Nearly There
By Ian Clark
WEEK 4
MAY 31st 2008
2nd TEAM v AMPORT (A)
1st TEAM v PORTSMOUTH & SOUTHSEA (H)
3rd TEAM v MUDEFORD 2nds (A)
I was selected for the seconds again; away to Amport, a round trip of 100 miles. But it's rained all week and on Friday night Amport called the game off. Some of the thirds then dropped out to allow second team players to have a game for the thirds. The season is long and this is an early chance to score some points with the other half. Olly and I decide to drop out and I try to leave a message for Greg on his phone. I don't get a reply and work becomes busy and the days sneak by until I need to sort it out on Saturday morning. Then I have to work Saturday morning and I decide to sort it out at the club. I'm going to watch Tom and the firsts play Portsmouth & Southsea at The Hollow today.
I get to the car park where the thirds meet; it's a quarter of a mile away from the main ground because our car park is not big enough for four teams. And it's deserted. The thirds have left early because it a bank holiday weekend and they're away at Mudeford IIs, 50 miles away, on the other side of the New Forest. Shit. Bollocks. Shit. Nothing says relegation like a team with ten men.
I arrive at Mudeford's ground with 15 minutes to spare. It's lined with palm trees and cedars. It almost looks like a village ground just as Mudeford almost look like a village club. But their Firsts were runners-up in County 1 last year and would be playing in the Southern League but for the perceived the inadequacy of their pitch and outfield. It seems odd that a game that is so starkly meritocratic should become so ambiguous about promotion. If Mudeford's team are good enough they should be allowed in; from the Hampshire League it's difficult not to look up and characterise the Southern League as like the Football League of my childhood. Hard to get in; even harder to get out.
And it's not just Mudeford's problem; accreditation hangs over Sarisbury like a grey cloud before a game. Unless we meet the Southern League's stringent requirements about our ground, our pitch, our colts' set-up, our changing rooms and our financial structure, then we can win every game but not be promoted. There is some sense in accreditation because for club cricket to improve, pitches have to improve and replicate the pitches at a higher level and clubs should aspire to better things but accreditation is rooted in protectionism. Some clubs like Mudeford have to resign themselves to being excellent at their level but clubs without the chance of promotion soon become becalmed and Mudeford firsts have already lost two of their best players from last year.
The first player I meet is Les. So Les is, after all, playing instead of me:
"I didn't expect to see you."
"I've come to watch".
Greg is in the changing room.
"Clarky! We've got 11."
"I know, I came just in case you were short."
It's strange being in the dressing room; three of the team are from the seconds and there are a couple of youngsters from the fourths. I feel disconnected from my team. The constant in the team is Greg. Greg has played for the club since 1981. We were both born in the early 60s and are joined by a love for cricket, cycling and music. We shared a curry with our sons last summer. Tom described our road trips with "New Rose" and Greg nodded approvingly.
My life has moved on since that melancholy evening together and I'm now with Jo. Greg is still unshaven, middle-aged and single; an image he reinforces by affecting the part of club radical and bumbling good soul, like meeting Private Godfrey in his forties. This image of diffidence is, I think, in part calculated; being captain of a cricket team is often about avoiding favourites and factions. And Greg is under pressure: Gooders, the Chairman of Selectors, has already started to insist on two under 18s in each team and told Greg that if he objects to the policy then he will have to answer for his team's results. But I think Greg is one of best captains I have played under. This is my third season at Sarisbury and when I joined I played a season in the fourths. The thirds then were a wreck and were relegated. Greg took over last season and turned the team around so that we won our last 9 games for promotion. Greg good-naturedly nurtured and cajoled the team and got the best out of everyone.
I make my excuses and sit on the boundary bench. Robbo joins me and has guessed what has happened and we both laugh about my dash through the Forest.
"Good idea what with petrol so cheap."
Mudeford's opening bowlers are young and wild and I leave with Reevsy and Flower 60-0 off 10 overs. I really can't see them losing this one.
An hour later and I'm back at the club. The ground is still damp after a week of rain. The firsts are playing Portsmouth & Southsea at the Hollow. The Hollow is our first team ground and is in Allotment Road. It hasn't been the first team ground for a decade yet and the club reluctantly moved there when the Green, for all its white timber pavilion and conservation area good looks was too small for decent league cricket.
The wickets at the Hollow had a reputation; Lymington Seconds once wrote sniffily:
"Allotment by name, allotment by nature".
But Bob, Colin and Olly have given hours to our square and it is now officially Southern League compliant. The ground staff live in a closed world with a closed vocabulary of "scarifying" and "gang mowing" and where Bob's chugging on the heavy roller is one of the sounds of the season..
The ground staff are cricket obsessives; it's as if spending all Saturday playing is not enough. Colin did not take a holiday in the summer until he was in his forties and Bob grumbles about player's unavailability by explaining that he always drove back for the middle weekend of his fortnight family holiday so that he did not miss a game.
Our main problem is that a third of the outfield is a football pitch in the winter. When the summer comes the bare, uneven ground is pocked with stud marks and Southern League accreditation is scuttling away from the club before a ball is bowled. This April the club went for broke and spent nearly £10k and over a weekend forty or so members raked tons of sand into the outfield before heavy rolling and seeding. No-one knows if it will work; we just know if we don't do it, we will fail.
Now the ground looks bleak. Pete isn't playing because his partner Becky has given birth to very premature twins. It's customary and right to say that this puts cricket into perspective. It is right, of course, but a small part of all of us is now thinking we're now going to have to try and win the Hampshire League without our best player.
97-5. However slow and low the wicket is we need 150. Bondy is in the middle with our captain, Fred. They are facing Rowan Dyer, a South African opening bowler who beats the bat with his leg cutters but cannot break the partnership. This is a situation in which Fred can flourish. He is not vulnerable because of a need to score runs quickly and the situation feeds his pragmatism. Fred is far more likely to flourish here than if we were, say, 250-4 with 10 overs to go. Bondy plays well too for a 50 and we have doggedly reached 171 when Fred is out in the last over.
Tea is another disconnected half hour. Tom is preoccupied with his bowling and for the second time today I realise how self-contained teams are and of the barrier between those who play and those who watch.
I can only watch half an hour because Jo and I are going to my sister's birthday party. It is perhaps the key half hour of the season though. The Portsmouth & Southsea top five contains three South Africans and their overseas Aussie and all are fine players; but as I leave, with Tom's successful LBW appeal calling me back, the game is over as the top order disintegrates to 51-7.
That's 4 wins out of 4. Only Liss and Fawley have started so well.
Hannah rings me and says that Mudeford Seconds got the 173 needed after being 17-5. The Thirds have lost again and there are mixed feelings as the tail lights guide us back to Suffolk.
