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The touring teram in Edinburgh on Saturday - and below, the team meet up in town on Friday night; John Griffiths has a stag toast - and the team at the end of the evening in a Nepalese curry house. It was all too much for Loomes senior and Johnny Quinn
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Day One
It was a case of ‘Trains, Planes and Automobiles’ as London Saints Cricket Club converged upon Edinburgh last Friday from 7 different locations, times and modes of transport for our cricket tour which was also very thinly disguised as a stag weekend for LSSC stalwart and original member of the ‘Fat Boy 3’ club, John Griffiths.
3 members were well acclimatised; Edinburgh residents, Phil Rogers and Ian Shiels, have lived North of the Border for a number of years and Lord Lucan had spent the previous 2 weeks grouse shooting on his estate north of Inverness.
Garry Burrell and girlfriend (Ed – I thought this was a stag tour?) were the welcome party for the main group (DT, Pete and The 4 John’s – Griffiths, Quinn, ‘Where’s’ and ‘Little’) mid afternoon. Loomes Junior and Quinny set an early pace in the worse for wear stakes – ‘Where’s’, who had spent much of the train journey socialising with Scottish football fans returning from Paris, John Quinn who downed a bottle of wine by himself in the first pub. We then watched the first of many disappointing TV sporting clashes over the weekend as England got stuffed by Australia in the 20/20 cricket.
DT encouraged the party to remain in the pub for as long as possible knowing that the effects of the alcohol would soften the shock of seeing our living quarters for the next 2 days. They had been pre-warned that the ‘youth‘ hostel would be basic and it was certainly that. 6 to a room in 3 bunk beds in accommodation quickly nicknamed HM Prison Slade or Prisoner Cell Block H and drew comparisons to the accomodation that we had frequented in Prague for a LSSC football tour in the early 90’s.
The rest of the party, Eric (I’m only here for the beer and East Stirling) Shadick, Arran Frood and Andy Jones arrived in the evening from different ports of call and were joined by our local guide Phil (it’s only a 10 minute walk) Rogers. Andy almost never made it (and nearly sealed the tour Champagne Moment on Day One) as he was stopped from boarding his plane as staff at Stansted Airport believed they had discovered Semtex in his bag and disabled his mobile phone! Upon opening his bag fortunately it was decided that his smelly jock strap was probably the cause of the alarm but he was still held for questioning following his claims that he was going on a cricket tour as they couldn’t believe that anyone as old as him would still be playing.
Perhaps some of Lord Lucan’s servants had obviously stayed at our hostel previously and must have advised him that it was not suitable for someone of his standing so along with Johnnie G and Andy the three of them abandoned the rest of us mere mortals for a slightly posh apartment in a better part of town. This was further evidence of Johnnie G avoiding his stag weekend duties of drinking too much as he had already spent the afternoon avoiding alcohol by visiting his Edinburgh office.
The party, now fully assembled, took a ‘short‘ walk to a pub that Phil recommended to watch the Rugby and by half time we were quite pleased that the sound was turned off (as the venue had been double booked for a band to perform ) as England put in an abject performance. Our mood was though enhanced by witnessing Where’s John (apparently for the first time in his life) being refused a drink by the landlord saying, “I’ll serve you water or a coffee but no more alcohol looking like that“. Despite our protestations that John’s wide eyed and vacant expression was in fact his normal every day look the landlord would have none of it so we departed across the road for a curry where the aforementioned early starters, Loomes and Quinn, promptly fell asleep!
After a few more beers at a Cuban club the party split up (a bit like the Gentleman and Players used to up until 1963) to our respective abodes.
Day Two
I think everyone can imagine for themselves the aroma and the dawn chorus that broke in a room shared by 6 blokes who had spent the previous day drinking beer followed by a curry – lets just say that the window could not be opened fast enough! Remarkably our full team of 11 arrived from 5 different overnight destinations on time for the first of our two 20/20 games with rain starting to fall. Thankfully it stopped and held off all day as we completed both matches.
Match 1 – Murrayfield DAFS 133 – 6 (Quinn 2 – 16, Rogers 2 – 24 )
London Saints 72 – 9 (Shiels 39, Griffiths 10)
Years ago a few beers and a late night curry would have set us up perfectly for a good sporting performance the next day. Those times have long passed as we suffered in the field dropping numerous catches – actually it was worse than that as we didn’t get our hands to the majority of the chances as, in a mass tribute to the absent Wath, we decided to stand stationary in the field and watch the ball bounce in front of us rather than move towards the ball and attempt to catch it – Lord Lucan was particularly guilty on 2 occasions. Thankfully Garry Burrell was alert behind the stumps with 2 excellent stumpings and generally the bowlers bowled well with only 3 extras conceded in their total of 133. They all averaged between 6 and 7 per over apart from Johnny Quinn who averaged 5.3 and with 2 wickets was the pick of the bowlers. Their score was probably 20 more than we expected at the halfway stage but it reflected their strength in depth which was shown when it was our turn to bat.
I’m not sure if it was the cold wind (I’ve played on colder days but can’t remember when), our hangovers, the strength of their bowling or the shock of our ‘leading‘ batsman getting out for a golden duck, but we struggled from the off (apart from Ian Shiels who hit an excellent 39) losing 2 wickets in the first over and collapsing to 17 for 5. White Viv, still feeling the effects of his airport interrogation (lucky he didn’t have the rubber glove treatment) was out to his first ball leading to a quite un- Andy like strop as helmet, gloves, bat and a chair were chucked out of his pram (a la Phil Rogers in Sri Lanka).
Next in, and with everyone in anticipation, was Steve (Lord Lucan) Keenan with a point to prove. Their have been rumblings of discontent in the Keenan camp; unhappy with batting down the order and not having enough time to play himself in so it was agreed at Ex Blues that he should be given time to prove himself in the next match. “I want to build an innings“ were Steve’s exact words. Well he certainly had time as time as he strode purposefully to the middle for the 4th ball of our innings and he then had lots of time to contemplate his response as his stumps were sent crashing 1st ball. You can imagine the mirth that greeted his quick arrival back from the middle.
The groom to be, showed the wisdom of avoiding alcohol on his stag weekend by being the only other batsmen to reach double figures. Another golden duck (our 3rd) was achieved when Phil was bowled giving him a London Saints tour Hilda (following his 2 ducks in Sri Lanka) and a further 2 ducks were achieved by Pete when run out off a no-ball! (and making the duck trophy interesting being now only one behind Garry B) and Arran.
Lord Lucan, in an attempt to dominate the Champagne Moments in this match, then proceeded to do an impersonation of Big Dave whilst umpiring. After the Skipper had hit, an admittedly wayward ball to the covers, and started to run, his Lordship stuck out his arms and called “wide“ – obviously been reading Big Dave’s North American Rules of Cricket recently.
So an eventful match played in a good spirit (Murrayfield DAFS are Phil and Ian’s team in Edinburgh and are a good bunch of blokes who play with a smile on their faces, particularly their Skipper after getting Ian out off his 1st ball) with our team suffering from the previous days exertions with 5 ducks, indifferent fielding (we could only improve) and Champagne Moments galore.
Man of the Match: Ian Shiels – a fine innings
Champagne Moment: Many to choose but Lord Lucan’s golden duck the pick
Match 2 - London Saints 107 – 5 (Shiels 50 , Jones 20, Frood 13)
Leith FAB 107 – 6 (Loomes 2 – 17)
A much more even game as our hangovers wore off (or was it just the cold that sobered us up?) against a team much closer to our standard that included some ‘interesting‘ characters that you wouldn’t particularly want to meet down a dark Edinburgh alleyway late at night. Ian Shiels was again the mainstay of our innings, showing his liking to his local batting environment, and got his 50 off the very last ball of our innings. Ian was well supported by Andy Jones (whose mini strop at getting run out going for a 3rd run was well down the Richter scale from the earlier game) and Arran Frood batting up the order. We lost our way a little in the last 4 overs only scoring 13 runs which left us around 15 runs short of our hoped for target with so many wickets in hand – we didn’t even have to wake up Little John to bat who spent the whole of our innings asleep in the bar .
Having woken up, Little John proceeded to produce an excellent spell of bowling conceding only 17 runs in his 4 overs and taking 2 wickets. Our bowlers, with the exception of the Skipper and Arran, all bowled tightly – the Skipper taking himself off after only one over after being hit for 3 fours in the over, a la the 1st over in Sri Lanka 2006 – this time though not helped by some poor fielding for 2 of the boundaries – particularly the last one which was hit to deep square leg where John Quinn had been placed. That’s OK straight to John thought the Skipper, stupidly not realising that John would of course be looking the other way and picking up a jumper off the floor! “It’s OK (retorted John to the jibes) I wouldn’t have got to it anyway“ – fair point it was 2 yards from him – a long way for a man of his age to move.
At 95 for 2 with only 13 required off 4 overs we looked doomed but for once the Skipper, who had contributed nothing else to this game, got his bowling changes right. Controversially Phil, who had again bowled well, was taken out of the attack and replaced by Johnnie G who bowled the dangerous Aussie and conceded only 6 runs in his 2 overs. Little John was brought back for one very tight over of 3 runs and then Pete Berkeley bowled an excellent final over conceding only 3 runs with 4 dot balls to finish with the scores tied. Well done to everyone for our comeback and I think we deserved something out of the 2 matches and a tie was a fitting finale.
Man of the Match : Ian Shiels again
Champagne Moment : John Quinn’s non fielding looking the other way at a vital time (would love to have seen his response had it been off his bowling).
Day Three
We awoke to the news that our Sunday game had been called off due to heavy overnight rain with a mixture of relief (for our aching limbs and the prospect of watching Saints v Watford and England v South Africa in the 20/20 on the TV) and disappointment that our season had ended this way and with the duck trophy already decided – it probably sums up the wet season we have endured this summer. So we crossed the road from the hostel to the pub at 10.45 and left for the airport at 6.30 having seen Saints lose to Watford and England lose to South Africa – not a great weekend of TV sport for us!
And so we all went our separate ways home with little incident apart from Where’s John setting off the alarm at Edinburgh Airport courtesy of the metal in his recent knee replacement joint and DT’s ‘taxi‘ journey home from Luton Airport when our driver (Little John’s mate Shaun) missed the M25 and most of London (as Steve Keenan texted DT, ‘just tell him it’s a big place with lots of lights’) making it quicker to have walked home.
Overall a great, if tiring, weekend, thanks to Phil Rogers for helping to organise it, well done to Johnnie G for alcohol avoidance on his stag weekend (and good luck for his upcoming nuptials this Saturday) and finally thanks for all those who made it to Edinburgh, especially those in Prisoner Cell Block H.
