October. Summer is over and autumn is
here, signified not so much by the presence of Keatsean mists and mellow
fruitfulness as the central heating clicking into action to take the chill from
mornings that nip and nights when the temperature plummets in the absence of
cloud cover. The sun continues to shine, sometimes vigorously, but there is a sombre
tinge to the days. The 2018 cricket season is over and will not return; its
final act saw Essex (477/8 dec & 134/9) squeeze home at The Oval against
champions Surrey (67 & 541) in the kind of breathless, 4-day tragicomedy
that enthralled the specific audience who get just what beauty and drama the
first class game encapsulates. Obviously this demographic doesn’t include the
ECB, who insist on ploughing ahead with the farcical Luddism of this 100 ball
franchise fiasco, despite the outright hostility of all who love the game,
presumably to satisfy the kind of binge-drinking, dumbed down subcultural
morass who find beer snakes and fancy dress to be somehow compatible with
domestic and international limited overs games. Anyway…
2018 saw me attend 48 games, the vast
majority at my beloved Tynemouth CC, as well as participate (“play” would be
gilding the lily a fraction) in 14 others for my equally beloved,
promotion-winning Tynemouth Bad Boys CC. Counting up, I was only able to visit
7 NEPL grounds this year, with Burnopfield my only new one, though I also
ticked off nearby Lintz, watching Tynemouth 2nds in the James Bell Cup, not to
mention appearing at Heaton Medicals, Bates Cottages, Mitford and Beamish and
East Stanley on Bad Boys duty. Next season the NEPL will see 3 new teams,
following the resignations of Durham Academy and Seaham Harbour, as well as the
expulsion of Brandon for failing to attain the required Clubmark standard. The
new arrivals are Ashington, Crook and Shotley Bridge, who join Castle Eden and
Willington as places I’ve yet to visit. As regards the midweek league,
Tynemouth Bad Boys will be presented with an itinerary that includes trips to
Cochrane Park, Cramlington and Percy Main, where I’ve seen football but not
cricket and Ulgham.
The final action I experienced at the
fag end of the season was on Tuesday September 25th, after the
Southward Equinox had signified the Pagan changing of the seasons, when I took
in the second day of Durham’s home game with Middlesex. It seemed a logical way
to bookend the last couple of years, as the 2017 season had started with me
watching Durham at home to Notts on Good Friday. That game had marked the
beginning of Durham’s first campaign back down in the second division after the
ECB’s deplorable and vindictive actions of the previous winter. It saw the
start of a familiar narrative for the two succeeding seasons; a Durham side
that, on paper, should have been able to compete with their marginally stronger
opponents, instead weakly capitulate and fall to another supine and unnecessary
defeat. This despite the fact day 1 had seen Durham skittle the visitors for
121 and then begin to assemble a useful lead, reaching 278/6 at stumps.
With 10.30 starts and the usual
skeleton Northern Rail service, it was an early alarm call that got this Giro
Johnny out of his pit and down to the station with a bowl of porridge inside me
and a modest thermos of café con leche
to combat the climactic intransigence of Ice Station Riverside. The 10.10 train
contained the usual smattering of aged county championship eccentrics; either
stooped, rake thin and phlegmatic or podgy, rubicund and garrulous, they
purposefully wore their rucksacks and fleeces as indicators of their proud
involvement in this splendid congregation. We all engaged in our respective
slow lopes or comical scurrying to the ground, arriving at 10.43 and being
relieved of £15 for the pleasure of seeing the home side dismissed for 310.
Typically I’d arrived too late to see Stuart Poynter bat, though I’d also
missed his single innings of 145 for Tynemouth against Stockton at the start of
September as well. Gareth Harte compiled a pleasing 112, with the seamers Wood,
McCarthy and Salisbury all adding support by reaching double figures. The
innings ended an over before lunch with a splendid first-baller for Chris
Rushworth, who appeared to have closed his eyes and thrown the bat before Tim
Murtagh had even delivered the ball, resulting in the 2019 beneficiary gloving
it gently to keeper White.
During the interval, I walked the
outer perimeter of a ground that remains large, impressive, beautifully
maintained (certainly in comparison to the shabby condition of the two major
football grounds in our area), susceptible to ferocious, gusting winds and
still both far too large and inappropriately located for its purpose. Approximately
1,000 folk, mainly retired, shivered in Spartan conditions and made the best of
it. The overwhelming majority seemed to be in possession of membership and so
the crowd listlessly swelled and subsided, courtesy of an osmotic flow of late
arrivals and early departures. Frankly, we all should have gone home at lunch,
as Durham contrived to blow a first innings lead of 190 to the extent that by
the time I left at 4.45 to catch the train, it was clear the home side would
lose. Chris Rushworth, of course, bowled with the kind of hostility, aggression
and purpose that has always been associated with his approach. However Mark
Wood and Matthew Salisbury, the latter so effective in the first innings, offered
little and Barry McCarthy, in his final game for the club, appeared to have
already cleared his locker and called a cab to the airport for the next Ryan
Air departure to Atha Cliath. After 19 overs, the captain was left with little
option but to introduce a fifth bowler; himself. In his final first class game,
Paul Collingwood took the only Middlesex wicket I saw fall, by removing Sam
Robson’s off stump with his third ball. There was a joyful chorus of
celebration in the middle and a slow, carefully executed, arthritic standing
ovation among the crowd. The man who had signified all that was good about the
county he served with pride and distinction for over two decades richly
deserved the acclaim afforded him. How he must have wished his final seasons
had seen him surrounded by players of similar fortitude, if not calibre. Still,
it’ll be nice to see Keaton Jennings back at the Riverside in 2019…
Sadly, Collingwood’s cameo was the
last moment of enjoyment for the shivering home crowd as Middlesex, in the shape
of Nick Gubbins and Steve Eskinazi, progressed to 215 without further mishap.
The visitors eventually made 355 and skittled Durham for 109 by tea on Day 3,
with the last 5 wickets falling for 12 runs, to win by 57. Durham finished the
season 8th in Division 2. It simply isn’t good enough, but with
Geoff Cook also retiring and Marcus North coming in as Director of Cricket,
which presumably means he is no longer eligible to play for Roseworth Bulls in
the Midweek League, there may be hope for the future. Ben Raine is a welcome
return to the attack and Cameron Bancroft will surely do more than sandpaper
over the cracks in the batting…
One interesting statistic is that my
trip to Chester le Street was the only game I paid cash to watch all season. Of course I did have my Northumberland
membership and, despite an awful lot of encouraging fun in the Minor Counties
20/20 games, the East Championship was again something of an ordeal. Tommy
Cant’s first season as captain saw a marginal improvement in performances, with
fighting draws away to Bedfordshire and home to Cumberland worthy of mentions
in dispatches. Sadly, the last day of the season at South North in early
September against Staffordshire saw the side unable to bat out the final two
sessions for a draw, succumbing for 140 in 46 overs and accordingly finishing
bottom for the second season in a row. Never mind; the young lads will be a
year older in 2019 and hopefully fortunes can change.
In the NEPL, South North retained
their title, going through the whole season unbeaten, as well as winning the
20/20 competition. In the Banks Salver, Chester le Street came out on top
against Benwell Hill in a game played very late in the season on September 15th.
With Durham Academy leaving, the spare place in the Premier Division will be
taken by Division 1 champions Burnopfield. Frankly next year, I can’t see
beyond South North for the title again, as they’ve brought in Jacques du Toit
and Olly McGee from Newcastle, making a difficult to beat side nearly
impregnable. For next year, I worry about Newcastle, as they’ve also lost
Callum Harding to Benwell Hill. Of course typing that will result in a whole
series of aggrieved tweets by Phil Hudson, but there you go. That said, Stockton apparently remain keen on
a switch to the NYSD league and so the matter may be resolved by resignation,
rather than on-field performances, although Stockton could easily trail in last
of course.
Another brilliant thing about NEPL and
other local cricket is that it is free; no wonder I spend so much in the bar
these days. Then again, I’m often working behind Tynemouth’s bar, which was why
I missed most of the last two games of the season, a pair of 2nd
team cup finals against Washington, serving up the remnants of the beer
festival on September 9th and presiding over a Christening Party on
September 16th. The games were of differing standards; the first was
the day after Tynemouth and Washington had both been crowned champions of their
respective divisions, meaning the two sides arrived in terrible states of
intoxication. While Tynemouth were sober the next week, Washington had been on
their end of season jamboree to Doncaster Races the day before and were clearly
struggling. Consequently, it was an easy win by 7 wickets with 6 overs to
spare, having also claimed the James Bell Cup
the week before and the Second Division Championship, on the day captain Andrew
Davison’s beloved sunderland AFC heroically claimed a point at home to the
mighty Fleetwood. It was a really great season for them, the 2s not the
Mackems, as they also reached the 2nds 20/20 finals day, only to lose to South
Northumberland and the Banks semi-final, where Chester le Street proved too
strong. Hence, for us all, the final club action of the 2018 season was Sam
Robson (not the one Paul Collingwood bowled, but Walker’s only Tory) hitting
the one ball he faced to the boundary to win the Roseworth Bowl.
Those of us who’d spent so much of the
summer watching Tynemouth exchanged handshakes, farewell valedictions and left,
casting sentimental glances over the shoulder at the receding square and
pavilion. It had been a good year and, while washing the remaining glasses,
emptying the bins and affecting a modest tidy-up of the dressing rooms, I
reflected on what had passed over a season that began with a winning draw
against Whitburn 5 months earlier. To me, the real indication of my affection
for Tynemouth as a club was made clear by how, as the season drew on, the lure
of watching the 2nds proved quite strong. It was both exciting and pleasing to
see them win the title, as well as the 2 cups. They may be, in footballing
parlance, the reserves, but in cricket each team is an entity by and of itself,
where competition is real and important. Hence they are deserving of all the
support that one can muster.
The seconds also provided two of the
most amusing moments of the season, both involving Andrew Lineham being
dismissed for 0. At Newcastle in the semi-final of the Roseworth Cup, Bad Boy
extraordinaire and TCC refusenik James Carr, bowled him with the delivery of
the season. Even better, in the final of the James Bell, legendary umpire and
James Ellroy lookalike Eddie Collins confidently announced the bowler was left
arm round. Problem was the lad was right arm over and Linaz didn’t offer a
stroke. Querying the information he’d been given as the finger was raised,
Eddy’s comment was “oh dear.” Perhaps most poetically, this was his final
innings of the summer and, for the second year running, he ends with a duck.
Unlucky, lad.
The firsts didn’t do much in the cups,
but finished an encouraging fourth in the NEPL. Highlights of the second part
of the season included South African Wesley Bedja bowling beautifully to take
over 50 wickets, Polly proving that life begins at 41 with a lifetime best 7/27
against Felling and the superb batting display against Stockton, spearheaded by
Stu Poynter, which I didn’t get to see. However, the actual moment of the
spectating season was Matty Brown stumping Olly McGee for 0 at Tynemouth with
the kind of accurate underarm throw that suggests a career in curling awaits
him as a Winter sport if his sojourn to Australia isn’t to his liking (some
chance eh?). The really great thing about that stumping wasn’t just it helped
Tynemouth beat Newcastle, but that Matt and Olly were sharing a car all the way
to Workington to play for Northumberland the next day. I wonder what they
talked about.
As an added bonus, Tynemouth 3rds
gained promotion, finishing runners-up in Division 6 South, so well done to
them. Hopefully they’ll find more competitive encounters next year than their
game against Blyth 2nds, who mustered 8 all out in response to 267/3. Well done
also to my pal Gary Oliver whose Monkseaton side were runners-up in Division 6
North, so no more trips to Berwick next year for him. My biggest regrets of
2018 were not making it to either Churchill Playing Fields to see him in
action, or Benwell Hill. That’s 2 years in a row I’ve not found myself on Benton
Bank. I really must do better next year.
The same must also be said of my
batting. In my debut Bad Boys campaign, I managed as many runs as I did
wickets; 6 of each. With a top score of 2* against the delayed taxi drivers of
NE Tamils, as well as other knocks of run out 2, away to Bates Cottages, 1* at
High Stables and 1 at home to Bates Cottages, my preferred role of number 11
seems under little threat, especially as my average is in excess of every score
I’ve made. However, courtesy of Gary, I now have my own bat, which served me
well at High Stables and Bates Cottages, so perhaps things may improve. I doubt
it mind.
Since last I wrote about cricket, the
fortunes of Tynemouth Bad Boys fluctuated slightly. We were knocked out of the
plate by NE Tamils, who are effectively Kimblesworth 2nds. They arrived
disgracefully late for the 6pm start and as there is a loophole in the league
rules in that there is not a specified cut off time for the side left hanging
around to claim the game, we played and lost heavily to a clearly superior side
by 9 wickets, in a game that began 30 minutes late. That simply was not the
spirit of the game. However, the night after we went up to scenic little
Mitford past Morpeth and won a league game by 85 runs, partly down to Sean
getting a ton for us. I got a wicket that night; their skipper, who looked like
a rather unkempt Kevin de Bruyne, holed out to the safe hands of Flash House
Jack at deepish mid-on. One point of controversy was Box Office Carr’s
single-handed catch that left an elderly batsman muttering his way back to the
pavilion. At the end of the game, one of their lads went home on a quad bike
across the fields. This really was the countryside.
In my time, I’ve seen football, rugby
and now cricket at the Medicals Ground on Cartington Terrace, Heaton. It’s a
lovely spot and the home of Sparta CC, who beat us by 8 wickets in a game that
I neither bowled nor batted in. The week after I did both at Beamish and East
Stanley, where High Stables play. Bowling first, I got a wicket when James
caught one at deepish extra cover. The ground was so small the use of the word
“deep” is problematic, as was my final ball; the first I’d bowled to a left
hander all season and he cracked it away for four. High Stables are a mixture
of Beamish and East Stanley from the NEDL and Anfield Plain of the DCL. My old
literary pal Ian Dowson was behind the stumps for them and we exchanged
pleasant chit chat. There was nothing pleasant about the gritted teeth and pace
of the delivery from the lad who came charging in at me, who normally opens the
bowling for Anfield Plain. I didn’t see any of the balls he bowled at me.
Frankly, it was a waste of his energy, bowling outside the off stump to me as I
didn’t get close to any of them. Bowl at the stumps and I was gone. Despite it being the last over and Sea Bass
standing at the other end on 20 not out, including a straight 6 into the
adjoining cemetery, he seemed more concerned with admiring the view than
getting on strike and we tailed off to lose by 12 runs.
It got worse before it got better. We
went to Bates Cottages, after snatching defeat from the jaws of victory against
them in the home debacle, and went down to a 52 run thumping. I actually
enjoyed myself that night. Got 2 wickets, both stumped, for 15, including ex
Newcastle, Benfield and a thousand other clubs, Stuey Elliott off the last
ball. Made 2 runs and then pointlessly ran myself out. Promotion was now very
much in the balance, so we took it seriously against Whitley Bay. We didn’t
make a huge score, but it looked enough until they got hold of our bowling.
However, there are always the spin twins to rely on; by bowling at 2 mph and
letting the ball bounce quarter stump height, you aren’t going to get carted.
Hence, I sent down 2 overs for 8 and earned the approval of Don Catley, who’s
possibly the only umpire who tried to get in my head. At the other end, Clarky
bamboozled them; his 3/27, including a wicket off the last ball, won us the
game by 2 runs. This was a very important win.
Promotion was sealed and we celebrated
lustily in The Spread Eagle, after the last game before I turned 54. The season
ended at home to Matfen the week after, and we even got to play on the proper
pitch at TCC. We won by 30 runs, with me
not being called on to bat. As far as the bowling was concerned, this was very
much an end of season game, with Scoff bowling 3 successive wides and then
taking a wicket. Skipper Matty was away with work, so Neil stood in. My first
over wasn’t too bad, but the second one began in ominous fashion when their
left-hander clouted me for 3 successive boundaries. I was having a crisis of
confidence, but Neil, who was 8 cans in by this point, calmly reassured me that
I was doing the right thing. Next ball, I bowled the bloke who’d taken a fancy
to my timid leggies with one that definitely turned. Honest. I’m not lying. Not
since I saved a penalty in the Over 40s back in 2012 have I felt such
unadulterated sporting joy. Another night in The Spread Eagle beckoned.
Even better was our awards night at
Flash House. Thanks to Jack for putting it on. Thanks to Matty and Mitchy for
sorting the awards out. Thanks to all the lads who voted me Bad Boy of the
year. I could have cried. I didn’t though. I sang instead. After the 2nds last game on September 8th,
I made my first ever foray into the world of karaoke, regaling those assembled
with a terrible version of “Maggie Mae,” enlivened only by me falling off a
table when playing an air mandolin solo. At the Bad Boys do, I played it safe
with John Trubee’s “Blind Man’s Penis,” then ended up so blind drunk I can’t
remember much after 10pm. Great night. Great season. Great mates. Great game.
I’m missing it terribly already.
Roll on 2019.
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