[rob237]

Parr's Tree was chopped down many years ago and made in to hundreds of minature bats, sold for club funds.
I had a few at the time, kept giving them away so down to my last one...if I can find it!

Used to love the old scoreboard, visited several times. Used to require 8 operators during Test matches!
Rather like an oversize hamsters cage inside, with ladders, ropes, numbers and letters everywhere.
Wonderful how they could condense the names for the inter-changeable plates:

Bhagwat Subramanya Chandrasekhar became Chandra...

Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan became Venkat...and perhaps best of all:

Warnakulasuriya Patabendige Ushantha Joseph Chaminda Vaas becam Vaas...

Cheers
Robt P.

[Beefsteak]

Good job SHeppard Ian Thomas didn't get to play there then ..........LOL

[rob237]

LOL...they'd have clicked on straightaway...you'd have been first name up on the board!
When Venkat played for Derbys CCC in the mid 70's, his team mates gave him the nickname of 'Ventilated Caravan', almost as long as his real name!

Had the pleasure of playing there four times..for Notts II, Club and Ground and twice for Paviors.
Rather awe-inspiring and overwhelming to walk where Grace and Bradman walked.
Disappointingly, main board never in use at all...

Notts II career rather brief...three games in the early 60's v Leics II, Worcs II (2 day match at TB) & Yorks II
Paviors team mate Dag Heginbotham and I fell out with coach Frank Woodhead, on a freezing day at Huddersfield v Yorks II, who objected to us wearing our club sweaters but wouldn't give us our Notts II sweater as we hadn't played the requisite five games. Despite Dag scoring 60 odd and Muggins taking four wickets, we never played again!

Cheers
Robt P.

[Beefsteak]

I may have mentioned it before , but when I played for Pork Farms in the early 80's we used to get net practice at Trent Bridge courtesy of Simon Robinson (Tims Brother) and it was the same sort of feeling for me, although my heroes were there, Robinson , Hadlee, Randall, Broad et al , always finished with a pint TBI. EEEEHH happy halcyanic days.!!!!

[rob237]

Knew Simon briefly when he played for Wollaton CC...
Had a reputation for posing in his his brother's cast off kit!

Tim was also a Pavior, and is now a first-class Umpire.
His Test batting record stands comparison with any England opener in recent times.
Had he played for Middlesex or Surrey his caps tally would have doubled...
Same goes for Rags Randall, often left out for the much inferior Gatting.

Cheers
Robt P.

[Beefsteak]

I've probably mentioned this elsewhere too, but Derek Randall was not only one of the best players I have seen, but he was always a very nice down to earth and extremely friendly man.
Always free to give out coaching tips when we were in the nets, and when he moved on to his indoor cricket centre at Wilford he was always willing to pull on the whites if you were a man short !! And boy that was a game for fit men !!
I was at my fighting weight and still struggled to get through my four innings batting, yet here was 'Arkle' sometimes playing three or four games a night !!
Unfortunately, I think he lost his money in this short lived fad. The problem with it was that such a large area was taken up by so few people, for an unspecified time (You played till you had finished your overs) not on a set time limit as it really should have been, ie ,slow play constitutes a forfeit of some sort. You also had to pay for score keepers x 2 (In with the price) but if you were allowed a scorer from each side there would have been a saving there too.

As for Simon , the only reputations he had with us was that he was a pretty good player who was very good at doing the "Boycott" ie running his own (Knackered ) players out!!
A very quick one re Simon, we were playing at Wollaton once and the opposition turned up with out an umpire, so muggins here was drafted in, standing at square leg when 'Robbo' sliced one straight in to my 'automatic' waiting hands !! (I dropped it like a hot potato, but was forever ribbed by all and sundry after this occasion!!

[firbeck]

Great stuff you two, I'm really impressed, I can only match it by saying that I was once the assistant scorer and occasional groundsman at Wollaton Cricket Ground. I reckon that scoring is the worst part of any cricket match, it always did my head in, even when it came down to filling in the little book while waiting to bat, too much concentration and not enough appreciation.
I didn't really get going in cricket until I moved down here, BGS were biased as to who played for them, so I gave up while in Nottingham. It wasn't until I got a lucky chance with a meeting in the village pub that I ended up playing for Finchingfield CC, made an impression with, cough, cough, an amazing catch at gulley in my first match, and then captained our office team to many adventures, I really miss not playing in the game anymore, I have to say that it's my favourite sport.
I think my only claim to fame, apart from some incidents at Wollaton, was throwing the ball back to Devon Malcolm during the infamous Herts V Derbyshire match at Bishops Stortford when the bad weather caused them to have to bowl at a single stump to settle the match, Devon wasn't picked to bowl, despite playing for England at the time, Herts hit the stump, Derbyshire didn't, strange way to settle a match.

[rob237]

firbeck, on 21 December 2009 - 11:09 AM, said:

...was throwing the ball back to Devon Malcolm...

Odds on that Dev would have dropped your throw...
Smashing bloke, phlegmatic character, did much for junior cricket in his spare time.

Still holds the uneviable record of having the worst bowling average (37+) of any opening bowler playing 40 England Tests, or more, since Tests began in 1877!

Cheers
Robt P.

[firbeck]

rob237, on 21 December 2009 - 12:10 PM, said:

Odds on that Dev would have dropped your throw...

Cheers
Robt P.

Oddly enough he missed it, but that was my fault entirely, I was a bit suprised when he turned round and said here you are mate, chuck it over here and I was a bit wild with my return, he clearly wasn't going to throw himself about to catch it, still expecting himself to be the main bowler at the single stump.
We used to work just up the road from the Bishops Stortford/Herts ground where the match was held, a lovely place with a hell of a slope on the wicket though, it made Headingly look like the Fens. When we got the office team together, they let us practice on their training pitch during the week, no mean team, our wicket keeper, Matt Lambert, was the son of a former Essex wicket keeper, a really good all round athlete and strangely, for an Essex boy, a big time Forest fan. He unfortunately sacrificed his sporting carreer to become a bloody good structural engineer, he clearly has sense, lovely bloke, he was sh#t hot at any sport, we formed a five a side football team and he excelled at that too. We had some really good and yet unexpected cricket players and during our few years of playing, we never lost a match, I remember one bloke who hated cricket but could score a boundary with virtually every hit, I recall him smashing the ball over the top of the pavilion at Great Dunmow to win the match, no mean feat, happy days, I miss em.

[rob237]

Played at the Essex County Ground in Chelmsford for Notts League XI v Essex League XI in 64/65?

Given out LB on 49!, from a ball that wouldn't have hit three sets of stumps, by Essex pro' Bill Greensmith!

Memorable lunch and tea - too 'podged' to bowl

Cheers
Robt P.

[firbeck]

rob237, on 22 December 2009 - 02:23 AM, said:

Played at the Essex County Ground in Chelmsford for Notts League XI v Essex League XI in 64/65?

Cheers
Robt P.

I bet you kept looking at the trains passing on the viaduct in case the odd Britannia appeared, though I think that the GER line was pretty much dieselised by then.

The most fantastic village cricket club in Essex is Castle Hedingham CC, their ground is stunning:



The club has been there since 1899, the pavillion is a dream of a large Victorian summer house. If you bat at the pavillion end, the offside boundary is miles away, the on side boundary is almost close enough to touch, formed of rhodedendron bushes with this on the other side of them:


I played there for Finchingfield and we got slaughtered, their FAST bowler taking all the wickets for 23, I was top scorer on 7, all scored off one ball, I hit it to the long boundary, ran 3, then the return went for 4 as the keeper missed it and it went over the short boundary rope. I had to suffer many unplayable bouncers after that.

We also had a firm of local builders next to Stansted Airport who's directors were so keen on cricket that they built their own cricket pitch behind their builders yard. Not only did they have all the facilities, they built a bloody swimming pool as well, 'for the enjoyment of the visiting losers'!! Absolutely top notch lovely builders, I have some pictures of a match there somewhere but can't find them at the minute.
We played them three times there as the office team, 'Carltons Cavaliers', and won all three. I recall one epic match when for some reason, the Red Arrows did a formation take off from Stansted, banked left and flew low over the pitch, they must have spotted what was going on and put on the coloured smoke, or more probably, just a coincidence. As we looked up in astonishment, my boss turned round to his counterpart and said, ' Nothing but the best organised for Carltons Cavaliers, a bit later than I expected though', he believed it as well, until he looked round and saw us rolling about on the ground crying with laughing.

Nice subject to have in this winter misery, it makes me think of watercress and cheese sandwiches being devoured from the comfort of a wicker chair on a pavilion veranda somewhere in real England, with the sun setting behind the trees.

[firbeck]

I just found this picture:



This is Jack, Firbeck junior, walking disconsalately back from the wicket at the famous Silvester, Builders, own cricket ground at Takeley. He was only 13 at the time and our ringer, nicknamed Arkle for obvious reasons, a brilliant prospect, but thanks to the attitude adopted by Essex County Council, no cricket to be played in local schools, he got nowhere. Even the local village cricket team messed him about and he got fed up with it all in the end and packed it in, the only time he ever played competitive matches was with us, brilliantly, and an odd match with our local gentry, Gentlemen v Players, he destroyed the Gentlemen with his bowling, best figures were 3 in one over, the umpire, the director of the former Grays Brewery in Hertford (destroyed by Greene King) thought he was absolutely amazing, he was only 10 at the time, no wonder a proportion of the current England cricket team were born in South Africa, they clearly appreciate the game over there.

[Limey]

I've obviously been away for a long time - but why is there such disdain for cricket? Especially in the schools?


Edit: I should add that, once she understood what was going on, Mary enjoys watching cricket when we get a chance to see it on our trips over there. There is something almost magical about a warm summer evening watching the lads play!

[Beefsteak]

I can't answer that professionally so to speak , but a lot of schools were forced to sell off their land a few years back and this may have some thing to do with it.

I know my former school/ leisure centre, had 2 cricket pitches (1 of which doubled up for track and field athletics ) 7 'All weather' football pitches,2 proper Rugby/football pitches , a dry ski slope, and a golf driving range!!! of these, just the 'all weather' stuff, and 2 footy/ rugby pitches remain , the rest has long gone for housing.

[firbeck]

Saffron Walden County High, the school that Jack went to and one of the top one's in Essex, has massive playing fields, they even have a farm with cattle, sheep. etc. Unfortunately, they can't be arsed with cricket, perhaps it had something to do with Health and Safety, dangerous, that hard ball, someone could get hurt, thats why it was banned from our junior school. Inevitably all sports will be banned from our schools, apart from the fact that you could hurt your back pulling your socks up, you can't have losers can you, it's not right is it, thats the mentality these days in this glorious country of ours, I hope they realise you could pull a muscle lifting your arse on a Friday lunchtime.

[Beefsteak]

Had to chuckle at the ' hard ball' comment.

There was a lad at my school called Mick B******s (Name left out to protect his embarrassment should he ever read this!!)

One day we were playing cricket and Anthony Walker was doing his usual fast bowling (Zing Zing Zing was all that you could hear as they flew past your tabs !!) In those days I was usually out first or second ball facing him , this particular day I caught hold of the first one he lobbed at me and it was soaring off towards the long leg boundary where Mick was fielding, (He was another who was scared of the ball) he looked up, dithered, closed his eyes and hoped and prayed that the ball would land in his out stretched hands , it didn't , it landed full on the bonce , knocking him down and the ball bounced off of his head and straight over the boundry for a 6 !!! ( I was still out two balls later !!)

A couple of weeks later we were doing The Javelin in athletics and somebody managed to impale him on the arm with one (Not guilty this time )

If you ever read this Mick B******s I am (not) sorry for laughing, but it was bloody funny !!

[Limey]

With stories like that Beefy, I am not surprised they are banning sports!

[firbeck]

I have to admit that I would always crap myself going for a ball on the boundary, not that I was scared of it, but I could never make the bloody things stick. I was only happy fielding at gulley or slip, fast stuff I could cope with and loved it, but high lobbed balls never agreed with me for some reason. I even had lessons from my keen type brother in law from Yorkshire, but it never had any effect. I recall captaining our office side once and was stupid enough to place myself near the pavilion, probably fancied a chat. Along came a crucial high ball and I panicked, it inevitably bounced out of my two hands but I managed to throw myself forward and catch it single handed in a dive, it must have looked impressive and the pavilion mob went mad, but it was in fact a really jammy piece of theatricals, not that I admitted as much at the time.
Sounds like Ian, Rob, Firbeck snr and Nottingham based jnr could form the core of a half decent team, anyone else up for it, my cricket bag is still sitting quietly dying in the garage.

[mick2me]

My grandfather was killed by a blow to the head by a cricket ball.

[rob237]

Head injuries clearly the major injury threat...hence the advent of the helmet.

Can't recall any modern day deaths in the first-class game, but Roger Davies of Glamorgan came very near - after being struck by a Bill Alley pull shot, whilst fielding close in at short-leg, in the early 60's...unconcious for almost a month, and lucky to survive.Warwickshire opening bat Andy Smith also struck, by a Dennis Lillee bouncer, in an Australia Test...and never played at that level again.

Saw numerous teeth, and many buckets of blood, strewn around the wicket over the years...luckily, my only injuries were confined to broken fingers (could never have been a concert pianist!) and pulled muscles.

Cheers
Robt P.