliating
was thrown out of the pub, and Thornton Smith (Groucho) broke his wrist
trying to smack Howarth in the face. James Hoskins playing Zeppo saw the whole thing and remained unscathed, while
the rest of the idiots, when the booze wore off the next day, all had a date
with an A&E nurse. But despite the undoubted success of the book launch,
there were questions being raised about where the team should drink. Far From The
Madding Crowd was inconveniently right in the middle of town, and it
lacked atmosphere. In addition, The Mad’s spiritual guide and totemic figure Noel Reilly
was no longer the landlord. With this in mind, a crack team of researchers spent
much of the off-season visiting as many pubs in Oxford as they could, rating
them on convenience to Pembroke, beer, atmosphere, landlord friendliness, and
the chance of being beaten senseless by skinheads. Then, a committee meeting
was held in a neutral venue, the Harcourt Arms in Jericho. Deliberations went
on long into the night. The Folly Bridge Inn on the Abingdon Road was the
clear winner. It was close to the ground, it had a beer garden, the landlord
was all right and would give the team a huge wodge of cash to come drink
there. But something wasn’t right. Was it the
skinheads? There were some there, and they looked kind of mean and nasty.
What if they wanted to join the team, were refused, then killed everyone with
broken off pool cues? For the sake of saving everyone’s lives, it was decided
that the team would drink at the Madding
Crowd for one more year. Martin sporting an early nickname. 2003 had been good, but in 2004, it got better. The Mad won 9 and lost 11. From time
to time there were still the abject collapses, but by and large they were a
thing of the past. As far as the team went, no new regulars were required to
swell the ranks. Dylan Jones was already cutting back his involvement,
and played in only 5 games. There was no sign of Ben Mander, but his
father Tony was there for 10. Andrew Morley returned from the abyss to play
in 7, and Adrian Fisher was back for the full season. Ed Lester played in only 5 games, but it turned out
that his mind was on other things. The Founding Father of The Jude was already planning to
emigrate to New Zealand with his wife Ruth, and his involvement in the side
lessened as the year went on. Ed was the driving force behind The Jude’s early development, building
the team from scratch. Without him, there would have been no Jude or Mad at all. Apart from this legacy, Ed had also coined the phrase
not at this level, to describe his
thoughts on the application of the lbw law in the arena of Sunday cricket.
The thinking behind the not at this
level philosophy is straightforward: Sunday cricket umpiring is so
uniformly bad, with most players not even knowing the laws, that no lbw
decisions should be given at all, as they are bound to be based on
misconceptions, bias, or cheating. To be fair, the not at this level school has many adherents, but the idea does fall down in the practical application, as demonstrated by
the Dave Shorten Example. Mad
bowler Dave Shorten used to play in a Sunday type team which banned lbws, for
precisely the reasons set out in the not
at this level philosophy, but
all that happened was batsmen stood directly in front of the stumps, making
it impossible to bowl them as well. Thus, while admirable in its intent, the not at this level concept is just not
practical, at any level. Even so, it is common even today to hear the phrase
ring out, accompanied by the throwing of bats and sundry cricket gear as a
player stalks off, definitely not out, but given anyway by some klutz with a
trigger finger who doesn’t know the rules. Or maybe, who does. Fluctuating fortunes were on show in the first game of
the season, as The Mad met old foes The Marlborough at the breezy Cuttleslowe
Park. The Marlborough had been decimated by departures. Mike Cox had gone,
there was no sign of Edwards or Reeves. It was a motley crew of jeans wearers
and the like who showed up to be skittled for 47 chasing The Mad’s 196. The Marlborough were headed where The Mad had almost gone, towards oblivion and dissolution. Jake
Hotson and Ian Howarth opened the batting for The Mad, putting on 65 for the first wicket. Of which Hotson
scored 4. Steve Hebbes remained 30 not out. Of The Marlborough’s ten wickets, seven were ducks. Only the loquacious
Mark Shelley held out, defiant, unbeaten on 20 at the end. The
loquacious Mr. Shelley pictured at Cutteslowe. There was another sign of the times the following week
as The Mad recorded their first
ever win against OUP, a team which
had always beaten them easily in the past. The omens had been good – Ian
Howarth and skipper James Hoskins had spent the night pissed in Howarth’s
back yard, waking at dawn after half an hour’s sleep covered in dew and with
the cat’s tongue up their ear. So it was no wonder
that Howarth slapped a quick-fire 52 to put The Mad on course. This
time the opening partnership was 73. Jake Hotson scored 6. For a time, OUP were on course to reel in the
runs, but seemed to lose heart as the wickets fell, and all
of a sudden, it occurred to The
Mad that they could win this game. It all ended with a whimper, and a 44 run victory. Nick Hebbes took 4-17. The Mad played a new opponent, University Offices, at Cuttleslowe Park. This was the team’s first look at
Andrew Darley, who took 3-26 with his probing right-arm cutters and backed up
with 19 runs. But when Ant Mann took wickets with his 6th, 8th,
10th and 12th deliveries, The Offices were reeling at 4-3. It looked all over. It wasn’t. Abbas could bat as well as bowl. Despite gutsy
late breakthroughs from Hoskins, The
Offices edged a close game by two wickets, with Abbas remaining on 108
not out in spite of Steve Dobner’s
efforts from behind the stumps to sledge him into making an error. The return saw The
Mad win a nail-biter at Cowley Marshes. A rain break saw The Offices recover from 85-8 to all
out 135, as Latif and Chris Heron took the bowling on. Only a brilliant
1-handed catch by John Harris on the boundary kept The Mad in the game, which they somehow closed out by a single
wicket with a ball to spare. A fretful Nick Hebbes (21) hit the winning runs
as Martin Westmoreland watched from the other end on 31, plagued by a back
spasm but still standing. Eight of the nine Mad wickets to fall were clean bowled. It was sweet revenge for The Mad, and the start of yet another
rivalry, of which one can never have too many. The Mad then beat The Marlborough by 3 wickets at
Pembroke, chasing down a measly 70 thanks to Graham Bridges, who stood firm
on 16 not out. Adrian Fisher was chief destroyer for The Mad, with a career-best 5-15, comprising some well-cooked
flans and the obligatory sausage roll or three. Fisher was fast becoming the
Guru of Pie, to whom all pie chuckers must defer.
He invariably took wickets with his subtle changes in flight, pace and pastry. Nick Hebbes
with the hat nobody coveted. An obligatory loss to R T Harris came next, with Ditta Yousaf
the chief destroyer for the electricians; though he may not be too thrilled
with the memory of being stranded on 99 not out as the last ball was bowled. The Mad could reply with only 104. Apart from Lemmings, R T Harris were always The Mad’s
toughest opponents, and it would be a while before The Mad would even believe they could beat them. The Dunkery
Beacon in
Somerset once again hosted The Mad
on tour, and this time I was there. I had a fabulous time, falling
down in the gutter and wearing lampshades on my head. I still remember
with great fondness the Combined No-Hands Fennel Eating Contest and Tennis
Tournament. Minehead were the first
Mad victims, despite posting 170.
James Hoskins took 4-34, while Ant Mann had the ludicrous figures of 8-4-4-2,
conceding just 4 runs in 8 overs and taking 2 wickets with the last two balls
of his spell. 170 seemed a reasonable total, but The Mad knocked it off for just two wickets against a weak
attack. Steve Dobner’s 77 not out once again
demonstrated the fact that he could actually bat –
when he believed he could. Timberscombe
were next, losing by 74 as Ian Howarth hit 53 and Mann bagged his only ever 5
for, snaring a pseudo hat trick in the process, if
you counted the previous game. Stogumber,
though, proved a hurdle too far, and overtook The Mad’s 154-3 with some ease. After
hitting Penny for a six, Thornton Smith managed to keep his head, though the
bowler seemed keen to take it off. A 62 run win
against Watchet made it three out
of four, with Mike Clarke making 61 and Nick Hebbes hitting a half century,
and himself in the head with his bat. Back in Oxford, the season rolled over into a post-tour
hangover. Wootton & Bladon took
The Mad apart at Pembroke, and a desultory,
strangely boring game at Dorchester
ended in a 5-wicket defeat. This was Dan Edwards’ debut game for The Mad, and he top-scored with 18. The Marlborough stalwart had finally had enough of his team’s
inexorable slide towards the abyss and had decided to bring his hat and his
bat across town. Generally, there seemed to be seemed to be some antipathy
towards the Mad boys at Dorchester,
though it had nothing to do with Ian Howarth walking out to the crease with a
sticker reading Fuck You, You Fuckin’ Fuck!
on his bat. Thornton Smith spent the afternoon grazing the outfield in search
of magic mushrooms. Fill in the missing letters Coming off two losses, there was a lot to play for back
at Wootton in August, and The Mad would not be denied. Dropped
twice by Steve Hebbes subbing in the outfield and four more times by the Wootton boys, Ian Howarth powered his
way to 95 out of 150 as the wickets fell all around him. Only Adie Fisher
with 13 joined him in double figures, so close once again to being triple.
Riding on the back of Ingram’s 55, Wootton
seemed to be cruising in reply, but two brilliant catches by Westmoreland and
Howarth in the outfield turned the game. Adie Fisher baked up a special,
destroying the middle order with 3-26, while two run outs brought The Mad within reach. One wicket to
get, and in the second last over Ant Mann had Bill Dale plumb lbw, but sadly,
not as this level. “You’ll have to bowl him,” snarled The Mad’s nemesis Steve Poole umpiring,
a knowing grin on his face. So two balls later, Mann
did, middle peg, and the game was won by three. Another easy win against The Marlborough, and
the season was all but over. Only one fixture remained, against The Baldons, a team The Mad had played some years before.
It was an ugly sort of a game, with The
Baldons skipper being given out but standing his ground and whining until
his wicket was reinstated. He went on to score an ‘unbeaten’ hundred, and
thus win the game, but by that stage, the result seemed irrelevant. Player of the Season in 2004 was Ant Mann, who took the
crown for the third time and thus was allowed to
keep the coveted Jules Madde trophy in perpetuity. He took a thrilling 27
wickets at an awesome 10.85, with an economy rate of 2.50, as well as making
an incredible 12 catches, and batting at a fantastic 14.44. Ian Howarth was
the key batsman again, accumulating a staggering 709 runs at a ridiculously
high 39.39 including five half centuries. The next highest scorer was Steve
Dobner, with a massive 366 at a brilliant 22.88. He also took an astonishing
12 wickets at a pathetic 21.25. Bullock and
Hebbes – amazingly brilliant all-rounders. Nick Hebbes averaged 26.78 with the bat and took 17
wickets at 19.41, with a best of 4-17; Martin Westmoreland made 221 runs at
18.42 and took 11 wickets; Adrian Fisher bowled in only 4 matches but took 11
wickets at 13.36, including his game-winning 5-15 against The Marlborough. He batted in 13
games, for 110 runs. James Hoskins took 18 wickets at 22.78, as well as
taking 8 catches and effecting 2 run outs. John Harris and Thornton Smith
also contributed with both bat and ball, though Smith was not able to reach
the heights of the previous year. His top score in 2004 was 27 not out, with
an average of 8.09. Distressingly, Jake Hotson had the yips and could no
longer bowl on the strip, but had reinvented himself
as an immovable batsman who could hold up an end for just about as long as he
wanted. Matt Bullock scored 90 runs at 12.85 and made 8 dismissals behind the
stumps. 2004 saw The Mad
raise their game a level, pitting themselves against stronger teams and
acquitting themselves well. But not only did they play better. As self-belief
grew, the positive effects of successful participation in a team sport bled
over into other areas of their lives. They drank more, took more drugs, had
fewer breakdowns, slept with more women, got married more, had more children,
and cracked better jokes. Under the benign leadership of James Hoskins, life
was good. If this was a movie, then things would start to go horribly wrong.
But the truth is, things were only getting better. |
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“Part IX –
2005” In 2005 The Mad
finally cut their ties with the Reillys, and with Far From The Madding Crowd, at which point they
could at last drop the third ‘c’ from their name. No longer would they be known
by the pedants as Far From The M.C.C.C. Now, to the relief of all, Far From The M.C.C. was their name, and would
remain so, never mind which pub they might next call their home. But for now,
The Mad had no fixed abode, and so,
for this year at least, they became The
No-Mad. This season The
Mad gained two new wicketkeeper-batsmen – Gary Littlechild, who played 3
games, and Geoff Carter, who played 4. Gary was the brother-in-law of Essex
boy Steve Dobner, and eager to play up to his stereotype. The Barrow Boys
added a volatility to the ranks of the normally placid Mad, a cutting edge in-your-faceness
which hardly ever overstepped the boundaries, and
was always completely justified when it did. Geoff was a refugee from
Saturday cricket. He was looking for a team that wasn’t
full of prima donna league dicks who all thought they just bloody great and
who didn’t shout at each other when they made even the smallest mistake, and
so naturally settled on The Mad.
Some years previously Geoff had intentionally broken his elbow in an attempt to be able to bowl like Muralitharan, but
sadly the experiment hadn’t worked – his elbow was screwed, literally, but he
still couldn’t bowl for toffee. The addition of Gary and Geoff brought the team’s tally
of keepers to eight, including Matt Bullock, Ian Howarth, Steve Dobner, Adie
Fisher, Thornton Smith and Lee Davie. The side was
blessed also with eleven opening batsmen – Gary Littlechild, Dan Edwards, Ian
Howarth, Nick Hebbes, Antony Mann, Martin Westmoreland, Steve Dobner, Tony
Mander, Jake Hotson, Mike Clarke, James Hoskins, Geoff Carter
and Lee Davie. They were somewhat lacking, though, in opening bowlers, having
only Antony Mann, Ian Howarth, Nick Hebbes, Martin Westmoreland, Steve Dobner
and Lee Davie. Ed Lester was gone to the other side of the world, and
Adie Fisher was gone, for a season at least, to the other side of the
country. The Manders, Ben and Tony, were slowly
dropping out of the side. Steve Hebbes had gone north to Newcastle. But with
his measured batting and his sharp fielding, Dan Edwards just about made up
for these five players on his own. Flake of plaster by flake of plaster, the Marlborough Arms was slowly sinking
into the ground, and their team was going with it. Dan had jumped ship, and The Mad had been quick to rescue him
from drowning. Dan Edwards (left), proving his worth on tour. Matt Bullock
looks on. Edwards proved his worth at once, at Cholsey. After Mann (4-10) and
Westmoreland (3-23) had taken the wickets, and Ian Howarth had taken out
James Gilbert with a quick delivery that reared off a length and broke the Cholsey captain’s nose, Edwards and
Lee Davie led The Mad to a 9 wicket
win, scoring an unbeaten 85 between them on the volatile pitch. A demolition
of The Marlborough followed, though
mercifully Edwards wasn’t on hand to see his old
team suffer in its death throes. The
Mad belted 244-2 from 35 overs, including a record 171 for the first wicket.
Steve Dobner hit 77, while Ian Howarth made 99 before launching himself at a
pie from Lal and getting himself stumped by a yard. Once again that elusive
century had wriggled out of Howarth’s grasp at the last possible moment. How
we laughed. How he didn’t. The Marlborough were all out for 120 in 29 overs. Not even Mike Reeves could save The Marlborough from their next defeat. John Harris was bowling,
and the records were tumbling. His five and half over spell yielded just 5
runs. Oh, and there were the 7 wickets he took as well. The scorebook reads
5.3-2-5-7 no matter how many times you rub your eyes in amazement. The Marlborough were dismissed for
just 24 with a scorecard which read 3,4,0,0,0,0,0,3,5,4,0 and 9 extras. This
was the end of the great rivalry, and finally – and sadly – the end of The Marlborough. This would be their
last season before dissolution. The Mad
reversed their batting order, and lost 4 wickets en route to victory. Notable for her duck was Vicki
Stone, Ian Howarth’s future bride-to-be, a woman with a sharp and sarcastic
hairstyle, and a deep and abiding indifference to cricket in all its forms. Vicki Stone
is targetted by ginger haired youngsters throwing cricket balls. The Mad still couldn’t
beat Lemmings, though, and lost
twice to The Offices. Despite 87 from Ditta Yousaf, The Bodleian lost by 51 at Pembroke,
then a patchy Wootton & Bladon
succumbed as well. The tour followed, the last to West Somerset and The Dunkery Beacon with its
picturesque views and overcooked eggs. If those tours had a ghost, a psychic
imprint caught in time for all to see and shudder at, it would no doubt be
Jake Hotson, lying awake at four in the morning talking to the wall, his hand
bandaged where the dangerous kettle had leapt upon him and attacked him with
its scaldingness. Or would it be his alter-ego,
Jake Hotson-Pike, drunken captain of the team which beat Stogumber even as
darkness was falling, a true Englishman and Hero? Another loss to R
T Harris at Pembroke brought everyone back to earth, with Ditta Yousaf once again punishing The Mad for no apparent reason other than that he liked to. His
83 not out gave him an average against The
Mad so ridiculously high that I’m not going to
tell you what it was. There was another easy win against The Marlborough, the last game The Mad would ever play against them before they were consigned
to the graveyard of dismantled cricket sides, and then Cholsey came to Pembroke and got some revenge, scoring a massive
239 and winning by 54. It was something of a Mad specialty, giving opposing players their first century or
five wicket haul, and that day was no exception as Cholsey’s Jackson hit a chancy 105. Touring can be really interesting. Ant
Mann and Ian Howarth. The last game of the year was played on Cholsey’s home ground against a
touring Dutch team, Rood en Wit. It was a grand occasion, entertaining the
Dutch boys, but a few generous bowling changes from Mad skipper James Hoskins allowed them to recover from 74-7 to
148, 35 too many for The Mad as
they faced 5 overs of Rood en Wit’s shock-haired hang-time quick Prenen. It was helmets all round
as Edwards and John Harris picked at the bowling, but to no avail. The Mad collapsed to all out 113. Out of 16 games in 2005, The Mad won 7 and lost 8 with 1 game washed out and drawn. Dan
Edwards was Player of the Year in his debut season. He was the batting
mainstay, scoring 371 runs at 46.38 and taking 9 wickets at 14.67. By his
standards, it was a so-so year for Ian Howarth. In 12 innings he scored 302
at 30.20, but that included the ill-fated 99 against The Marlborough. Maybe he hadn’t been
drinking enough on Saturday nights. He took 10 wickets as well, at 26.30. Everyone who has played Sunday cricket ever in the
history of the game is an all-rounder, and that applied to The Mad no less than anybody else.
All-rounders Nick Hebbes, Martin Westmoreland, John Harris, Steve Dobner all
scored runs and took wickets, with Harris especially shining thanks to his
7-5 against The Marlborough. All-rounder Ant Mann took 19 wickets,
all-rounder James Hoskins 16. Triple all-rounder Matt Bullock kept wicket and
had a top score of 35, and had also begun to bowl
during matches the irritating spin which he dished out during net sessions.
At nets, the slow looping pies usually hit the crossbar and bounced back. But
there was no crossbar during a proper game of cricket, and so Matt’s egg
rolls and mince pies had ample time to hang in the air for what seemed an
eternity, this giving any decent batsman far too much time to think about
exactly where he was going to hit the ball. Result: a wicket for Mr Bullock. John Harris
reads about his famous 7-for…. Of course, in 2005 there was more cricket going on than
just The Mad’s
Sunday variety. For some reason the English side
chose a year while I was in the country to get their crap together and win
the Ashes for the first time in about a hundred years. I spent many hours of
horror and disgust watching the matches on TV that summer. Even now hearing
the name ‘Gary Pratt’ makes me break out in a cold sweat,
and thinking about Duncan Fletcher makes me feel ill – though of
course I’m not alone in that. Fair play to the Poms. Their batsmen were the
usual inconsistent rabbits, but they had four great bowlers that year – the
pace quartet of Flintoff, Hoggard, Harmison and
Jones. It’ll be interesting to see how that quartet
develops over the years, see if they can take it on to the next level and
consolidate England’s position as the 93rd ranked Test playing nation in the
world. Okay, so I felt bad when the Ashes finally went north
after eight series Down Under, but I felt good for my team
mates, even the cocks who rubbed my face in it. The better side won
the greatest Test series ever played, and maybe that’s
all you can hope for. Bastards. |
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“Part X –
2006” In 2006, The Mad
found a new home, at The Magdalen Arms on the Iffley Road. A big barn of a
pub, with bugger all atmosphere, crap beer, and three hundred televisions all
showing football, it was at least reasonably close to Pembroke, and had a
beer garden that sometimes wasn’t filled with
alcoholics and drug dealers. The Maggie was great if you wanted to be rambled
at by some old timer who’d left his brain in a bottle, or
guffawed at by proto-skinheads with the sense of humour of carrots. The team
also found a new skipper, as the long-serving (and long-suffering) James
Hoskins stepped aside for Ian Howarth. It was always Howarth’s destiny to
captain The Mad. For one thing, he
was often the side’s premier batsman, and that’s who
the captain often is. For another, he was a complete pisshead who usually
woke up in a pool of someone else’s vomit. And lastly, he actually
wanted the job. This season, Ben and Tony Mander slipped out of the Mad side completely, but there were
some new regulars on the playing rota. Gary Littlechild played in 10 games.
The aggressive wicket-keeper batsman was actually too
good for Sunday cricket, in a reverse not
at this level kind of way. Specifically he was
too quick with his stumpings for the sleepy Sundayite
umpires who oversaw these games, often half a yard behind the pace. And he
knew how to let them know it. Seeking the quiet life, Nick Hebbes had moved
from Oxford to the distant village of Cholsey, but instead of jumping ship,
he stayed with The Mad and brought
his new neighbour Steve Parkinson along to play as well. Parkinson was also
aggressive in his own way, a volatile quick who bowled brilliantly in 2006
but without much luck. Without much luck. It’s
difficult when you’re without much luck. With any luck, luck evens itself up
over a period of time, but sometimes, you remain without much luck for your entire
career. And that’s just bad luck. Even as lately as his first game for The Mad in 2008, against Nomads at Duntisbourne Abbots,
Parkinson bowled without much luck.
He had two or three catches dropped in the outfield, had a couple of plumb
lbws turned down, and caught the edge half a dozen times only to see the ball
land safe. But then, if it had gone to hand, it most likely would have been
dropped. And as soon as Parkinson’s spell finished, some other guy came on,
bowled a rank half tracker, and took a wicket with it. 2006 visit to Cholsey…. Back l to r: Jake Hotson, Geoff Carter, James Hoskins, Matt
Bullock, Nick Hebbes, Thornton Smith, Steve Dobner Front r to l: Ian Howarth, Gary Littlechild, Martin
Westmoreland. With their untimely demise, another Marlborough stalwart, Mike Reeves, had
joined Dan Edwards on the Mad side
of the fence. Reeves, who had so often plagued The Mad in the past. Reeves, whom The Mad had given his first ever century back when they were The Jude. Reeves, whom Ant Mann had
usually bowled for about 6. Not only did Reeves bowl left-handed, he batted
that way as well. He also had an unusually large head, which sometimes made
it a problem when buying hats. Richard Hadfield, who had played two games for The Jude back in 2000, turned out
again for The Mad in 2006, played
just the one game, and scored the famous comeback zero. His mate Dave
Shorten, a useful right arm bowler, played in 3 games. Though some people
wanted to call Dave Lego because he
was a builder, others thought he should be referred to as Hangtime because of the lengthy period
he spent in the air just before he released the ball. It was a tricky one to
call, but after several hours of discussion, after a close vote it was
decided that Lego should be
officially called Hangtime. Andy
Cavanagh was last of the new regulars, a young guy who was destined to play
only one season for The Mad. For a
while he lived in a purple house, but had soon
become another of the multitude who at one time or another lived under the
roof of James Hoskins. Mr Cavanagh
substituting as a Judas fielder at Mansfield Road. The first game of 2006, away against new opponents Wootton & Boars Hill, was a triumph for Dan Edwards,
and vindication for Steve Dobner of his decision never to bowl for The Mad again for the ninth time. With
just about the last ball of the innings, Edwards’s assiduously compiled knock
finally tipped over the century mark, to 103 not out. At last, a Mad player had broken the fabled
three-figure barrier! This was the landmark of which many had heard, but few
had ever thought possible. It was a shame that the first Mad century had to come from a ex-Marlborough player, and of course
everybody hated him for that, but nonetheless it was a great personal moment
for the batsman, and a collective triumph for the team. Making his debut for The Mad during this game was the other
Marlborough refugee, Mike Reeves,
who sadly didn’t get a bat as the team posted 191
for 5. Wootton made a good start in
reply, reaching 72 without loss, but no-one had reckoned on Dobner, whose
refusal to bowl resulted in personal best figures of 4-9, a MOTM performance
on any other day. The Mad won it by
51. A loss against Cholsey
was followed by another loss, against R
T Harris at Holton, then two more losses. The first, against University Offices at Mansfield Road,
was a bit of a joke, as the Office’s first-class standard ringer Roycroft showed everyone what cricket at this level was really all
about. Watching a proper batsman at close hand against a bunch of weekend pie
chuckers was something of an education, but
sometimes ignorance is bliss. The
Offices won by 7 wickets. Next came Milton,
or the Great Milton Debacle as it came to be known, by me at any rate. It was
The Mad’s
first game against Milton, and what
a game it was. After losing Jake Hotson early, Ian Howarth and Steve
Parkinson dealt admirably with some sharp bowling and the vagaries of the
pitch. At drinks, they had taken the score on to 99-1, and the Milton boys were looking worried.
Unfortunately, at this point, I had a quiet word with the lads, encouraging
them to stay focused and keep it going at the same rate. Naturally
I blame myself entirely for what followed, the most impressive collapse in Mad history. Which is saying
something. Howarth went first for 47. 99-2. Next it was Westmoreland, bowled
for a duck. 99-3. Parkinson followed directly, not adding to his 37. 99-4.
Matt Bullock lasted long enough to add 3 runs. 102-5. Andy Cavanagh didn’t. 102-6. Mike Reeves, in his first bat for The Mad, lasted 2 runs before he was
run out. 104-7. Adie Small got none. 104-8. Thornton Smith was next. 108-9.
Last of all, James Hoskins was bowled around his legs for the 4th
duck of innings. 108 all out. Bowling with their heads already down, a cowed
and embarrassed Mad were no match
for Milton’s Wilby.
His 73 not out nicely complemented his 4-4 from 6 overs. He had a good game. The Mad didn’t. Probably it
was Steve Parkinson’s fault. Coming off four losses in succession, confidence was at
an all-time low going into the game against Hanney, who had a strong league set-up full of league prima
donnas to call on. But something clicked in the Mad psyche. Something strange, something new. Something clicked
inside Martin Westmoreland as well. The plague of demons he had been fighting
over the past weeks, the foul, dark voices of negativity which had been
eating away at his confidence, that day they fled in fear before his blade.
He shrugged them off one and all to blaze a new high score for The Mad, 106 not out, eclipsing
Edwards’ recent triumph. Apparently centuries really
are like buses. You wait ages for one, and then a bunch of them come along at
once. With Westmoreland and Ian Howarth (88) recording a brutal partnership
of 155, The Mad slogged a record
280-5 in 40 overs. Mike Reeves, ex-Marlborough,
was not called on to bat, but it was nonetheless a great end to the losing
streak. Hanney were never going to
get them, and they imploded to all out 135 in just 26 overs. Lemmings won the next game, at
Pembroke, but that was the only interruption to what had soon become a Mad winning streak. Victories against University Offices, Tackley, Wootton & Bladon, The Bodleian and OUP, and suddenly The Mad
were thinking they were pretty cool. Perhaps too
cool. An unforeseen sense of cockiness and condescension began to filter
through the ranks, and it was soon noted by opposition teams, who didn’t much like what they saw. The Mad were acting like a bunch of big-note league cricket tossers. Was this the end of Sundayism?
Was the old Jude ethos about to
disappear forever into an ugly, all-consuming self-regard? The Offices were destroyed at Pembroke,
as Westmoreland baffled the world by scoring his second century of the
season, 109 not out. Mike Reeves was not required to bat, but nonetheless it
was an at times ugly game with mid-pitch confrontations threatening to spill
off the ground, down the path, over the stream and across the railway
footbridge into the car park. Tackley didn’t much enjoy their
Pembroke loss, nor the superior attitude of their opponents. Once unbeatable,
OUP were cast aside as Gary
Littlechild hit 73 and Dave Shorten broke their batting with a superb debut
spell, taking 3-16. Mike Reeves didn’t bat against
either The Bodleian or Wootton & Bladon, but both games
were won with ease. Martin
Westmoreland on his way to back to back centuries at Pembroke. Thankfully, The
Mad saw sense and realized they had to get a handle on things before the
team attitude deteriorated into the puffed up high and mighty tosserdom which characterizes so many league sides and
their prima donna ‘stars’ yes we all know who you are. After a concerted bout
of introspection and a review of the aims and ethos of the side, a mission
statement was issued by the team hierarchy which reinforced the Sundayist philosophy and expressed the hope that Sundayism and a competitive outlook could exist together
in harmony, with neither one nor the other holding sway. The results were
immediate, as The Mad lost
comprehensively to the visiting Nomads,
by 96 runs. Despite 7 not out from Mike Reeves, The Mad could reach only 124 in reply to the visitor’s 220-7.
Gary Littlechild top scored for The Mad
with 47, and also took out his skipper Howarth (0
retired hurt) with a lovely on-drive into the upper arm. Naturally
Howarth, who was probably half pissed, was completely to blame for the
incident. Later, as his arm lump swelled up to the size of an egg, several
chickens from nearby allotments flew over and tried to hatch it. But The Mad finished
the season with two more emphatic victories. Hanney were well beaten away as
the procession of centuries continued: it was Gary Littlechild who this time
turned record breaker, hitting 117 not out from 242-6. Ian Howarth
distinguished himself by being dropped eight times in outfield. He was almost
grateful to go when finally bowled by Tarry when on 49. Mike Reeves did not
bat. Made in
Essex: Gary Littlechild and Steve Dobner looking for someone to punch
senseless. James Hoskins
and Richard Hadfield in the background. Cholsey lost at Pembroke by 4
wickets in a close tussle, and suddenly the season was over. Out of 15
played, The Mad had won 9 games and
lost just 6, a new record, and the first time the team had made it over the
50% mark. In his first season for The Mad, Mike Reeves excelled with the ball, taking 14 wickets in
8 games at 13.64. There were other excellent bowling performances in 2006.
Steve Dobner took 15 wickets at 12.13, Ian Howarth 11 at 13.09. James Hoskins
bagged 11 wickets, and Antony Mann 16, although at the inflated average of
17.94. Possibly the best of the bowlers, however, was Steve Parkinson. Though
bowling without much luck, taking
just 7 wickets, he was instrumental in providing great starts for The Mad when they were in the field,
and his economy rate was a meagre 2.58. Former Marlborough
man Dan Edwards opened the batting for The
Mad, and for the second time in succession was a worthy Player of the
Year. He averaged 55 with a top score of 103 not out, but also topped the
bowling averages with 11 wickets at a miserly 10.00. Gary Littlechild had a
great year as well, averaging 53.00 with the bat and making 11 dismissals
behind the stumps, including an impressive 5 stumpings. With Ian Howarth
averaging 45.38, and twice-centurion Martin Westmoreland 40.30, it was a
bumper time for runs. Nick Hebbes scored 148 at 16.44, and Matt Bullock had a
top score of 31. For some reason Mike Reeves was
allowed to bat only twice all year, and likewise, James Hoskins went
through much of the season padded up hoping wickets would fall, which they
very rarely did. Hoskins put his pads on in early May and then didn’t take them off again, just in case someone got out
and he was called upon. He wore them in the shower, then to bed on a Saturday
night, then to the ground on Sunday. When he did at last get a bat, in
August, he was out for a duck. It was that kind of year, a batsman’s year, with high
scores on flat pitches and a stupidly high number of centuries where before
there had been none. |
Begin | 98 | 99 | 00 | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07
“Part XI –
2007” In 2007, The Mad
picked up where they had left off. The return of long-lost Adie Fisher
strengthened the ranks, and new boys Dave Shorten
and Richard Hadfield played fifteen games between them. Mike Clarke was also
around. After untold years spent living and working in the Orient making huts
out of bamboo, growing rice, eating sweet and sour pork and making cheap toys
for English children, he had a summer to spare before his restless spirit
took him elsewhere. Adie Small also became a regular member of the side.
Adie, a friend of Dan Edwards, celebrated every wicket he took like he had
just won the Ashes for England, but fortunately for him he took wickets more
frequently. Otherwise, like, he would have taken only one in twenty years. Geddit? Only Andy Cavanagh was missing. His short stay at
the club had ended, and no longer would his ridiculous lbws appeals be heard
from square leg. In keeping with recent Mad history, 2007 was yet another bumper year, as skipper Ian
Howarth led the team to an 11-6 record, the best so far. Sadly
it was also a record year for rain, and matches against teams such as Lemmings, Milton and Nomads were
called off. There were floods all over the country. Oxford was particularly
badly hit. Try though he might, not even the versatile Kev could prepare a
strip at Pembroke when it was underwater. Unfortunately, Mike Reeves’ living
room was submerged as well, as the local stream burst its banks and flooded
the Botley Road. If you’re thinking of making an
offer, Mike’s house is now worth thirty-four quid. Pembroke submerged. A 2 wicket win against Hanney was followed by a close 4-run loss against Wootton & Boars Hill, during which
Reevesie needed a six off the last ball, but could manage only a single. The ex-Marlborough
stalwart who had left his old team to sink like a bunch of rotting corpses,
Reeves was blissfully ignorant of the fact that in a distant land a butterfly
was flapping its wings, about to cause the weather system which several weeks
later would turn his home into a swimming pool ... as he took 4-29. Cholsey succumbed next, being found out on their own
hoof-trodden pitch thanks to 4-31 from Steve Parkinson – with some luck for a
change – and a 48 from John Harris which was probably worth 96. An easy
ten-wicket win against Wootton &
Bladon (Hoskins 3-20, Shorten 3-18, Dobner 3 wickets from long-hops) gave
way to an even easier ten-wicket thumping of The Bodleian at Stratfield Brake. Which brings us to Milton.
Ha ha ha
ha Milton.
Eager to avenge
the astonishing collapse of the previous year and prove to the Milton lads that they weren’t a bunch of idiots, The Mad lost in ridiculous fashion and proved to the Milton lads that they were a bunch of
idiots. Though dismissing Milton
for 127 (with 4 catches from Mike Reeves), The Mad somehow cocked up the reply and ended up all out 95. Who
knows? Maybe it had something to do with skipper Ian Howarth reversing the
batting order and bringing himself in at number 11, where he was stranded on
0 not out when the last wicket fell. Maybe it was Dan Edwards, who wandered
out of his crease for no apparent reason when on 23 and was promptly stumped.
Maybe it was thanks to Ant Mann, who fell over trying to block the ball and
was bowled for a stupid 1. Still at least we gave spinner Critchley his first
ever 5 wicket haul. Milton were mirthful. R T Harris were next,
and batted first on the green Holton wicket where runs were always
hard to come by. The RTH boys went
for it against the spinners, but hadn’t reckoned
with James Hoskins. The wily occasional hat-wearer came up trumps, using the
pace of the wicket to take 4-24. Chasing just 118, The Mad made fitful progress, but at 76-3, it was still well
within their sights. Then, the brittle middle order faltered once more. By
the time Hoskins had been bowled for 2, the score was 108-9, and registered RTH pie man Bradley had his fourth
wicket – naturally, his best ever haul. Number
eleven Ant Mann strolled out to meet Nick Hebbes, and a plan was hatched, in
Mann’s mind at least – block the bastard, just like he used to do in the old
days when he was called Blocker not
for no reason. Block the bastard, and let Hebbes use his batsmanly
prowess to get the runs. Three balls from the end, and several blocks later,
Man of the Match Hebbes hit two through the off side
and the game was won. It had gone right down to the wire, but at last, R T Harris had been beaten. Ding dong, the witch was dead, etc etc.
And The Mad could take heart – for once, they
had collapsed but then somehow held it together at the end. Yours truly
at the soulless home of R. T. Harris (Holton). Wins against The
Bodleian and a weakened University
Offices gave way to another easy victory against OUP (how times had changed), though R T Harris got their
revenge at Pembroke notwithstanding a bunch of last-minute sixes from Dave
Shorten directly onto the tennis courts. Fortunately
no-one was playing at the time. Then it was Wootton
& Boars Hill who beat The Mad,
by 5 wickets at Pembroke, despite – at long bloody last – a century from Mad skipper Ian Howarth. It had taken
long enough, but finally it had arrived, just like people had thought it
never would. After 2006’s welter of run feasts, the skipper’s 112 was the
only Mad hundred
of the year. It was also the only Mad
century to date in a losing cause. The 2007 tour was held in Eastbourne. The famous
seaside resort with its rock-strewn shoreline and decrepit mini-golf golf
courses offered The Mad a chilling
look into their futures. The days when it would be them with the bent backs
and walking sticks hobbling grouchily along the strand were not that far off,
although closer for some than for others. But the team was not here to
ruminate on the all-too-rapid approach of old age, infirmity
and the cold eternal embrace of death. No, there was cricket to play. Sidley C.C. were the most welcoming of
hosts for the first game, going so far as to cut their touring Aussie pro
from the team and open the toilet block so that Ian Howarth had somewhere to
spend the afternoon, as he purged himself of the after-effects of scoffing
the previous evening’s gourmet kebab
of festering dog meat and slimy bug-infested lettuce. With Steve Parkinson
captaining while Howarth sat with arse perched over porcelain, The Mad bowlers made the most of the
sloping Sidley pitch. Parkinson
himself had rarely bowled better, taking two important wickets in a sharp
spell that yielded only 7 runs. James Hoskins took 3-14 from his 7 overs.
Chasing 151, first Jake Hotson (12) then Geoff Carter (27) helped steer Nick
Hebbes to a timely half century, while Martin Westmoreland finished things
off with a brutal 44 not out. Gloomy Eastbourne skies then forced an unscheduled rest
day, but there was still the chance of a game against the Worthing Chippendales before the side
made their way back home. Warm too was the welcome here, but little did The Mad know it would soon enough be
getting hot. Baumann (54 not out ) held the Chippendales together as the wickets fell around him, with Ant
Mann bagging a brace from five overs while conceded only five runs – thanks
in part to a brilliant catch from Matt Bullock in the slips, destined to
become the Champagne Moment of the Year. The Red
Arrows came on tour with us to Eastbourne. Martin Westmoreland, though, was suffering from the
yips, that strange bowlers’ ailment which causes them to stop at the moment of delivery and let loose a pie, usually at
the batsman’s head. But that didn’t cut it with
stand-in skipper Jake Hotson, who demanded as high level of commitment from
his side as he expected from himself. Maybe because he himself had had the
yips for years now, and needed someone innocent and defenceless to needlessly
punish, he made Westmoreland bowl three torturous overs of wayward dross,
despite the pleas to let him stop from the bowler himself. Hotson staked a further claim to be known as the hard
man of captaincy when The Mad went
out to bat. The Chippendales’ total
of 136 was a modest one, but their skipper Avinou
was kind enough to let slip that they had a young South African quick in
their side who was good enough and fast enough to have trialled recently at
Sussex. “No problem,” said Hotson. “In that case I’ll reverse the batting
order.” Three overs of 80 mph carnage later and The Mad were 19-5. The good-natured future Protea Stackher finished with 4-5 from 5 overs, with four of
those runs having come off the edge of Hoskins’s bat. A little later, skipper
Hotson relented in his harsh outlook and allowed himself to be cleaned bowled
by an 11-year old. The Mad may have
lost by 30, but in the end, thanks to the generosity of Sidley CC, they did get the chance to face a genuinely quick
bowler and begin to appreciate what real cricket would have been about if
they hadn’t ended up as a bunch of Sunday hackers. It was a good tour, well organized by James Hoskins,
who also laid on displays of aerial wizardry by the Red Arrows, and some
fantastic fireworks from the end of the pier. Special mention must go to Dan
Edwards, who drove down on the Sunday, failed to locate the team, and drove back
again after taking his dog for a walk on the beach. Dan never did
find the guys playing hit-about in the park…. The season was coming to an end, the rain had cleared,
and there were three games left to play. Two of them would be at Pembroke,
and they would be the last for The Mad
on that ground, which had been their home away from home since 2000. Pembroke
College had decided to reclaim their cricket pitch and use it instead as a
sunbaking strip for rich Japanese tourists. It was sad news, signalling the
end of a long and fruitful era for Jude
and Mad. Cholsey came to play,
and lost a game they probably should have won. After dismissing The Mad for 164, with Ian Howarth
scoring 66 and Mike Reeves 30, the visitors had the game well under wraps,
cruising at 92-2. But then the pie men struck. Dan Edwards, mixing up his
flans and quiches with some deliveries of genuine guile, took the key wickets
of Nash, Sargeant and Damirchi.
From the other end, Adie Fisher was unstoppable. His Pie Master’s master class
yielded another three wickets, and The
Mad won it by 16. Tetsworth, champions of the Oxford
Cricket Association’s 1st Division, then brought half their first
team for a nice relaxed Sunday game. Their bowlers knew the score and didn’t try too hard – and so The Mad made it to 165-8, with Mann (32) and Howarth (44)
combining in a rare opening partnership to break the Pembroke first wicket
record. This was Howarth in his usual good form, but these were rare runs for
Mann, who really had been batting like a dick. Still, when you’re
shoved way down the order to number eleven the whole time, what do you
expect? One of the differences between batting and bowling is that it’s no
trouble for a very good bowler to take some pace off and tone it down a
little for weaker opposition, and as long as there isn’t any hint of
condescension, it isn’t a problem. Batting isn’t
like that. It’s obvious to everyone in about three
seconds how good a batsman is, and nobody likes to be played down to. So,
unfortunately for The Mad, the Tetsworth batsmen played their natural
game. It was all over pretty fast. Wright hit 122
from about 50 balls before Adie Fisher had him stumped with a jam tart, and
there weren’t that many other runs to get. Tetsworth skipper Hylam Shallow, a
former 1st class player who was averaging over 100 in the OCA,
came in late to hit two boundaries from two balls, and that was it. Game
over. The second Mad record to fall
was buffet-related, with Matt Bullock conceding 38 runs from two overs of
marshmallows and meringues. The aforementioned Hylam Shallow showing T. P. W. Smith where
the bails are. The last game of 2007 saw The Mad welcomed by Astons
CC, who played on a pretty-as-a-picture village ground overlooked by the
country house of British tennis ace Tim Henman. It was a final victory for The Mad, sparked by a spell of bowling
from Ant Mann that yielded the unlikely figures of 8-6-2-3. He finished with
4-9 from 10. The moment he leapt gazelle-like in the field, rolling back the
years to take the one-handed catch to dismiss Gibson for 17, MOTM was as good
as his. Though of course it wasn’t as good as his
diving catch to dismiss Gary Cooper against The Bodleian at Pembroke in 2002. Confining Astons to 122 from 40 overs, The
Mad won by 4 wickets. In a season of success, there were many who were
successful. Six Mad batsmen –
Edwards, Parkinson, Hebbes, Reeves, Westmoreland and
Fisher – averaged in the 20s. In a return to form, Thornton Smith was among
the runs again with an average of 19.57. Not massive, but every side needs
the players who will regularly score in the 20s, 30s and 40s, to stay with
the ones who go on to get the big scores. In 2007, there were two such for The Mad – Gary Littlechild, who
averaged 42.83 with a top score of 94 not out, and Ian Howarth, who made 540
runs at 54.00. Howarth was a deserved Player of the Season for the second
time. Dave Shorten reached his peak against R T Harris with his colourful 29. John Harris averaged only 13, but made that crucial 48 against Cholsey. Richard Hadfield made a 35 against OUP, though Steve
Dobner had an off year with the bat, with a high of 24 not out and an average
under 10. He was better with the ball, taking 12 wickets at 16.42 with a best
of 3-29. Jake Hotson had the ability to hold up an end for as long the crowd
could stay awake. He scored 49 runs with a best of 13. Ant Mann topped the wicket tally with 18, and bowled
with an overall economy rate of 2.47, his best ever, but John Harris topped
the averages, taking 10 wickets in just 27 overs at 12.00 – a strike rate of
16.2 compared to Mann’s 29.3. Apart from when he had the yips, Martin
Westmoreland also had a good season with the ball, taking 11 wickets at 12.55
with his sliding away swingers. The luckless Steve Parkinson took 11 wickets
at 13.00 in only 7 games, while Dave Shorten started with a flourish but
faded towards the end, bagging 11 at 15.27. James Hoskins was occasionally
devastating, taking 13 wickets at 21.23. Nick Hebbes, Matt Bullock, Mike
Reeves (9 at 15.78), Dan Edwards and Adie Small all took wickets. Even beamer
expert Ian Howarth took 7. In fact there were 14 Mad
bowlers in 2007 who took 5 wickets or more, by far a record, and yet more
evidence, if any was needed, that everyone in the world is an all-rounder.
Thornton Smith pitched in to take 3. Mike Clarke pitched out, taking 1, at an
average of 54.00, though he did score 61 runs with the bat. A special mention
to Adie Fisher, who played in just 4 games, but took 7 often key wickets at
his usual stingy average of 9.43. Of the 193 wicket keepers used by the team, Gary
Littlechild was most consistent, taking 3 catches and making 4 stumpings with
the orange gloves on. Last game at Pembroke…. Going in an S shape from top right to bottom left: The Judge,
Blocker, Crash, Moo with Mini-moo, Spam, Warnie,
J-Mo, Woodboy, Titanick,
Flash, Billy Liar and Mr Small 2007 saw The Mad’s 10th year come to an end, and with
it came the losing of Pembroke. In 2008 the team plays at a new home ground,
Kidlington’s Stratfield Brake, for the first time in seven years. Who knows
what changes this will bring, but it’s hoped that whatever happens, the side
will stay together and build on what has gone before.
Whatever it was to whoever it was who was there at the time. And, as one of two players – the other being Matt
Bullock – who has been on hand to see it all, I can honestly say I’ve seen it
all – the wins, the losses, the tantrums and the tears, and the moments of
unbridled exaltation, that feeling you can only get when it comes off the bat
just right, when it sticks in the outstretched hand and stays there as you
tumble to the ground, when it flies between bat and pad and knocks middle
stump out of the ground. Nothing gives you this feeling except sport, getting
it right, be it in a stadium in front of 100,000 shouting fans, or else on a
quiet poplar-ringed pitch on a Sunday afternoon in front of three people and
a panting dog. And that feeling means nothing without your team
mates, there beside you to feel it with you. Boys, it’s been a privilege. ‘Blocker’
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