“Me and Geoff (On Tour Again)”

Match: 18 / 470

Lost by 9 runs

Team	Total
Reach CC	214 - 6
G. Timms 2 - 20, I. Howarth 2 - 37
FFTMCC	205
I. Howarth 46, C. Williams 37

Day four of Tour and Geoff has only just made it to Suffolk. Some twat invited him to a wedding on the Saturday which completely screwed up his plans to get proper shitted this year. I mean what d’you do? “Ah, sorry mate, no can do” and they think you’re a right cunt, but if you do the right thing, like our Geoff and accept, you’re just gonna brood all day hanging out with people you really couldn’t give a shit about. Still, most the booze is free, and you get to ogle at all the bridesmaids and give the bride the up and down.

It’s been hard graft down Suffolk thus far. The bare eleven bodies for the past few days and only ten for the first match because some dickhead who’s retired felt the urge to flog off his take on pizzas rather than hang out with his mates. Fuck sake get some perspective.

You gotta love Suffolk, farmer’s belt country where everyone is eight feet tall and the same across the shoulders. It’s all about putting the hard yakka in and harvesting down in these parts, not sat in an office twiddling your keyboard lamenting your fucking soul having died. They like a drink, they like a laugh and they wonder when Mrs May will finally pull the plug on Europe, so they can charge a decent pound for their produce. Decent potatoes, decent vegetables and not having to compete with some cheap subsidised toss from France.

One of the caveats of driving down for the final leg of Tour was seeing Cambridge. I’d never been to Cambridge, heard a lot about it, a university city with a fascinating history and some guy in a wheelchair who mapped out the universe. Some say it the dog’s bollocks, others think it’s a cheap version of Oxford with an even shitter football team. So, I have to ask the question, what the fuck are we doing stood about a field in the middle of bloody nowhere with only an eco toilet for company?

It’s not Jakey’s fault, he’s done a top job of organising things, but after we got shafted by the original hosts who only had two players available, we find ourselves… here, in Reach, ten miles away from the sub-standard dreamy spires of the place where Rachel Weisz studied. In “reach” of fucking what I ask? Somewhere decent to drop yesterday evening’s barbeque would be a starter….

Its not all bad, the sun is out, its lovely and quiet, but right there in the middle of the ground is a fucking telegraph pole. That’s right, a thirty-foot lump of wood that constitutes a boundary every time you hit it. I could understand it if there was a current flowing through those bloody wires atop of it, but apparently, it’s dormant, much like our Brexit plans, so it just stands there like a massive, pressure treated pine cock. Ridiculous.

Matt’s skipper today and his first act is to lose the sodding toss, so clamber into your whites and get the fielding out the way I guess. I do wonder how much Geoff put away at that wedding yesterday, because I’d have expected someone with motor neurone to do a better job behind the sticks. Byes, byes and more fucking byes, although we’ll never know the exact scale of his shambles as the home team scorer hasn’t been taught the art of extras. Still, the lad can at least he can read and write, though his banjo skills are unknown.

Watching the Reach top order thrutch around is made slightly less painful by Mr Newman leaving tins of coloured Strongbow by the boundary. This dark fruit variety has been coined Ribena in some circles, which doesn’t help your brain in differentiating getting pissed and simply hydrating. To be honest we’ve been on this shit since Saturday, quietly knocking it back and watching our turds turn a darker hue of magenta. It’s alright actually, but fuck all on Aspall’s, that’s proper cyder that is, the Battisford Boys know a decent cyder when they get shitfaced on it. Newman’s been quietly quaffing a few, him and Butthead missed out on today’s game, so what better than get drunk and niggle everyone on the pitch?

Timms (3-0-20-2) has bagged his usual couple of bunnies, so that’s four down, but it looks like the middle order is where the Reach talent lies. The usual story, much akin to the England cricket team, fuck all up north, but the further south you get you find the money.

We’re getting a right tonking here now, that ball is disappearing to all parts and Turner’s (3-0-24-0) having a cob over a caught behind, about the first thing that’s registered in Geoff’s hands all afternoon, but the batsman ain’t for walking, he’s going bloody nowhere.

Cometh the death, cometh the man, Matt hands me (4-0-37-2) the ball to see things out, now that the batsmen are seeing it like a fucking beach ball I might add. Whack, whack, whack and then high into the air, miles into the air, all the way to… is that Rundle down there on that boundary? Jesus, the last time I saw him under something on Tour he set himself to watch it land twenty feet to his left the blind fucker. Caught it! Amazing, the odds you’d have got on that would be like finding a virgin in Bicester.

Thank fuck that’s all over, 214-6, time to sit your arse down, eat some sarnies and have a good bloody moan. You don’t wanna eat too much mind as it’ll be a trip to that eco bog for a shite in a hole and a piss into some sawdust, so maybe best to stick to the Ribena.

I see Newman is fraternising with the locals, so much so he’s guesting for them. He couldn’t resist, well I tell you this, if he’s having a bowl they’ll be searching for his balls in Cambridge.

Hotson’s gone for a bird and here is a familiar dismissal in the scorebook – c Pearson b Newman. And so, I get to stride out, eyeball to eyeball with the fucker and have a set to. He fancies his bowling does Jon, he also fancies his batting and his keeping too. In short, this vanity inspired tosser fancies himself.

Swing and a miss, swing and FOUR, swing and miss, swing and FOUR, edge FOUR, plenty of chat, plenty of open mouths from the natives and then… OOF, got one right in the ribs. Keep grinning, keep breathing….

After Turner (6) gets cleaned up by Fancy Jon (4-0-22-2), Geoff (13) swaggers out to take an hour to get off the mark. That wedding certainly didn’t cure his hand to eye coordination, but it’s great to be out here with the fella, the club’s two main guns together. We are the epitome of Navarone.

Jonny Bairstow admires JMO’s dancing technique.

My shite dismissal (46) to a guy who can’t bowl precedes Williams (37) teeing off on a small child to put us firmly in the box seat. Unfortunately, someone crapped on that seat and watched a procession of total shite unfold. Timms (3) caught playing his cherished swing across the line, Reeves (1) still in Hawaii somewhere and Hoskins (lbw 3) arguing with the umpire, the bowler and the world at large after standing in front of his stumps, dozy sod. Fuck’s sake, 134-3 to 143-8.

Some late slogging by Rundle (16) gives us hope before Chairman Bullock (8 ret) decides to firstly do his hamstring and then try and head one for four, claret everywhere. Perhaps conscious of the fact that our skipper is now maimed on God’s day, Mr Darley is invited to bat at twelve and be the first MAD batsman to actually face a ball at #12. He does okay too (11*), but then Roberts (11) goes and fucks the script and we’ve lost by 9 runs, Fordham (5-0-11-3) the standout bowler as he didn’t break anyone’s eye socket or perforate any eardrums.

Geoff (background) wiping down his knuckles.

Back at the pub the pressing concern is not the funeral arrangements for Bullock or who is getting the next round in, but who is driving who and how the fuck we are getting back to Oxfordshire now that Matt is shagged. Well, since Geoff has his van, its not my problem, so I’ll stock up on the Prosecco for the journey and fuck everyone else, it’s just me and Geoff.

‘Me’

*

Statto Scorecards

Far from the MCC versus Reach CC Played at Reach, 5 August 2018 Reach CC won the toss and elected to bat Reach CC won by 9 runs Far from the MCC debuts: none

18 / 470 35 over match

Team	Reach CC
#	Batsman	How Out	Total	Balls	4s	6s	FOW
1	B. Pearson	lbw b Timms	30		4	-	3-78
2	P. Kingsmill	b Reeves	2		-	-	1-7
3	C. Bridleman †	c Reeves b Roberts	24		3	-	2-58
4	G. Thomas	b Timms	15		2	-	4-104
5	E. Cameron *	c Rundle b Howarth	55		6	1	5-185
6	A. Fordham	not out	37		3	1	-
7	T. Davies	b Howarth	4		-	-	6-205
8	W. Kingsmill	not out	2		-	-	-
9	H. Keutgen
10	R. Clark
11	J. Newman-Robson
	Extras	NB2, W12, LB12, B19	45
	TOTAL	(for 6 wickets, 35 overs)	214

#	Bowler	Overs	Maidens	Runs	Wkts	Econ
1	Reeves	4	0	12	1	3.00
2	Rundle	4	0	10	0	2.50
3	Roberts	4	0	21	1	5.25
4	Hoskins	7	0	37	0	5.29
5	Williams	3	0	27	0	9.00
6	Timms	3	0	20	2	6.67
7	Hotson	3	0	20	0	6.67
8	Turner	3	0	24	0	8.00
9	Howarth	4	0	37	2	9.25

Team	Far from the MCC
#	Batsman	How Out	Total	Balls	4s	6s	FOW
1	R. P. Turner	b Newman-Robson	6	(20)	1	-	2-36
2	J. C. W. Hotson	c Pearson b Newman-Robson	0	(7)	-	-	1-7
3	I. Howarth	c Keutgen b Clark	46	(40)	9	-	3-81
4	G. Carter †	b Fordham	13	(35)	2	-	4-134
5	C. T. J. Williams	c Bridleman b Fordham	37	(22)	4	2	5-136
6	G. J. Timms	c P. Kingsmill b Fordham	3	(7)	-	-	7-143
7	M. K. Reeves	c Cameron b Thomas	1	(3)	-	-	6-137
8	J. D. Hoskins	lbw b Thomas	3	(8)	-	-	8-143
9	M.S. Rundle	c and b Davies	16	(19)	2	-	9-181
10	M. Bullock *	retired hurt	8	(17)	1	-	-
11	C. D. Roberts	b W. Kingsmill	11	(7)	2	-	10-205
12	A. Darley	not out	11	(11)	2	-	-
	Extras	NB2, W41, LB3, B4	50
	TOTAL	(all out, 32.2 overs)	205

#	Bowler	Overs	Maidens	Runs	Wkts	Econ
1	Davies	6	1	27	1	4.50
2	Newman-Robson	4	0	22	2	5.50
3	W. Kingsmill	4.1	0	19	0	4.56
4	Clark	4	0	31	1	7.75
5	Fordham	5	0	11	3	2.20
6	Keutgen	2	0	45	0	22.50
7	Thomas	4	0	17	2	4.25
8	P. Kingsmill	3	0	26	0	8.67

MOTM: I. Howarth Champagne Moment: M. S. Rundle boundary catch at long on Buffet Award: I. Howarth’s lacklustre peanuts and crisps (no plates provided) MAD Moment: n/a

Opposition: V104 / 01 Ground: G096 / 01 Captain: C005 / 10 Match No: 35 / 165