“Double Historic Double Notched (P.S Jude Lose)”

Match: 00 / 038

Lost by 7 wkts

Team	Total
Jude the Obscure	84
A. Fisher 44
Stanton St. John	85 - 3

The season’s final game. Set the scene: the first tinge of burnished yellow in the horse chestnuts, a friendly nip to the morning air, rain squalls on the windscreen, cricket pants hauled on one last time. At a tree-ringed field beyond Oxford’s busy ring road, leaves eddy round the door of a run-down clubhouse, a dilapidated roller lies abandoned beside the boundary line. Two teams arrive at the ground, the first, a sorry, rag-bag mob of ne’er-do-wells, hard smokers and drinkers, ex-boxers and womanisers showing the scars of seedy experience, talking in the gutteral cant of the streets, gesticulating wildly, cursing and spitting. The second, Jude the Obscure, whiter than white in their creams, heads held high, undaunted, ready and able.

Keep setting the scene: The Jude’s captain, L. Phillips, noble of bearing and calm of demeanour, approaches the Willows squat leader, who is pawing at the ground with an animal fascination. The coin is tossed, and the feral thing’s eyes dance and laugh. He cackles as the bright bauble spins in the air and bounces once, twice on the pitch. The Willows captain leaps and screeches - he has won the toss, and, arms swinging low to the ground, he scampers back to his misshapen comrades. The Jude’s captain walks from the ground with measured step. Time to pad up, lads.

Some random photo from Stanton St Johns.

Facing the unruly Willows bowlers proved to be no easy task. They galloped in, arms akimbo, muttering foul imprecations, in such a hypnotic and distracting manner that The Jude’s batsmen were forced to draw upon all their formidable reserves of willpower and determination. Ultimately, it was to no avail. L. Phillips (3) had soon departed to the delighted shrieks of the surrounding fielders, and although A. Mann (10) and H. Jones (11) put up some resistance, few other batsmen troubled the scorers more than momentarily. Only Jude irregular A. Fisher (44), steely-eyed and sure, was impervious to the harsh cries resounding from fine leg and mid off, and his impressive total proved to be over half The Jude’s final, meagre tally of 84.

As it had been at the crease, so it was in the field. Elegant and imposing, The Jude’s attack had no answer to the uncouth thrashings and swingings of the Willows top order. Only L. Davie (46 n.o.) provided a welcome oasis of culture amidst a desert of vileness, as the rest of the Willows batsthings hunkered at the wicket, snorting and slathering. For this mob, crude clubs or rough planks would have done for bats, and yet ultimately their ferocity and cunning won the day, and it was with a paltry three wickets down that Davie carved the winning runs to the mid-on boundary. Not for the first time, and not for the last, several catches were batted down in the field, but this was perhaps partly due to the disparity in numbers between the two teams. The Jude, with their 11 to The Willows’ 8, had a much more crowded arena, which made it difficult to judge the flight of the ball in the air, whereas The Willows with their lower numbers had much more space to work in. Yet, ultimately, another defeat for the embattled Judesters, and another victory for the powers of darkness. One day Sauron would fall, but it would not be today.

Some dudes from a photograph on the pavilion wall (Lee Davie, bottom second from left).

After the game had finished, those of the Willows team that could drive departed in their cars to their mean homes and low inns, while several others, as dusk began to fall, danced off into the night bellowing and howling, to seek out whatever strange entertainments their kind preferred, thence to find hedgerow or thicket to afford them shelter for the night.

For The Jude, it was another year over, a great year in sum, for at stumps on the final day, a counting up was made, and it transpired that two historic doubles had been scored: the first, the double victory recorded over the Brewersmen, on tour to Weymouth in the summer; the second, unprecedented in the course of a single season, a double betrothal, with club captain and team founder E. Lester trusting his heart and soul to team scorer R. Bestwick, and she hers to him, and, as discovered only that day, Committeesperson and sometime Jude Captain C. Norris doing likewise with her bloke Julian. Beers and weddings all round!

‘Blocker’

*

Statto Scorecards

Jude the Obscure versus Stanton St. John Willows Played at Stanton St. John, 17 September 2000 Jude the Obscure won the toss and elected to bat Stanton St. John Willows won by 7 wkts Far from the MCC debuts: none

00 / 038 Timed match

Team	Jude the Obscure
#	Batsman	How Out	Total	Balls	4s	6s	FOW
1	L. Phillips	records incomplete	3
2	M. Thorburn
3	H. Jones		11
4	A. G. Mann		10
5	A. J. Fisher		44
6	M. Bullock +
7	E. N. Lester
8	A. Morley
9	B. J. Mander
10	A. M. Mander
11	G. Le Tocq
	Extras
	TOTAL	(all out)	84

#	Bowler	Overs	Maidens	Runs	Wkts
1
2
3
4
5
6

Team	Stanton St. John Willows
#	Batsman	How Out	Total	Balls	4s	6s	FOW
1	L. Davie	not out	46
2		records incomplete
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
	Extras
	TOTAL	(for 3 wickets)	85

#	Bowler	Overs	Maidens	Runs	Wkts
1
2
3
4
5
6

MOTM: n/a Champagne Moment: n/a Buffet Award: n/a

Opposition: V015 / 02 Ground: G009 / 02 Captain: C001 / 31