SJFCC vs St Albans CC
Away, Sunday July 24, 2016
by Matt King
Thirteen Lessons From the 2016 Phil Milton Match
St Albans CC: 149 for 9 from 35 overs, The mighty Fishers: 145 all out from 35 overs
- No captain can ever be taken seriously if he walks round all afternoon sipping from a bottle of his own urine
Michael Vaughan didn’t do it. Michael Atherton didn’t do it. Mike Brearley certainly didn’t do it. Ian Botham possibly did, but that’s another story.
- You can never wear too much suncream
Sandsy – take note. Jack’s (or was it Lewis’?) girlfriend – take note. No-one wants to depart after a long afternoon’s cricket with bright red shoulder-blades and strap marks all over their back from a skimpy top recently bought in Zara. Shocking isn’t it: none of us even knew they actually sold Sandy’s size in Zara. - Strictly one car park space per car, max one car per player
Parking spaces at Clarence Park on a Sunday are always at a premium. Still, at the rate Bungle and Dave Hospitalkins are acquiring injuries – and this game was no exception – at least by the time next year’s fixture comes around parking pressure will have been somewhat alleviated as both will surely have acquired their Blue Badges by then. - Always bring your family along to support you
Mine came – solely motivated by the lure of a free bouncy castle for the under 5s – and Watson’s came in order to see him clean bowled by a young lad who earlier in the afternoon been happily playing on the aforementioned bouncy castle. - Mocking professional cricketers’ bowling run-ups is poor form
Fishers fielded first and it will not have gone unnoticed amongst those who played in last year’s corresponding fixture that there was an uncanny resemblance between Golden Arm coming in off his long run and a fired up Devon Malcolm. Devon clearly knew he was no match for Valey and quite Fishers after only the one appearance. - Think hard before you explain why you didn’t catch the ball
As the first innings drew to a close and SACC edged towards a total of 149, one of the Jedwood brothers claimed that the reason he’d dropped a sitter off Bungle’s bowling was not because the ball smelled of wee after Bungle had taken a swig from his special bottle just before bowling, but because ‘the ball was moving too slowly’. Don’t worry, Jackis (or was it Lewack?) that will definitely not get mentioned every single time you play for Fishers. - Even the scorer knows if you have split loyalties
In the scorebook, against bowler number 7, it states ‘? Hazon’, thereby reflecting the questionable nature of being the winning captain of Fishers’ opponents one night and then a few short days later turning out for the mighty SJFCC. - You can’t accurately replicate the film Zulu on a cricket pitch
As Fishers started their innings with an opening partnership of Boughton and Boughton, with Boughton to come in at no.5, the scorer was heard to remark ‘Boughtons – there’s thousands of ‘em”. - ‘People just do nothing’
If you’ve not seen it, this is actually the title of a very well worth catching up on BBC mockumentary. Seriously. Other people doing nothing included Keith, who made his most notable contribution to Fishers for quite some considerable time by turning up late and just taking his eldest on the bouncy castle. If only we’d had someone else to clock up some game-changing dot balls in his absence. Oh, hang on… - Mel is enigmatic
As in, he’s sort of like the Enigma Code. It’s just that he has a code of his own: morse. With more dots than Cotton, com and polka put together, Mel B – “I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want – I wanna, I wanna, I wanna zig-a-zig run” – had a string of 20 (yes, for those of you reading in black and white, that’s twenty) dots after his name that spelled out ‘SHEESHH’ in morse. And, yes, that’s actually true; I did look it up and I worked it out! - Relativity is everything
Vaughan, having seen Mel take the bowling attack to task in reaching his duck, wanted a piece of the action and got his first ever runs, sorry ‘staggers’, for Fishers. Top stuff! Vaughan is due out of hospital around the end of October. - Every team needs a ringer
There’s was flown in 9,000 miles from Perth, Australia two days before the game and scored 53 not out and ours was local lad James McVey who bowled and batted really well – thanks, James. However, James, note the below. - No-one wants to read about great performances in match reports…
…which is why Tom only gets a passing mention as a foot-note here, despite bowling extremely well and nearly wining the game for Fishers, scoring 32 not out.
It was great afternoon’s cricket and was much enjoyed by all. Phil would have approve.
