As chair at Old Colfeians, I put together an occasional nostalgia piece for our Past Players newsletter. While researching what happened in April/May ten years ago, I just stumbled across @lolwray ‘s stellar bowling figures in a Sunday friendly vs Catford & Cyphers: 5-1-17-4. Well bowled that man! He did, however, fail to trouble the scorers in both of his early season innings against OCs in 2014.
You won't be surprised to hear I don't remember both the innings but it's nice to be reminded of the bowling ..Thankyou. I seem to remember it was a murky spring afternoon. Always a pleasure playing against Old Colfeians..I also remember bowling at the middle of a young Caswalls bat many years ago at Horn Park.( late 70s) .if you can find that scorecard I'd be very impressed .
Oh yes, young Mr Caswall. A very good player and absolute master of taking a single off the last ball of an over. I watched in admiration from the other end as he scored 1,300 runs at 103 in his last year at school. He didn’t like facing first though, so I generally received at least 6 balls while batting with him.
The skipper of Catford Cyphers in this particular game did the right thing in taking off one of the opening bowlers and bring himself on - no doubt in order to ensure that the other opening bowler had to spend all night buying jugs for taking a 10 fer! Fortunately, I wasn't playing for Sidcup in this game but did play with all of them including, of course, with Brian Smith.
Likewise always a pleasure playing against Sidcup..I think Brian Smith and Roger Shaddock considered me a walking wicket but I have taken my fair share of Sidcup wickets over the years, always enjoyed playing against the likes of Jim Waterhouse and Hugh beresford - Webb
First friendly of the season yesterday at Hockerill CC , 45 over match , with Stansted airports landing strip in the background (I counted 13 Ryan air to 6 of all the rest landing in the first few overs when we fielded ) coldest I’ve ever played cricket in I had 4 layers on when fielding (Charlton cricket jumper thankfully big enough to be worn on top of the rest) we batted first and having struggled early on my son (90% of all runs leg side) managed to get his top score ever of 82 not out (we both had a joint top score of 76 before yesterday so I’ll have to get my batting boots on to catch him) I was ready to bat from the 18th over when my son went in at 5 , thankfully only one wicket fell and I was saved the humiliation of going out to bat without any pads on ffs I didn’t realise until The 40th over wibble wibble wibble we got 223 and the oppo gave it a real good chasing when their only gun got 132 off 100 balls in my 4 overs for 32 , 18 deliveries against him ffs, he slapped me around but I had him dropped over the boundary for 6 when he was prolly in his 30s, my son had him dropped twice later on as well all by the same fella !! We won by 17 runs but I’m in awful shape and feel very achey today . oppo had a grandad, dad (their gun) and son playing which was nice and they were a nice Friendly mob
thank fuck for the cricket season, the football one has wound me up far too much
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coldest I’ve ever played cricket in I had 4 layers on when fielding (Charlton cricket jumper thankfully big enough to be worn on top of the rest)
we batted first and having struggled early on my son (90% of all runs leg side) managed to get his top score ever of 82 not out (we both had a joint top score of 76 before yesterday so I’ll have to get my batting boots on to catch him)
I was ready to bat from the 18th over when my son went in at 5 , thankfully only one wicket fell and I was saved the humiliation of going out to bat without any pads on ffs I didn’t realise until The 40th over wibble wibble wibble
we got 223
and the oppo gave it a real good chasing when their only gun got 132 off 100 balls
in my 4 overs for 32 , 18 deliveries against him ffs, he slapped me around but I had him dropped over the boundary for 6 when he was prolly in his 30s, my son had him dropped twice later on as well all by the same fella !!
We won by 17 runs but I’m in awful shape and feel very achey today .
oppo had a grandad, dad (their gun) and son playing which was nice and they were a nice Friendly mob
thank fuck for the cricket season, the football one has wound me up far too much
now for some sun and heat please !