Far From The MCC

~ Est. in 1998 ~

 

“Bollocks Inspector’s Report”

 

 

Sunday 30th August 2009

Result:  Lost by 99 Runs

Venue:  Holton

20 overs

R. T. Harris

175 - 5

J. Hoskins  3 - 27

FFTMCC

76 ao

S. Dobner  18

 

 

 

As a dour, sceptical world-weary inspector of all things bollocks, imagine my almost casual interest in a game of cricket played just down the road from me this weekend gone. It is a rare pleasure to combine the only two meaningful pursuits I find it worth gravitating from my sofa for; and sure, was I not disappointed in all this bollocks.

 

I was initially aghast to hear a game of cricket was being muted for the barren, inhospitable wastelands of Holton – especially given the fact the playing fields had long since been given up to footballing chavs and local dogs to have a shit on. But here were two Sunday teams contesting a 20 over match - on a narrow, thread-bare, artificial wicket which would not have looked out of place at Grange Hill. What utter bollocks.

 

The windswept ground had no boundary markers as such, and the players had to screw their eyesight to try and spot a worn line in the thickets of long grass and early autumnal leaves. And even if they did spot a line, the chances were it belonged to one of the football pitches that now owned the land. What farcical bollocks.

 

 

Hell is less depressing than Holton.

 

The teams contesting the day seemed about as enthusiastic as a fox crossing the A34 at peak-time rush hour. It was grey, it was wet, and the diagonal drizzle occasionally gave way to a withering blanket of rain which soaked into your hair and ran down the course of your back. I laughed as the bowling team’s attire quickly became discoloured by the sodden red ball, their kit suggesting they were butchers as opposed to cricketers. Haha – what absurd bollocks.

 

There was no tea to mention either – no lines of egg and mayonnaise sandwiches at half-time, no cakes baked by the mother of one of the players, and no clatter of cups and saucers. One of the teams was fasting due to Ramadan, and the other team couldn’t be arsed to sort their own food out. So they both just sat there sipping Tesco Value orange juice out of plastic cups at the break, staring out from the dark, gloomy confines of one of the ground’s adjoining huts – a bleak reminder of what concentration camps looked like in WWII.

 

 

It goes without saying that the match was a pitiful and tedious affair. The team who had recently toured looked like they had left their soul in Lincolnshire when they closed the doors behind them – they batted like they were holding white sticks.

 

It was all bollocks, utter cricketing bollocks. So I left the place, a smile etched across my face until Monday.

 

 

‘Bollocks Inspector’

 

 

 

 

 

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