A heady night hosted by surprise guest, Susan ‘Sue’ Barker resulted in a closely battled round of Question of Sport and a few trophies for stuff done on the cricket field in 2013. Match report follows: (pictures also inside this post)
A change of venue and culinary style saw the SJFCC head to the Chilli bar and kitchen on London road for the 2013 end of season dinner, ably organised by Jules and our grateful thanks to him.
Predicting a deterioration of behaviour the proprietors had arranged a ‘function room’ for the prize-giving part of the evening, which on closer inspection proved to be a space in which Hitler would have felt comfortable in his final days.
The security of the room was not in question however. Having deposited his work Laptop in there at the start of the evening and noticing it was located next to the toilets and therefore susceptible to trespass, Captain Virji sought assurances from the staff that the room could be locked while we ate. ‘Oh yes’ came the reply, ‘we have a code for the lock’. Confidently locking the door Anil remembered He’d left something else in there (his wallet I should imagine) and requested the code from said staff. It transpired that whilst the waiter knew there was a code, he didn’t actually know what it was. Nor did anybody else in the building and despite the efforts of the ‘Locksmith’ they bought in who hopelessly punched in random numbers and swore at it, it was eventually South Africa’s answer to Alan Turing who broke the code with his right shoulder.
18 Fishermen and women shared 19 excellent meals (Nigel apparently wasn’t hungry) before adjourning to Der Bunker for the prize-giving. Nursey hurried through his speech to accommodate the scheduled arrival of our celebrity guest speaker, an acceleration which pissed him off twice; once for making him rush, and twice for booking a celebrity with a higher profile than himself.
Brevity was made doubly possible by the absence of half the prize-winners and even those that turned up to be awarded their prizes were then relieved of them at the end of the evening because the trophy engraver had got so smashed on a trip to Amsterdam that he was unable to complete the work . I’ve heard some excuses for late delivery of work in my time; this was the first I have accepted. Respect.
As a club we are indebted to Mrs Marriott for using her connections to bring some classy celebrity presence to proceedings and Sue Barker hosted a highly inclusive ‘Question of Sport’ quiz with élan, professionalism, worrying amounts of greying facial hair and spray tan. Next year we have booked Steffi Graf and her moustache.
The evening’s winners (and some will only know from this email!) were as follows:
Captains Trophy: Dave Boxer
Players Player: Dave Boxer
Ducks Award: Chris Ramsey
Clubman of the Year: Matt King
Phil Milton Award: Andy Reeves / Ollie Bayley / Chris Ramsey.
Reevo and Ramsey, your bottles of disgusting South African sparkling filth, masquerading as Champagne, await collection.
