Saturday 26th August 2000
Saturday 19th August 2000
Saturday 12th August 2000
Saturday 5th August 2000

Any views expressed in these reports are the views of the author, and may not necessarily reflect the views of Edmonton Cricket Club, its committee or its members. If you find anything offensive or inaccurate in the content of these reports, or if you have any queries reagrding the reports, please contact us via email, stating the report you're referring to and the date so that we can take any action deemed necessary.

Saturday 26th August 2000

Report by: Alan Barnard

Welcome to the penultimate comment section this season in a week in which the Second team gained a creditable draw, the First team made a huge effort to get 11 players to West Harrow only for the game to be called off, and 'Super' John Kenway inspired an excellent fourth team result - albeit a draw. In the other Saturday match, the third team were called off against Hanwell. This goes some way to show that covers do make a difference, as both of our home matches went the full distance.

Starting briefly with the first team, we assembled at the club at 11:15 with an under strength side many of whom were suffering with hangovers. It was noted that we had 12 people (including the scorer) to get to West Harrow in only two cars - clearly a problem. After much thought, Tony Speller, Tony Willett and I were dropped off at Tottenham Hale tube station to make the trek across London by rail.

Much to our surprise, the journey was very enjoyable, much more so than sitting in Saturday morning rush hour traffic in North London. We arrived at North Harrow with time to spare, and Tim 'Free Willy' Beeden duly picked us up. There were only a couple of incidents to report, firstly at Tottenham Hale Tony Speller and I attempted to but our ticket from the machine, but there was a mad woman of about 30 in front of us trying to buy a ticket to Highbury.

Her first four attempts involved her selecting Highgate as her destination, and when she finally did get the right destination, she realised that she had selected a return instead of a single. In her defence, she smelt quite strongly of alcohol and was clearly hammered from the night before. I duly selected her ticket, and paid in her fiver (which she also had about 10 attempts at doing), then the bloody machine stopped giving change and we had to queue up at the window.

The second incident involved Tony 'Dalton Grant' Willett's travelcard, which would not let him through the barrier at North Harrow as it only permitted travel in zones 123 & 4. Tony opted to perform a rather neat Fosbury-flop over the barrier without being detected and we made our way outside into the worsening drizzle to be picked up by the big man. Once at the ground it was obvious that the game wasn't going to be on, it was a park, but could easily have been a scene out of the classic Hitchcock film 'The Birds' - there were absolutely millions of them!

On closer inspection of the wicket, I can highlight the following faults: 1 - one of the stumps was about an inch shorter than the other two at the pavilion end. 2 - The groundsman had obviously used a paint roller rather than a paintbrush to mark the crease, as half of the wicket was white. 3 - One of the run-ups was underwater. 4 - there was a paving slab covering a huge hole at short cover. To illustrate just how dangerous this could have been, Simon 'Slimfast' Roche nearly disappeared down it after walking on it - now that would have been something to write about.

By this stage the drizzle had worsened and the umpire had decided to walk out to the middle and mark out his run up!?!?! Amid calls of 'it's raining umpire', 'can we go home?', 'no-ball' and 'what the f**k are you doing umpire, you stupid c**t?' he stayed out there for nearly 10 minutes as the conditions worsened. He then had the balls to call off the match and charge us £30 for the privilege. W*nker. After convincing Paul 'Married-man' Fursse to drive us back to the club we expected to spend the afternoon getting pissed and watching the second XI lose - this was sadly not to be as the 2's were a man short and I foolishly volunteered to play.

When I came on the pitch Birkbeck College were 54-4, and about an hour later they were 210-4 bugger. After declaring on 255-6 we set about knocking off the runs. A few people chipped in, but the start was Paul Cooke who top scored with 88. Sadly we could only manage 210-9 in reply, but at least we secured our full batting points against a strong looking Birkbeck side.

The fourth team were inspired by John 'Hull is Great' Kenway, who score 87* and took a wicket. North London never looked like getting near our total, but we couldn't quite dismiss their remaining two batsmen, despite some brisk paced deliveries from John 'Top all-rounder' Kenway. Two games, two draws, and it could have been worse on a day when most games across Middlesex were called off due to the weather.

Moving onto the fantasy league, those people who had John Kenway, Archie McArthur or Paul Cooke in their sides did well, while others didn't. Carl Langdells dodgy late submission - 'The Ragers' top the table, closely followed by Adam 'Sex God' Herron's 'Blood Sweat & Beers'. Not that it matters who wins, as Smithy has the money, and you're more likely to see the Fourth team winning this decade than you are seeing Smith hand over £100 in prize money!

On a final note, I've had a lot of people coming up to me about Dave Smith's letter to the website - 'The Ageing Edmonton CC'. I've had some comments about why Dave has the right to say some of the things that he has said. In his defence, I have since published an addendum to the letter from Dave, which takes back some of the points that he has made and views the committee in a slightly better light.

All I can say to those people who are criticising Dave for writing the letter and myself for publishing it is that I believe in the right of freedom of expression. If anyone has an opinion on something - no matter how controversial, they should be able to air their views - so long as they're not abusive or directly insulting to anyone. I will be happy to publish anyone's response to the letter, or anything on any subject relevant to the club, so instead of moaning at Dave, put the record straight and pen your own letter to the website. See you next week for the last comment section of the season - Alan.

Saturday 19th August 2000

Report by: Alan Barnard

Welcome to yet another weeks comment section in a week where the First XI should have won but fell at the final hurdle, the Second XI lost (no surprises there) and Adam Herron and Matty Worton have inexplicably become financially worse off. I'm going to keep it fairly brief this week, as there's really not much to say. The season is coming to an end, the Premiership has started and none of our teams are doing particularly well.

The first team almost recorded the quickest victory in their history since at 1.55pm the 1.00pm-scheduled game had not started due to a lack of opposition. NPL, who had travelled half way round London to play eventually turned up, and the game was duly started. I can sympathise with them however, as we always struggle to get to them on time as the Saturday morning traffic is shocking.

Anyway, it was another case of a one-man team, as their 9 men (10 including Dalek) managed to post a score of 192-9 with their opener scoring 90. Fuck up of the day has to go to Tim 'Free Willy' Beeden who failed to run out their only batsman on about 50 claiming that he forgot to let go of the ball when he threw it. Cheers Tim, that's cost us 30 points.

We began the runs chase slowly, but Adam '60 quid' Herron and I set about taking quick singles and picking off the boundaries to sway the game our way. NPL had almost given up on the game when we were both dismissed within a few overs. Wicket after wicket fell and Neil 'Lightweight' Roche and Matty '60 quid' Worton hung on for the draw as we reached 165-9. Pants.

I don't know anything about the second team except for the fact that they are going down almost as quick as Enfield 2nds. Mind you, we might stay up as people could be promoted to the county league and our ground is far better than anything else in the division. I reckon we should just shove all the 1st team in the 2nd team so that they can win a few games - mind you, we'd probably lose, and I'd love to see some of the 2nd teams batting facing Polytechnics opening bowlers.

Bizarre moment of the weekend was our Sunday 3rds (yes you heard correctly) playing in a high profile match against wait for it…. our Sunday 3rds When Enfield Owls failed to turn up, we had a five vs. five plus Alan Shepherd match in which Matt Wood bowled a series of double bouncers, David Sans looked good with the ball and Some new fella absolutely smashed the ball around to all parts of the ground. It was so entertaining to watch that our game on the first team square against Harrow Town nearly ground to a halt as all the players were watching this Cricketing spectacular.

The best moment was when the ball was fielded and the batsmen set off for a second, then decided against it. They easily re-made their ground, and then the fielder launched the ball into the non-striker with considerable venom and accuracy, nearly killing him - most entertaining. Harrow Town's players and our 1st teams fielders were absolutely pissing ourselves. Right, see you all next week - Al.

Saturday 12th August 2000

Report by: Alan Barnard

Welcome once more to another weeks comment section, in a week in which the First XI were beaten convincingly by league leaders Twickenham, the second XI got a good draw and the Third XI were inspired to a win over 1987 league rivals Southgate by Peter 'Mad Dog' Pate.

Starting, as usual with the first XI, it was always going to be a bad day when we saw the traffic on the North Circular at 11:30am. By 1.15pm we had four players plus a scorer at the ground, and were contemplating tossing up over the phone. However, there were no umpires to be seen either, so the start was delayed until 2.00pm.

Losing five early wickets (including myself to a golden duck) did not help the cause, and it could have been a whole lot more embarrassing had it not been for an excellent 58 from skipper Tony Willett and an equally impressive 29* from number 10 Matty 'Road Rage' Worton. However, our total of 116 was nowhere near to being adequate on what was a good batting wicket. Twickenham underlined this point by passing the total for one wicket, with Bruce Koch scoring 79 at number 3.

The only thing that I can take out of the game was my bowling performance, which surprised a few people, who thought that I'd get carted. Matt 'haircut' Worton also bowled well, as did the once again luckless Neil 'lightweight' Roche, whose leg cutters have been too good for even the best batsmen in the league to get touches on. All in all a pretty spineless batting performance, but that is not to take anything away from league leaders Twickenham who deserve to be so far clear at the top of the league.

Having not seen the second team book, I can't really write much of a report, except to say that Captain Paul Cooke score his first runs for a while, and that we got a good draw points-wise, which can only boost our chances of league survival. The Third Team, captained by Andy 'Can't lose' Cooper continued their excellent run of results, winning against Southgate in the 1987 league.

There was an incident involving Peter Pate and a Southgate player, which deserves a mention. Peter, who normally takes his time when batting was criticised for batting for his average and not being a team player by an opponent. Peter took exception to this and a row broke out. Most amusingly though was that Edmonton managed to chase Southgate's total of 242, with Peter almost managing to carry his bat. Game set and match to Edmonton on that one I feel.

Silly anecdote of the week must be that of Neil Roche and Matt Worton and their shopping spree at Twickenham on Saturday. The pair, who bat 11 and 10 respectively for the Saturday 1sts usually go off to find the local McDonalds to get some food for the team if we're batting first. On this occasion though, they were gone for quite some time, and wicket began to tumble with alarming regularity. They returned 45 minutes later, Neil having a huge bag of food, and Matty sporting a new haircut! Apparently Matt had seen a barber, sent Neil to get the food, and got a short back & sides - most amusing.

After all piling round to Adam 'Brains' Herron's house on Saturday night for our post-match piss up, there were a few interesting incidents. Matt Worton was found lying on Adam's next-door neighbours lawn in a fairly drunken state. It has to be said that Matt was quite pissed, as earlier on in the evening he had spent a substantial amount of time trying to explain the importance of a good outswinger to me - riveting stuff. Perhaps I'm in some kind of 'bowler's guild' after my five over stint vs. Twickenham.

Lastly though, Adam managed to 'lose' his Nike baseball cap at some stage during the evening thanks to Paul 'Billy Bunter' Ryan. Now to any normal person, this would not be a problem, but Adam's hat is an integral part of his body, and he is lost without it. Cast your minds back - can you remember any time you've seen him when he was not wearing his hat? Mind you, having seen the state of his hair the next day, is it any wonder that he always wears it? Tune in next week, etc, etc… Alan.

Saturday 5th August 2000

Report by: Alan Barnard

Welcome to another weeks comment section (now that's an original beginning). This week's games did not go especially well, with both the firsts and seconds and the fourths losing - the third team, however, managed to win their friendly against Highgate helping us to avoid four defeats out of four.

Starting as usual with the first team, our cause was not helped by Neil 'Lightweight' Roche crying off at 12:30 with a broken nail. Neil has been our premier fast bowler this season, so his loss was a blow, but it was our batting that let us down, rather than our bowling. After a slow start (Hanwell opened with two 'put it on the spot' bowlers) we collapsed to 142 all out after 50 overs - by no means a good total.

We bowled reasonably well, but without any luck at all (dropped catches and catches held off no-balls), but managed to take 5 of Hanwell's wickets as they eased past our total. This match is perhaps best forgotten, as we all let ourselves down - we should probably be focussing on next weeks match away to league leaders Twickenham rather than dwelling on this one too much.

The second team fared little better, despite having ex-first tem skipper Tim 'Free Willy' Beeden in the team as he was returning from injury. Tim top-scored with 37, but it was not enough to stop us from slipping to another league defeat - oh well, at least we're doing better than Enfield's two's!

The Thirds tasted rare success in a friendly cruising past Highgate's tricky total of 229 thanks to a fifty from Alan 'Hospital' Porter and some inspired play from skipper Andy 'Alice' Cooper. Cooper is hitting form at the moment, with runs on Sunday as well, so the five people who have him in their Fantasy League sides must be rubbing their hands together with expectation.

On a final note, as I'm keeping it brief this week, after Saturdays disappointment, myself, Si 'Loaded' Roche, Paul 'Animal' Fursse Adam 'Swearbox' Herron and Matt 'Road Rage' Worton went out for a few beers with Joe and Dave Smith to Celebrate Joes birthday. Now all I can say is Matt really does take his nickname seriously, he must have averaged about 60 miles an hour from Edmonton to Finchley, and that included two ten minute stops on the way. Even Furssey put his seatbelt on in the back (surely a first) and Matt spent the entire journey telling me how good the brakes were on his Volvo - just as well really!

Perhaps the funnies incident was the old bloke crossing the road as matt approached at light speed. Matty hooted his horn, and the bloke, who must have been about eighty, produced an amazing burst of pace to get out of the way - I've never seen anything like it. Apparently a scout for the British Olympic team spotted him, and he will be travelling to Sydney later in the year to compete in all the sprint events.

After much fussing about and visiting peoples houses so they could change, we arrived at Matty's house where we planned to getting a cab up to the Angel from. When we arrived, we found out that Matt has a Jacuzzi in his garden, and his mum makes the best sandwiches ever. Perhaps we should reconsider the venue for our first team night out later this year! Tune in next week for the comment section, where hopefully we will have slightly more success on the cricket front - Cheers Al.