Saturday 29th July 2000
Saturday 22nd July 2000
Saturday 15th July 2000
Saturday 8th July 2000
Saturday 1st July 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 29th July 2000

Report by: Alan Barnard

Welcome to another weeks comment section. I'm going to make this fairly short, as I am writing on Friday, and have forgotten much of what happened in the previous weekends games. In general, it was a good weekend for the club, but the second team let things down slightly, despite having a very strong side out.

Starting with the first XI, away to Harrow St. Mary's (everyone's favourite park), there were scenes of early morning carnage with a few members of the team (who will remain anonymous) nursing post-hog roast hangovers. In fact I was pretty impressed at only having to throw up once on the way to Harrow, and fair play to Kate (Rochie's Bird) who put up with my hungover antics whilst driving to the ground.

I was relegated to number seven in the batting order, in part because of a lack of Saturday runs of late, but mainly because I couldn't see, and was just as likely to throw up over their opening bowler as I was to hit him for four. Despite losing the early wickets of Jason 'what's defence?' Bilimoria and Tony 'In Form' Willett, we set about scoring runs at a rapid pace. Mention must of course go to Adam 'Pants' Herron, who made it 195 runs without being out in the last two Saturday games with a superb ton.

He was backed up excellently by Simon 'No Bat' Roche who played one of the best innings I've seen from him, seeing off their (only good) opening bowler then dispatching the rest to all parts of the ground. A few hours later, and we had declared on 253-4 after some excellent running from Lexton 'Linford' Harrison and some great batting from Adam Herron.

Despite two early wickets, both Caught & Bowled by Streety and Rochy, Harrow set about the task of batting for the draw very well. Tony Wright, one of the better batsmen around looked comfortable, and with less than ten overs to go, and only two wickets down, they looked to have done enough. Despite an excellent spell from Tony 'Catching Practice' Willett and another late burst from Neil Roche, we couldn't take the final three wickets, and they finished on seven wickets down.

The second team really don't deserve a mention, except to say that they were looking good before the break for Jim Cordell's minute silence, and then they collapsed to 74 all out - shocking. Perhaps the only good point that can be taken from the game was the fact that excellent under-17 Tom Miller played his first game of the season - and hopefully will be playing for our seniors next year.

The third team won on a very dubious pitch away to North London thanks to Bill 'Old Bill' Bilimoria taking 6 wickets. Calypso Ray Bullen played his part in smashing off the runs with a quickfire 46. The fours drew, despite coming very close, and an unbeaten 70 for debutant David Hinigan deserves a mention. I netted with David the previous Tuesday and realised that he could play a bit (he smashed everything) and also realised that he was better than a fourth team player. On the Friday before the game Gav 'Minismith' Mardell and I had a bet with Andy 'Negative' Cooper that David would get more than thirty. Alice, being the eternal optimist took up the bet - all I can say is that I want my quid Cooper, there's no use denying it, I won it fair and square, etc etc...

Lastly, it has been reported that on Friday night, two very suspicious looking characters were seen accosting members of the public around the Leicester Square area of central London. Very few details are currently available, except that one of them had obscene sideburns and the other may have had a few pints of beer to drink. Eyewitnesses claim that a third person known to the other two simply as Geoff was also seen, but there is little evidence to back this up. We await developments.

On a final note, before I sign off, can someone please try to find some pictures of people / objects that look like members of the club as I need to extend the gallery. Also, if anyone has access to a digital camera please let me know. We need some real player / team photos to stick on the site also. Right, see you next week, Cheers - Alan

Saturday 22nd July 2000

Report by: Alan Barnard

Welcome once again to this weeks comment section. This weeks section takes on a slightly different format to past weeks for the simple reason that both the first team and the second team won!! Even Streety can't remember the last time that this feat was achieved by the club, and the Saturday night after the game involved scenes of wild celebration - which I'll be coming to later…

To begin with, I'll look at the first team, who took the trip round to west London to play Division Two strugglers Turnham Green. Never an easy wicket to bat on, we collapsed to 24-4 with a combination of poor shot selection, poor umpiring and a poor pitch. At this point, normally (certainly on this seasons evidence) we would have folded to under 100 all out, but three batsmen in particular proved that we could perform in difficult circumstances.

Special mention must go to Adam 'Nice Pants' Herron, for his 92 not out. Without swelling his head too much, it really was a superb innings - one of the best I've seen at this level for quite a while. He was supported well by Paul 'How's yer Sister?' Fursse, who has had a difficult time with the bat lately, but grafted for over an hour to see off the opening bowler. Simon 'Gulley King' Roche came in and smashed a quick 40 in a 100 partnership with Adam, and before we knew it we were 204-6 in 55.

In reply we were sluggish to say the least, but John 'Quality' Street picked up a couple of wickets, and Neil 'Cock' Roche bowled well, but luck once again deserted him. Star of the show bowling wise was Lexton 'Coolio' Harrison, who bowled superbly. It's a shame that he bowls within himself so much of the time, but when he wants to turn it on he can. After being hit for a four, he turned to Neil Roche at mid off and said I'm getting him out this ball, and duly clean bowled the batsman (He repeated this feat later on, and once again told Neil beforehand)!

At one stage, we looked like losing, and time was against us in terms of bowling our last 38 in 2 and a half hours, so we could have lost and been fined 5 points. Once Bubble and Lex had removed the bulk of their batting, it was time to bring on Neil to bowl against their tail. He duly obliged and took two wickets in two balls as the field surrounded the batsmen. There were wild celebrations as we claimed our first win for a quite a while. More amusing, though was Turnham Green's opening bat attacking the shower after the game when it would not turn on properly. Never mind boys, at least you had towels this time…

The second team had the odds stacked against them at home to Turnham Green, who were top of the table by some 40 points, and without their captain Paul 'Cookie Monster' Cooke - who had been drafted into the first team. In fact the Two's were very weak, but credit must go to the bowling, especially Archie 'Flying Scotsman' McArthur and Dave 'Fantasy' Baker, who proved more than able to cut the mustard in the two's. Mention also to Gav Mardell, who I know is an avid reader of these pages - perhaps you can play cricket a bit after all mate!

Regrettably the thirds and fourths could not repeat the success of the higher teams, the thirds hanging on for a draw and the fourths losing. However, this did not spoil our enjoyment and the club was a happy place to be after a few beers had been consumed. Without going into too much detail about the following events (for reasons that I'm sure you're all well aware of) all I can say is:- where did you sleep in Mr Fursse? whose pants were you wearing Mr Herron? whose chair were you sleeping in Mr Stockman? whose wall did you throw me over Mr Smith? And finally, whose breasts did we all see?

Sadly I don't remember much of the night, as I was so sh*tfaced, but the whole thing is a happy memory I can assure you. I seem to have lost about two hours of time, where I managed to cut my hand open, get thrown over a wall and get beaten up by the Grim Reaper a.k.a. Dave Smith. I woke up with a sore head, bruised ribs, a plaster on my finger and Adam Herron walking round my house wearing only a pair of my pants (which I'm informed had something of a tiny bulge in them at one point the night before!).

I'm also informed that Chris 'Peanuts' Stockman chose to sleep in the smallest chair in the living room, despite the sofa being free, and when awoken by Dave Smith and Adam Herron waving their arses in his face could only say 'Where's my cap?'!! - Strange. Regrettably I could not have a lie-in the next day as I had to organise a team to play Birkbeck College in the Sunday league, but it was interesting to see a few of our team the next day - if you get my drift…

Despite losing on Sunday, there were a few amusing moments, notably Kev Lawrence's comment of 'My Wife goes better than your bat - batsman' and Pat Carr's threats to get in touch with the race relations board after we only got water for our drinks when they had orange. Funniest of all was Dave Smith making a call for a run - for an overthrow that the batsmen had not noticed - from the boundary. I've never heard yes shouted so loudly, in fact there were a spate of run-outs in the West London area as batsmen instinctively responded to Dave's call by going for quick singles that weren't there.

In the fantasy league, 'Calypso' Ray Bullen smashed a hundred to catapult a few people up the table, while those people with Adam Herron and Lexton Harrison also had a good day (Adam took a stumping in addition to his 92*). After all the changes in the transfer window were taken in, the most removed played was Dave 'Reaper' Smith, as people looked to removed the minus eight points superstar. Smithy dropped a catch on Sunday, missing it with his hands, and having it thud into his chest at pace. The noise that this made brought smiles to the whole teams faces in what was an otherwise dour game.

Right, read this column next week for all the Barbeque related gossip and stuff.

Saturday 15th July 2000

Report by: Alan Barnard

Welcome again to this weeks comment, it is clear that some people are reading this page, as I've had a couple of email and comments asking when the latest edition is coming out. Well guys the answer is now! This weeks games however are hardly worth commenting on, played four, lost three drawn one, but there were a few incidents worth mentioning, and a few remarks about Dave Smith worth including.

Starting with the first team, at home to Calthorpe on a tricky pitch, we struggled to really find any kind of momentum with our batting, collapsing from 80-1 to 155 all out. Only Stavros Elia and Chris Stockman offered any real resistance against one of the lesser bowling attacks of the league. Neil 'I can bat' Roche deserves a special mention after last weeks sterling defensive effort. Going in at number 11, he was give strict instructions to bat out the five remaining overs, but lasted all of three balls. Well-done Rochie!

From a fielding point of view we did considerably better, sticking to the task and encouraging the bowlers right up until the end of the match. Rico Lewis and Stavros Elia were the pick of the bowlers, but they were ably supported by John Street who took two of the wickets and Neil Roche. Neil has to be one of the unluckiest bowlers around, and is surely due a few wickets soon. Micky Billson, a late call up after Adam Bilimoria dropped out took arguably catch of the season, springing athletically to his left to hang on well. Fair play to the fist team though, if we show that sort of application and commitment for the rest of the season, we won't lose too many games.

Moving onto the second team, Gavin Mardell and Dave Stevenson were the heroes, hanging on for a draw in similar fashion to the first team a week earlier. Gavin, who continually claims to be able to bat after retiring from a promising spin bowling career is starting to show worrying signs of turning into another Dave Smith. His continual comments of 'I'm Sh*t' and 'I used to be able to bowl spin' bear a worrying resemblance to our very own grim reaper. All he needs to do is start to drink for England, get a £100 a week gambling habit and grow comedy sideburns and he will be known as Mini-Smith.

Talking of Dave, eyewitness reports from a couple of reliable sources have informed me that whilst I was away in Portsmouth this week, there were some interesting Smith-related facial hair developments. Dave, not content with having ridiculous sideburns had, according to someone who wishes to remain anonymous grown a moustache by Thursday of last week. The anonymous source, who wishes only to be known as Niall Rooch, remarked 'That has to be the worst facial hair-don't I have ever seen'. Dave Smith will now be known as Freddie after Freddie Mercury.

Another point of note was Tim 'Free Willy' Beedens pissed up antics on the Friday night before the match. Tim, on his annual big night out tried to recreate the antics of Euan Blair in Leicester Square. Before ringing about ten people on his mobile at 3.30am, waking them up and pissing them off. Silliest of all was Kev Lawrence, who is about 8 stone bigger than Tim, and simply left a message on Tim's answer phone saying 'Beeden its 3.30am I'm going to kill you' Kev's wife was later heard to comment 'The phone was right next to the baby, if she'd woken up then I'd f*ck his other knee too'. Strong words, but in my opinion justified.

Tim was later seen in Neil 'Cock' Roche's spare bed, slipping into consciousness just long enough to demand 16 bacon sandwiches and a few pies to boot. Tim later fucked his knee after he was hit with pads on by a gentle medium pacer. What a poof.

This week, I had the pleasure of attending the Monday night selection meeting at the club. I thought it was going to be a dull affair, just pick you teams and get out, but in the end it was quite the opposite. Micky Smyth is a living legend - I've never known someone with such a high quality stream of anecdotes. I know that he usually speaks at the dinner, but he really could do it professionally, him and Tony Willett kept us all entertained for the meeting. One interesting situation that came out of the meeting was the news that Paul Cooke would play on Sunday if someone would look after his kids. At this point I was really struggling for bowlers on Sunday and Andy Cooper had already said that he was not picked for a game but would play. I came up with the solution of picking both 'Cookie' and 'Alice' for Sunday, Cookie as an all-rounder and Andy as a babysitter. I'm not sure that the committee would sanction this however, but we await developments, and with the likely number of cry-offs, it's possible that they could both be joining us on the trip to Birkbeck College.

In the fantasy league, the positions remain pretty much unchanged, but last week, I put together a fantasy dream team consisting of the team that returned the most points for £125 halfway through the season it was as follows:

Right, that's about it for this week, see you all next week for another episode, Cheers - Alan

Saturday 8th July 2000

Report by: Alan Barnard

Welcome once again to another weekly comment section. Unfortunately this weekends games did not go too well. The Second XI lost heavily away from home and the firsts hung on bravely for a draw. The thirds played the fourths for the second time in as many weeks - though this time in a friendly, the match ending in a draw. Arguably the highlight of the weekend was Dave Sans's batting in the 3rds v 4ths match. Dave scored 11, including some hefty blows in an entertaining innings for all those watching.

The first team match at home to second bottom Polytechnic was disappointing, in many ways, but ultimately some resolute low order resistance from three Edmonton players proved enough to hold out for a draw in the face of some hostile bowling. After Poly had amassed 256 in 55 overs (Stavros Elia the pick of the bowlers) Edmonton were two down in three balls - stand in skipper Tim Beeden recording a platinum duck for a mistimed stroke to leg. Despite some solid batting from Chris Stockman, who looked comfortable and could, in my opinion, easily become a first team regular, Edmonton we faced with a mountain to climb to save the game with 8 wickets down and 25 overs still to play.

Special mention must go to John Street, who held up an end for nearly all of this time, but he was ably supported first by Rico Lewis, and then by Neil Roche. Neil, who is not normally recognised for his batting prowess has been claiming for some time that he is in fact, able to bat a bit. Having seen him dismissed in the nets on numerous occasions by Dave Smith, nobody really took him seriously until yesterday. Faced with Poly's rapid opening bowled we all feared the worst, I was umpiring at the time and when the ball was dug in short of a length with extra pace my heart was in my mouth, but Neil, unfazed rocked onto the back foot and struck it sweetly through point. The bowler was unimpressed, but Edmonton rode their luck to hang on for a vital 5 extra points.

Since Dave Smith has been away on a stag weekend, the main recipiant of our p*ss taking has been lost. Dave will be sorely missed, and we all await his return next weekend so that we can continue with our regular abuse. The first teams lucky pigeon sadly failed to appear this weekend, so Stavros "Bubble" Elia took the step of providing each member of the team with their own 'lucky bird'. Having found a copy of FHM, Stav proceeded to tear pictures of scantily clad women out and display them in the changing room next to each player. Sadly judging from our performance, this proved to be more of a distraction than an aid. Tim "Free Willy" Beeden, however was particularly pleased with his photo - it was of a horse - he was seen staring lovingly into it's eyes just before going out to bat, and actually took the picture home with him after the game. Hmmm.

Sunday's games were all washed out, but it was nice to see a couple of colts in the first team (Alex Vickers and Carl Steward) - it's players like this who can really improve the club if they stick around. It would be nice to see more of the current crop of under 17's playing senior cricket, some of whom are quite easily capable of playing for the first team on a Saturday.

Switching my attention to the Fantasy league briefly, those people with Anan Rooban, Peter Pate or Paul Bellis in their teams got points, whilst those without them didn't! Phil Langdell remains top by some 15 points, but the league is still far from over, especially with the transfer window coming up over the next week. Just a reminder that those people who have either not received a transfer form or who have not yet got their completed form in that the deadline is next Saturday before the start of the games.

On a final note, I am still looking for more contributors for the website. It's not easy to come up with all this stuff every week - especially when the main source of entertainment - Smith - is away. Right, I'm sure I'll see most of you next weekend, where hopefully we might have a few good results. Cheers - Al.

Saturday 1st July 2000

Report by: Alan Barnard

Welcome back to the new Comment section of the website. I've decided to split this off from the Fantasy League section, as it was becoming more of a general feature about the club rather than being specifically focused on the fantasy league. Now that I've returned from holiday, I should be able to update this section on a weekly basis. This week's section is slightly longer than usual, as I've tried to cover as much of the past three weeks as possible. A big thank you to Tim Beeden for passing on vital information and anecdotes from the few weeks I've missed. Also, a quick word to Alan Porter & Gav Mardell - stop moaning on about the website not being updated quickly enough - if you've got enough time to check it regularly, you've got enough time to write a few articles for the site, so that it is updated more frequently.

Whilst I've been away, there have been some indifferent performances, starting with the first team against N.P.L. This was not your usual game of 11 vs. 11, as N.P.L. had two India 'A' players. In fact the game was more like 2 vs 10 - as we had Smith in the team. Anyway, India 'A' player No. 1 was the star performer scoring 188 not out. He was also their best pace bowler and their best spinner by some distance. There is obviously some money changing hands here. I wonder how they'd like it if we took the field with the likes of Gough, Caddick and Atherton? Surely it is defeating the object of the game when one team is so heavily reliant on one player, whilst the others are there just to make up the numbers.

In the last couple of weeks, both the third team and the fourth team have played Southgate in the 1987 Saturday league. The third team was embarrassingly bowled out for 23, not the most convincing performance. However, when the forth XI played the same Southgate team, a certain James Arrowsmith scored 29 on his own which makes the 3rd XI's score even more difficult to understand. Now does this mean that Jim is better than the sum of the whole third teams batting? Jim, not renowned for his prowess with the bat has now left Liverpool Uni - perhaps he's spending less time stealing motors and more time netting.

This is not the only incident concerning the thirds in the past few weeks, when they played Winchmore Hill recently; their bowling ability was brought into question. Edmonton batted first and posted a reasonable total of 138. Winchmore Hill passed this total for 0, with a couple of Youngsters opening the batting. Disappointing you might say, but a closer inspection of the scorebook shows that they only too 13 overs to score the runs. As you can imagine, there were some pretty horrific Edmonton bowling figures, but special mention must go to Dave Baker, whose two overs went for 42!

Returning to the previous weekends fixtures, rain was the key factor in the second game of the season between the thirds and the fourths in the 1987 league. The second team, however were unluckier - the managed to get a very strong team out against Old Lyonians, and restricted them to 180 on a reasonable batting wicket. When the rain came, it was only Edmonton's excellent facilities (Covers, well-prepared wicket and good outfield) that allowed the game to continue. A batting collapse followed, and despite Daz Sivathasan's late resistance with a big hitting quickfire 50, we still lost by nearly 40 runs.

The first team was not so lucky playing away to a weak Old Lyonians first team. We reached 167-6, with Jason Bilimoria top scoring with 51 when it began to rain. On a normal wicket a short shower would not have been a problem, but on this occasion, the wicket was nearly underwater within five minutes. It was a joke, but an expensive one, as it cost us a probable 20 points against one of the division's big strugglers. In fact the wicket was, in place, just mud, onto which someone had sprinkled grass cutting to make it look like a proper track. Facilities like this should not be acceptable at this level of cricket, especially when compared to our own.

One of the only things to come out of Saturday's game was the emergence of a new mascot - the first XI's very own Lucky Pigeon. The aforementioned bird stayed with us while we were batting, and was on the point of being used as a sub fielder after Tony Willett injured his back. In fact it was a straight choice between Chris Barnard - the scorer and the pigeon. The pigeon was chosen due to its superior mobility and ability to stop even the highest of balls - Tony's refusal to score for the second innings was also a key factor. On the return journey to the club, he was laying in the back of Stavros 'Bubble' Elia's car in some discomfort, with Stav flying over speed humps at well over 30mph - painful!

After two particularly poor scores for the weekend, Dave Smith has officially retired. When pressed for comment his simply said 'I'm sh*t' and purchased another pint. Dave's retirement has not come as any surprise to those who know him well and have been following his career; in fact he usually retires about this time each season after a string of poor scores and dropped catches. Dave will inevitably be playing in the next game and will no doubt score very few runs. The boy is a flawed genius - looking comfortable in the nets against good bowling and catching everything in practice only to fail in the middle. A bit of confidence and a good score and he will be scoring 100's again.

Moving briefly on to our fantasy league coverage, the league has been continuing apace in the past few weeks with some excellent performances. Phil Langdell remains in top spot with his Wankers, closely followed by Rusty Beeden, Alan Porter, Roger Sans and Myself. In fact I would probably be top if I hadn't made the mistake of picking Dave Smith. At the other end of the table, Chris Barnard remains firmly rooted to the bottom, whilst Dave Smith has moved out of the bottom three, being replaced by Dave Sans's team. On the points scoring fromt, Dave Baker leads the way with 32 points, while Tony Speller moves into in second place with some solid batting and bowling on 28. Anan Rooban, John Kenway & John 'Quality' Street are joint third with 24 points apiece. Kenways 24 points are a real surprise to many who picked him to make up the numbers. John has shown real 'Northern Grit' in the past few weeks to return some excellent bowling figures.

This brings to an end the comments section for another week. Remember to log in next week for the next update. Also, remember to send in your contributions to this section to edmontoncc@talk21.com. Also, should to wish to join our mailing list (Gav Mardell & Alan Porter) you can by sending an email to our usual email address with the subject 'mailing list'. This will allow me to send you mails when the site has been updated, or with any relevant club / website / fantasy league news.