|
Year
|
Month
|
Day
|
Speaker
|
|
Topic
|
|
2019
|
Oct |
10th
|
Members & Chris Finch
|
|
30 members attended the first meeting of the new season. We commenced
with a minute's silence in memory of members Ken Budd & Kit Bartlett, Brian Evan’s
wife Betty and a speaker from only last February, Malcolm Nash. So after a solemn
start, we then dissected the Society’s figures for the year ending August 31st. We
made a very small surplus for the year.
Chris Finch then led us through a comprehensive review of the 2019 season. We started
on the international stage with England’s World Cup win and the ultimately unsuccessful
attempt to regain the Ashes. Ben Stokes and Steve Smith were two who cropped up in
the conversation, with Chris commentating on their mental toughness. We generally
lamented the lack of quality batting on either side, excluding those two. A quick
toilet break could often involve missing two or three wickets! On the county scene,
Chris’s team of the year was not Kent! Essex, who lost only one Championship
game all season, came out top of his pile and he couldn’t bend the statistics to
prove otherwise! Kyle Abbott got a mention for his outstanding 17 wickets in the
penultimate match of the season, as did Darren Stevens whose late season form with
bat and ball led Kent into a U-turn and a new contract for next season. Apparently
there were about 7 other counties interested if he had left Kent. Finally to
come back to the World Cup, Chris applauded the sporting way in which New Zealand
accepted their defeat in controversial circumstances and Chris pondered whether the
reaction would have been the same if the result had been the other way around. Anyway
many thanks to Chris and a fine start to the season. |
|
|
|
17th
|
Jimmy Adams
|
|
43 members came to hear Hampshire’s Jimmy Adams on his 9th visit to
the Society. It was the first time that he had been since becoming a coach rather
than a player. In fact he has had a very successful first season as his Hampshire
2nd XI team won the County 2nd XI Championship and also did well in the T20.
He revealed that he will be involved in coaching the local side Southern Brave in
The Hundred next season. Discussion of The Hundred competition was something that
would reoccur during the afternoon. He told us in some considerable detail about
some of the young players that he has been helping to develop, including Felix Organ
and Ian Holland who provided a successful opening partnership towards the back end
of the County season. Bowlers were also mentioned, including Kyle Abbott and his
amazing 17 wicket haul at the end of the season. There is a good chance that the
Australian spinner, Nathan Lyon, may be joining next season, along with someone to
produce spin-friendly pitches. Jimmy was asked what effect this might have for
Mason Crane and the other young spinners. He felt that they would benefit by not
having the pressure of being the number one spinner in the side. In 4 or 5 years
down the line they could take on the responsibility of being the primary spinner.
Jimmy did admit to being slightly bemused by the publicity for The Hundred, with
the website lacking some clarity, but he did say that he would be listening in on
Sunday night to find out who would be in the squad. There was general discussion
about the fact that next year there will be 4 different competitions running during
the season. He felt that the younger players who do not get into the franchise sides
will benefit from playing in the 50 over competition which will be running at the
same time. We are very grateful to Jimmy for taking the time to come and
see us again and we hope he will re-join us in the future. |
|
|
|
24th
|
Dennis Amiss
|
|
Dennis Amiss entertained 45 members and guests at this week’s meeting.
He started by relating how he ran Geoffrey Boycott out 30+ years ago and was still
enjoying the experience! What’s more Geoff was sat in the dressing room complaining
that Dennis was scoring all his runs! After this incident Dennis always had to walk
behind Geoffrey when they went out to bat. However Geoff is writing a forward for
Dennis’ book. Dennis was involved in the Packer Series cricket and the introduction
of helmets to the game. Unfortunately the first ones were motorcycle helmets,
very heavy, with full face polycarbonate visors and no air holes to let the
heat out and the sound in. After a number of run outs and a few batsmen nearly
fainting in the heat, it was decided that modifications were essential, so a peak
was added to the helmet and the metal grille replaced the polycarbonate, letting
air in.
Dennis is a keen golfer and instigated an annual match for the Professional Cricketers
Association Golf Society, with Richie Benaud, CMJ, Jack Bannister and Tony Lewis.
They would tee-off at 6 am to enable them to play and still be at the ground for
9.30 to enable them to prepare for commentary. Dennis and Ian Botham became
part of the competition later and this went on for 30 odd years, with Botham playing
nearly every year in the last 20. Dennis recalled the time that Ian bowled a ball
of soap after lunch in a county match between Somerset and Warwickshire, when he
was unimpressed to be asked to bowl straight after lunch following 8 overs before
lunch. The soap bounced, and Warwickshire batsman blasted the ‘ball’ into fragments.
Derek Randall had the habit of winding up the Australians by doffing his cap to them
and saying ‘morning Denis’, ‘morning Rodney’ when he came out to bat. His
England team mates were not so keen on that technique. Dennis batted with Derek in
the Centenary Test when Derek scored 174. A lengthy Q&A followed with members
posing loads of questions. Many thanks to Dennis for travelling to see
us. |
|
|
|
31st
|
Dave Houghton
|
|
Our guest on Thursday was Dave Houghton formerly coach at Derbyshire,
but now Head Of Cricket. However Dave is better known as the 1st Test Captain of
Zimbabwe. In a fascinating afternoon of questions and answers, ably led by Martyn
Levitt, with lots of the questions from the floor, we explored Dave’s career and
also quizzed him about modern concerns, such as The Hundred, particularly as Derbyshire is
not one of the venues for the competition and they have only two players who have
been drafted and then that’s for Welsh Fire. Dave also had forthright views on what
had happened to Zimbabwe cricket over the years since their admission to Test cricket.
He explained the financing by the ICC and lamented the fact that Zimbabwe had
twice been vetoed from Test cricket when they still had good players available
to them like Graeme Hick and that cost them eight years, so when they finally gained
admission they were considerably weaker than previously. Financially the Cricket
Board had gone from a surplus of $6m to being $20m in the red. For many years there
was no level of cricket between school/club and international cricket, there now
are four franchise teams at an intermediate level. The Cricket Board was recently
suspended and the ICC backed them, fortunately the impasse has now been resolved.
Dave played 22 Tests for Zimbabwe and also 6 ODI’s against England when he was
never on the losing side! Of his 22 Tests, 13 were against Pakistan, Waqar Younis,
Wasim Akram and all. During the afternoon, we covered a vast number of topics with
some very insightful answers. Many thanks to Dave. |
|
|
Nov |
7th
|
Michael Burns
|
|
Michael Burns returned for his third visit to the Society. He brought
with him another of his superbly crafted films, this time an in-depth look at the
MCC Tour of South Africa 1965-57. He had cleverly woven together contemporary amateur
and professional film with new interviews from the likes of Peter Richardson and
the South African captain CB van Rynefield. The times were certainly different back
then - a 14 day cruise by ship at the start of the tour, then 10 warm-up matches
before the first Test. The nature of the Test matches was pretty attritional with
extremely slow batting, on day 1 of one Test only 163 runs were scored. We heard
of players such as Doug Insole, Trevor Bailey, Brian Statham, Dennis Compton, Peter
May and Colin Cowdrey, Godfrey Evans and Frank Tyson, Johnny Wardle and Jim Laker.
The overall result of the tour was a 2-2 draw, with the Englishmen feeling hard done
by some of the on-field decisions, possibly a result of South Africa’s previous tour
of England. An hour and a half passed all too soon and the players were flying back
to the UK or cruising back if you were unmarried! A great afternoon’s entertainment,
many thanks Michael. |
|
|
|
14th
|
Vic Marks
|
|
Vic paid his third visit to the Society and once again gave us a wonderful
afternoon’s entertainment. A consummate broadcaster, he spoke at length
about his book which has recently been published, Original Spin, providing us with
several anecdotes from within. Of course he had the great pleasure to play
with the likes of Ian Botham, Viv Richards and Joel Garner and we heard of the good
times as well as the problems towards the end when Viv and Joel were deemed surplus
to requirements. Following an excellent talk, we then had a lengthy question and
answer session covering a wide variety of topics both from Vic’s playing days, but
also his broadcasting career, which he fell into out in India after one broadcaster
had returned home and another succumbed to the dreaded ‘Delhi Belly’. Peter
Baxter casually strolled into the England dressing room to see who might be interested.
It wouldn’t happen these days! Amongst the questions were some about his fellow commentators, particularly
the female ones. Vic was a man of great discretion. So another great afternoon
as we added another to our long list of international cricketers entertaining us. |
|
|
|
21st
|
Jeff Levick
|
|
Jeff has been a tireless worker in the amateur levels of cricket.
He came to talk about two of his specialities, disability cricket and umpiring. Jeff
is the Hampshire Disability Coordinator and he has been coaching disabled cricketers
for nearly 20 years. In fact he received the MBE for services to cricket about 6
years ago. We were perhaps nonplussed by his opening question of ‘whether it is acceptable
to use a disabled cricketer as the wicket’. By the end of the afternoon his reply
was ‘only if you would also use an abled-bodied one as a wicket as well’. He explained
that there were various types of teams catering for people with different types of
disability. For example a visually impaired team would have 4 players who were
completely blind and 7 who were visually impaired. Different types of disability
would not play against each other. Coaching entailed discovering what they were capable
of doing and then working to enable them to do it better. Jeff realised that his
coaching of able- bodied players could benefit from taking a similar approach. Jeff
then turned to umpiring, he is Chairman of the Hampshire Association of Cricket Officials.
They have 22 girls aged 14-18 as accredited umpires and have produced a video about
them to encourage more young officials, male and female to be recruited around the
country. A fascinating afternoon showed us the skill and dedication comes from these
volunteers, without whom our clubs could not exist. A very big thank you Jeff. |
|
|
|
28th
|
Oli Soames & Aneurin Donald
|
 
|
Over the years we have had several of the more established players
visit us, such as Jimmy Adams & James Tomlinson, along with many former players
like Trevor Jesty. So it was quite a change to have two up and coming young
professional cricketers visit us in Oli Soames and Aneurin Donald. The afternoon
consisted of a question and answer session and provided us with answers to a plethora
of questions. Both of them are batsmen, Oli an opener, while Aneurin is a middle-order
man. It was quickly apparent that they were quite different in personality and technique.
They had arrived into professional cricket by very different routes. Oli is a university
graduate from Loughborough and made his way through their team into the professional
ranks from club and school cricket. Aneurin, on the other hand comes from Wales and
the state school system. His route into cricket was via the local club side
and then through representative age cricket including the U-19 England side. He played
for Glamorgan in the County Championship at the age of 18. He was also invited to
tell us a little more about the record he set for the fastest double-century in the
County Championship which he achieved when scoring 234 against Derbyshire at Colwyn Bay,
which was also his maiden 1st Class century. This was a really interesting afternoon,
finding out about the life of the modern professional sportsman and was thoroughly
enjoyed by one of our largest attendances of the year with 47 members and guests.
Many thanks to Oli & Aneurin for visiting us. |
|
|
Dec |
5th
|
Paul Downton
|
|
A crowd of 54 members and guests gathered to hear our 4th former England
player of the season (all thanks to our speaker organisers). The meeting started
on a poignant note, as there was a minute’s silence in memory of Bob Willis,
one of Paul’s England colleagues. Paul’s early story was a reminder of the times
when cricket was not an all-year around profession for the vast majority of
players. Paul was a university student doing a law degree and playing occasionally
for Kent during the summer vacation. It was around the time when players who had
joined Kerry Parker’s World Cricket had been banned and so it was that with just
seven 1st class matches behind him, Paul was invited to join the MCC winter tour
to Pakistan and New Zealand. A frantic weekend of contact with university led to
an agreement that he could put his studies on hold and so Paul set off on the tour.
In Pakistan he made his debut in a ODI which England won by three wickets off the
last ball of a truncated 35 over match, one IT Botham scoring the winning runs batting
at number 7. At the end of the 1979 season the return to Kent of Alan Knott meant
that Paul departed to Middlesex to continue his career. Middlesex won the county
championship in his very first year and Paul, who described himself as a batsman
who stuck around, rather than a dashing stroke maker, moved up the order to
open the batting with Mike Brierley. Paul made his Test debut at Port of Spain
in the West Indies tour of 1981 and played a match saving innings in the final Test
in Jamaica along with David Gower, 154 n.o. The West Indies attack was rather daunting,
Malcolm Marshall, Michael Holding, Colin Croft, Joel Garner and IVA Richards!
Paul played in the 1st Test of the Ashes series in 1981, but was then replaced by
Bob Taylor. After Taylor’s retirement, Paul was recalled to the Test side and played
a total of 30 times for England. In 1990 Paul suffered a freak injury, when
a bail hit him in the eye and forced his sudden retirement in the summer of 1991.
During the winters he had been preparing for life after cricket and became a stockbroker
in the City of London. Fast forward to 2014 and Paul was appointed managing director
of the ECB. He was in post at the time of the decision to part company with Kevin
Pieterson, but this post lasted only 15 months. He is now the Director of Cricket
at Kent where he oversaw the side’s promotion to the 1st Division of the Championship
and the successful retention of their place last season. Once again we had a brilliant
afternoon’s entertainment, many thanks to Paul and to Chris for conducting the interview. |
|
|
|
12th
|
Members
|
|
This was our annual opportunity for members to contribute for “Just
5 Minutes” and I’m delighted to report that we had plenty of speakers willing to
contribute. As ever the range of topics was immense. We heard about the origins of
the Ashes Trophy, touring abroad as a Senior cricketer and we discovered the identity
of a mystery newspaper contributor from the 1940-50’s who turned out to be John Wellman’s
dad! Players from the past were remembered such as Barry Richards and individual
glories revisited as Derek Hopkins told us of the time that he and his brother took
5 wickets each, as they beat Pavilion Sports and Julian Shackleton recounted the
day he bowled a side out, taking all ten wickets for 38 runs. Many thanks to all
who contributed and apologies to those I haven’t mentioned individually in the above. |
|
|
19th
|
Members
|
|
35 members turned up for the annual Christmas Buffet and I would like
to thank everyone for their contributions to the spread. An air of mellow fruitfulness
descended as we ate a leisurely lunch and thanks once again to Mollie and her mum
Sue for all the sandwiches and general catering. Once we had had our fill, we settled
down to the film. This was a tribute to Malcolm Marshall first broadcast by Meridian
shortly after Malcolm’s death in November 1999. Unsurprisingly there were a number
of interviews with Hampshire players and coaches of the era. We heard from Gordon
Greenidge, Robin Smith, David Gower, Tim Tremlett, and of course captain Mark Nicholas,
while Desmond Haynes and a former teacher and Malcolm's wife Connie filled in some
of the Caribbean background. The old country ground in Southampton featured and we
were delighted to see a short passage of play from Dean Park. There was plenty of
footage of Malcolm causing havoc to England’s batting line up, with Mike Gatting’s
nose featuring prominently. Malcolm’s heroic batting at Headingley when he batted
one handed with a broken thumb, so that colleague Larry Gomes could complete a rare
century also featured. It was sad to see Malcolm’s decline in the last few months
as he passed away, aged 41, but it was also heartening to reflect on one of the finest
cricketers to ever play for Hampshire. |
| 2020 |
|
9th
|
Members
|
|
The New Year started with another successful lunch at the Mayfair
Hotel. Around 70 members, partners and friends gathered at the event. A three course
meal was enjoyed as we heard from Chairman Barrie Wellman, then learnt that President
John White was a closet Somerset fan, as he was presented with a book detailing how
his county just failed to win the Championship, again, last season. Post-meal, Derek
Hopkins raised funds for Alzheimers with a geographical heads and tails. As many
of us knew nothing, it was a speedy fund-raiser - well done Derek!. Finally David
Hain drew the raffle for a multitude of prizes. Once again we must thank David for
his splendid organisation of the event, a lot of work goes into making things run
smoothly. |
|
|
|
16th
|
Andrew Wingfield-Digby
|
|
Our guest speaker this week proved to be a colourful character. The
Reverand Andrew Wingfield Digby was educated at Sherborne School, he went up to Oxford
University where he took two separate degrees, with the result that he spent 6 years
at Oxford. It was actually suggested that he had played for them for so long that
he ought to have a benefit! This afforded him the opportunity to play 39 First Class
matches, playing with the likes of Vic Marks, while playing against full county sides,
such as Somerset. In 1984 he became director of Christians In Sport, which led to
him being invited to be a chaplain at the Seoul Olympics in 1988. Also in 1988 Andrew
became the captain of Dorset and two or three games finished up in the tabloids.
The most notorious was when Andrew asked his bowler to bowl 14 wides in an over so
that he could set Cheshire a sporting target from the last 11 overs. 60 odd runs
were conceded, but the last four Cheshire wickets were taken and Dorset won
by 18 runs. Only after the game were questions asked, as to whether the spirit
of the game had been breeched. In the 1990’s with Ted Dexter in charge of England’s
fortunes, Andrew was invited to become the Chaplain to the England cricket team. Andrew
had been fairly apprehensive on first entering the England dressing room
as chaplain. He needn’t have worried however as Ian Botham, whom Andrew knew, raised
himself up from the physio’s couch and said “Don’t worry, Lamby & I
will sing in the choir!” We also heard how Andrew had taken the wicket of Viv
Richards with the very first ball he bowled at him, while playing for Oxford. When
Andrew was with the England team in the West Indies, Viv came up to him and
said “Hey man, you stick to preaching!”. A really great afternoon’s entertainment
once again and thanks also to Julian Shackleton for supporting Andrew during the
talk. |
|
|
|
23rd
|
Richard Mockridge
|
|
The indisposition of the planned speaker – Alan Fordham –necessitated
a late change in arrangements for our meeting. A worthy replacement was found in
the redoubtable shape of Richard Mockridge. He delved into his vast repertoire of
illustrated talks to come up with a fascinating insight into the historic relationship
between Cricket and the Church. An audience of forty members and guests were well
entertained as Richard took us on a journey from the early origins of the game to
the ‘spirit of cricket’ in the current era. Along the way we learned of the dim view
that the church authorities took of early attempts to play cricket on the Sabbath,
cricketing authors and players – the latter category ranging from such diverse lordships
as Frederick Beauclerk and David Sheppard. The links between cricket and the church
were underlined by pictures of grounds, from Christchurch (Dorset) to Adelaide via
Worcester, whose scenery has been enhanced by the backdrop of ecclesiastical buildings.
The afternoon demonstrated the flexibility and sociability which are such integral
features of the Society. Huge thanks are due to Richard for stepping into the breach
so nobly and effectively thus providing us with such a wonderfully informative and
entertaining afternoon. |
|
|
|
30th
|
Tim Tremlett
|
|
A bumper crowd of 52 members and guests gathered to hear Tim Tremlett,
former Hampshire player and long time administrator at the Rose Bowl. Tim is
the middle one of three generations of Tremletts who played 1st class cricket, his
father Maurice played for Somerset and England, while son Chris served Hampshire
and England. Tim started with an overview of what is going on with the Hampshire
staff during the winter, from players training maybe four days a week, to those who
are overseas playing in either Australia, South Africa or in T20 leagues around the
world. Then we progressed to a wide ranging question and answer session which Tim
answered very frankly, never dodging the awkward questions from our conservative
(in cricketing terms) audience. He updated us on the squad for next season and the
fact that Nathan Lyons and the Somerset groundsman would be additions to the squad
for 2020! The Hundred did raise its head, though perhaps not as much as expected
and discussion covered other matters such as the scheduling of county championship
games, the 50 over competition which will overlap with The Hundred and the wisdom
of day/night cricket in our climate along with the long summer's evening negating
the floodlights. We also heard about Tim’s career with Hampshire and what the four
captains he played under were like. 90 minutes passed very quickly and I’m sure the
audience went away feeling that they had been well entertained. Many thanks Tim. |
|
|
Feb |
6th
|
Kevan James
|
|
Kevan James played first class cricket for nearly 20 years, first
for Middlesex and then 15 years for Hampshire. He then moved into broadcasting, which
he continues with to this day, working for Radio Solent. He entertained us with a
wonderful fund of stories including Wayne Daniel and Raj Maru. Kevan had a successful
career with Hampshire with a top score of 162 and 395 1st class wickets. However
he is probably best remembered for a performance against the Indian tourists in 1996.
On the first day the Indians rattled up a good score before lunch. Kevan opened the
bowling after lunch and induced Jadeja to nick to slip, 1-192, in the following over
Rathour was stumped down the leg side by Adi Ames. Sashin Tendulkar came to
the wicket and a short leg was put in with the score 207-2! A tiny inward moment,
an inside edge and the ball balloons up to short-leg. Tendulkar out 1st ball for
0. In comes Dravid, on a hat-trick, Kevan bowled a similar ball, it moves the other
way and Dravid is out LBW 1st ball, Kevan has a hat-trick! Manjrekar comes in and
edges his drive to Terry and Kevan has four in four balls. 1st ball of the next over
Ganguly was dropped off a very hard chance - that would have been 5 in 5. Kevan finished
with 5-74. In Hampshire’s first innings, batting at number four, Kevan then
managed to score 103, to become the first person in first class cricket to take four
in four and score a century in the same game. Kevan then went on to his broadcasting
career and gave some examples of mistakes, not necessarily by him, including a Portsmouth
player scoring for Doctor Congo rather than DR Congo! A great afternoon’s entertainment,
many thanks Kevan. |
|
|
|
13th
|
Andrew Hignall
|
|
Andrew Hignell returned for his third visit to tell us more about
his beloved Glamorgan. On this occasion he concentrated on the Swansea
cricket ground at St Helen’s. He started by taking us back to the 1700’s where a
short history lesson informed us that in the mid 1700’s Cardiff was not much more
than a village compared to Swansea, which had over 2000 inhabitants. The rich mining
deposits and the copper production at Swansea made this part of Wales much more important
at this time. The Swansea club is first mentioned around 1785, although the text
seems to indicate that it was already in existence. Early games were within
the club, though by 1852 they could field two teams. A local benefactor JTD
Llewelyn helped greatly both financially and as an old Etonian with sporting contacts.
A Swansea team of XXII took on an All England XI including WG Grace and in 1868 they
played an Aboriginal XI from Australia. After a couple of ground moves the club
settled on a seafront venue in 1872 which involved levelling sand-dunes and
laying topsoil. The incoming tide would often affect the wicket, with batsmen
at the mercy of the pitch. Glamorgan CCC was formed in 1888 and visited Swansea first
in 1890. We heard of many of the famous games at St Helen’s, as the ground is know,
including two defeats for the touring Australians in 1964 and 1968 and the 1951 defeat
of the South Africans. Of course this was the venue for Sir Gary Sobers assault
on Malcolm Nash, taking 36 off one over and entering cricketing folklore. Sadly
it seems that St Helen’s may well make way for a Sainsburys’ supermarket, perhaps
they will succumb to the rising tide. Great entertainment Andrew, many thanks. |
|
|
|
20th
|
Chris Finch
|
|
Chris Finch led 39 members around the out grounds of County cricket.
He reminded us of the virtues of out grounds, the fact that spectators could
get close to the players, often hearing their comments when off the pitch, that families
could indulge in matches on the outfield during the intervals and frequently parking
on the ground enabled you to bring your own chairs, rugs etc and choose your location
to watch from anywhere around the ground. Now Chris did caution that out grounds
sometimes come with downsides, the facilities for toilets and catering being just
a couple along with the covering of grounds. He had carefully analysed the decline
in the use of out grounds since the 1960’s as some grounds succumbed to development
(Hastings), while sponsors requirement for high class facilities for their guests
had an effect. Of course the decline in the number of games in the county championship
has also had a massive effect, when there are maybe only seven home matches a season
can you justify the cost of moving to an out ground? 2019 had produced a rare
blip in the decline as several counties had to relocate their games to accommodate
the World Cup, but 2020 will see a further decline. Chris took us on a visual trip
around the grounds notably including Scarborough, Cheltenham and of course Dean Park.
A nostalgic afternoon, remembering a less commercial era. Many thanks Chris. |
|
|
|
27th
|
Greig Stewart
|
|
Greig Stewart, Head of Customer Experience at Hampshire, visited us
to tell us the rationale behind The Hundred. 46 members attended to hear an
excellent presentation on the reasoning behind the new competition. Greig explained
that 17 of the 18 counties were in debt, the only exception being Glamorgan, who
had an £11 million debt wiped out by the local council. So the new competition
was designed to raise funds for all the counties, whether they were directly involved
or not. The Hundred was intended to be different, so that it would not cannibalise
the existing T20 competition and the limit of 8 teams was designed to concentrate
the pool of talent in a small number of teams, rather than be spread out across 18.
The venues chosen were based on the average attendance at T20 games in the past couple
of years - bigger attendances were a more attractive draw for sponsors. A lot
of thought and market research went into choosing the team names, for example Manchester
people were more responsive to a team having the city’s name, whereas down South,
that wouldn’t have gone down so well, for example the Southampton / Portsmouth rivalry.
The games were cut down in length, so that they would last a maximum of two
and a half hours, to allow for programme build-up and post game analysis, the BBC
were most insistent on that and the ECB wanted to ensure that there was free
to air coverage. Each team will play the other teams once home or away, except
for one ‘local derby’ played home and away making a total of eight matches.
In the case of Southern Braves that doesn’t work quite so well, as the ‘local
derby’ is against Welsh Fire! After the initial league, the top three teams will
progress to Finals Day, with a single semi-final between second and third place followed
by a final between the winner of that match and the team which came top of the league.
The competition is controlled centrally, so that any rule changes don’t have to be agreed
by 18 counties and the MCC and marketing is also being done centrally. Each franchise
also has a ladies team and on some occasions there will be ‘ double-header'
games with a ladies match followed by the men. There were many questions from
a good-natured crowd, even though most of us recognised that the tournament is not
really aimed at our cohort, but is an attempt to bring in new, younger audiences.
A fascinating afternoon’s entertainment, with many thanks to Greig for the effort
put in to his presentation. |
|
|
March |
5th
|
Derek Hopkins
|
|
Derek Hopkins was our quizmaster for the annual Society quiz. He lured
us in with a very gentle round to start with, before the screws were turned
with rounds on the most successful Test wicket-keepers of all time, picturesque cricket
grounds from around the world (answers included Hawaii, St Vincent & The Grenadines
and St Moritz), point-scoring rugby international players, most successful Formula
1 drivers of all time and a 30 question picture quiz. To say that our scores dropped
exponentially would be fairly accurate. However, we all had a good time and
a good laugh - congratulations to the winning team of Dick Batchelor, Tony Wharton,
Roger Forder and Mike Vimpany and a very big thank you to Derek. Matters then
moved on to the cream tea, another annual tradition. |
|
|
|
12th
|
Stephen Chalke
|
|
So our season finished with a familiar highlight, as life vice-president
Stephen Chalke returned for his 8th visit. Stephen has just drawn to the close of
his writing and publishing career and his talk encompassed many of his creations.
There was a plethora of stories to have us roaring in the aisles, such as the time
he turned up to an East Coast Society and was met by the Secretary who lamented that
as their numbers had dropped from 100 to 50, they were no longer able to afford the
better speakers! Stephen related how he had entered the world of cricket societies
after writing his first book and his nervousness at first. He certainly showed no
signs of that as he explained how some of his books were created. I think the most
poignant story was of Bob Appleyard, who entered county cricket at a late age and
in his first full season took over 200 wickets. He then suffered TB and was bed-bound
for 11 months, needing to learn to walk again, let alone playing cricket. Amazingly
he recovered sufficiently to not only play again, but to be selected to play for
England. He had suffered tragedy in his early life, which he kept hidden from even
his wife for 50 years. Around the outbreak of World War 2, Bob’s father John killed
Bob's step-mother, two sisters and himself as he was deeply depressed by the thought
of war, having survived World War 1. For over 50 years Bob had carried that burden,
though it later transpired that his wife had known of the deaths before she married
him. Most of Stephen’s tales were more light-hearted than that and he emphasised
that he had sought to write books about people who had an interesting back-story.
He has even helped out our own Alan Rayment. An hour and a half passed in a flash
and we didn’t even have time for questions, I think we could have still been there
now! Many thanks Stephen for wrapping up our season in memorable fashion. |
