Far From The MCC

~ Est. in 1998 ~

 

“Tackley Well Beaten,

Then Attacked By RAF!”

 

 

Sunday 9th July 2006

Result:  Won by 5 Wkts

Venue:  Pembroke College Sports Ground

35 overs

Tackley

102 ao

J. Hoskins  3 - 30,  S. Dobner  2 - 27

FFTMCC

103 - 5

N. Hebbes  32,  J. Hotson  18

 

 

 

When it rains, it pours. Well, that’s not strictly true. Often when it rains, it’s just pissy drizzle that makes everything damp and puts a sour expression on all the street faces that were never going to smile at you anyway. Although some days, have you noticed? Some days, the girls do just want to smile at you, rain or shine, so that you’re always looking back over your shoulder thinking, is she really? Is she really smiling at me? At me? Then, next day, when for some reason the girls aren’t smiling any more, then you’re trying too hard, expecting too much, thinking that there’ll be smiles aplenty, and there are none. That’s the way of it with smiles and girls. Don’t ask me why. If I knew, I’d bottle it and sell it down the pub to all those drunk guys who hang round musing over their lost youths, still wishing for smiles like everyone always does. Although, how much would I get from all those drunk guys? Not much, I guess, they spend all their money on booze.

 

 

Chris Tavare (helmet) and Geoff Boycott (right) open up for the Mad.

 

But for Tackley, there was rain, and then it did pour, a big bucket of precipitate right on their heads. It began, though, sunny and clear for the visitors, a team the Mad had never played before. Tackley were tracked down through the old Marlborough House fixture list, just about all that’s left now of the Marlborough, except for a few fading memories and a couple of cracked and battered cricket bats lying forgotten in the back of someone’s shed. Coxy, Big Duke, John, Omar, Pinky, Buck, Mr Snuggles, whatever happened to those guys? And what about Reevsie and Dan? Does anybody know?

 

Losing the toss, the Mad were put in to the field, and soon Tackley had stuttering into life, surviving the early scares as A. Mann (8-2-29-2) found the edge numerous times and S. Parkinson (5-1-5-0) bowled straight and true. But S. Dobner (8-0-27-2) had brought his bowling boots again and made the breakthrough, with a stoical P. Merry stumped for 15 by a sharp G. Littlechild in scary orange behind the stumps. Convivial P. Northwood played a skipper’s knock, but once he had gone clean bowled by J. Hoskins, the Tackley order crumbled away in short order, and Northwood’s 51 turned out to be half their score. Hoskins (8-2-30-3) conjured with the opposition, he made it look easy, there was that light in his eye, the glint come back, the spark reignited, etc etc, and while he was bowling every ball looked a wicket.

 

 

Morlers (centre) sets the pace on the boundary.

 

Mann came back on late to bag two, one of them a fine second stumping for Littlechild standing up despite his horrific thumb injury. And D. Edwards confused even himself with his stuttering backwards jerk-then-fire from the crease, head dipping like a crane to drink, bamboozling two more before skipper I. Howarth joined the party at the death, almost decapitating Lankshear prior to bowling him for 17 in the rearguard.

 

N. Hebbes and J. Hotson started the Mad’s reply, then continued it well into the following Wednesday, or so it seemed at times among those watching with blood oozing out from their eyes behind the boundary rope. When Hebbes finally did go, he had long hair and a beard and 32 well-crafted runs. Hotson went next for a methodical 18 (long hair, stubble), then A. Morley for his customary head-in-the-clouds duck (short hair, can of Extra-Strength). At which point A. Mann (14, shaggy hair, not much up top) smacked it round for fun for the usual half dozen balls before holing out in pure exhaustion to some flipping gazelle running in from the long on fence.

 

 

S. Dobner (14*) escorts the beaten Tackley team from the field.

 

S. Parkinson looked set to get at least some runs this time against a moderate attack, and had in fact tallied 6, when N. Hebbes officiating sent him packing back to the Big Tree leg before wicket. Parkinson threw his bat in disgust so far that people are still looking for it, although there are those who say that, when he did throw it, it reached as far as the Hinksey Stream, whereupon a hand rose up from the murky depths and caught the bat, and drew it down into the blackness below. Others there are who say that this is a load of old cobblers, and yet others, that this kind of nonsense has appeared in previous reports, and for Christ’s sake think of something new. It was left, as it often is, to D. Edwards (8 n.o.) and as it often isn’t, to S. Dobner (14 n.o.) to polish off the runs and see the Mad to a second straight win, of necessity their first against Tackley.

 

* * *

 

   

 

Tackley experienced it’s own 7/9.

 

Five days later, a Harrier GR9 from RAF Cottesmore in Rutland crashed onto the A4260 near Sturdy’s Castle Pub, Tackley, in peak hour traffic. Rain rain rain. But nobody was hurt. What are the chances?

 

 

‘Blocker’

 

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

MOTM:  J. Hoskin’s for his return to form bowling

Champagne Moment:  D. Edward’s smart catch at fine leg

Buffet Award:  I. Howarth’s vegemite sandwiches

 

Hat Lore: Some hats are too small - either that, or some heads are too big.

 

 

 

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