[Cricket] (Dickheads in) club cricket.

[Badger]

I play 3rd XI in the Surrey Championship for a London based club which is an OK standard without being brilliant. I've played for around 15 years for the same side and still love it - some of my best mates I met through the club and we still play in the same side and have a strong "social" ethos. The general rule for us on oppo is the closest they are to Croydon the more tw@tty they're likely to be which usually holds true (and also in football/life in general of course). But largely games are hard fought but fairly well mannered. But this year, after a couple of promotions we've encountered the "big clubs" (the ones whose first teams tend to have ex pros most of us have heard of) who regularly turn up with their own "neutral" umpire who then can insist on umpiring both ends based on being "qualified" (once sat in a classroom with some other old blokes for a few hours). The level of cheating is staggering. After one game we were so hacked off we checked the stats - and in the last 1.5 seasons the side had been awarded 3.5 times more LBWs than had been given against them!

I came across a fair few of those "neutral" umpires playing in Sussex. Special mention to the old guy who umpires the Burgess Hill 2nd XI. His finger would be up before the bowler had even considered appealing. There was a game I played where we were something like 23/5 with 4 of the dismissals being very suspect LBW decisions.

Then there's the teams who try to cheat their way to wickets when they see there's an inexperienced umpire. If the ball goes anywhere near the pads or the keeper takes a catch, the whole team goes up screaming their appeal at the umpire.

 

[jakarta]

I was a teacher at a Technical College in Brent from 1966 and 1994, and we used to play 20 over evening matches against the teachers from other local colleges and schools. One evening Harold Phillips from John Kelly School for Boys, explained that they were one short and would it be OK if a 13yo boy played, as he was very keen. It would be fair to say that Mike Gatting was the difference between the two teams!!

Was he, shall we say, showing a bit of Puppy Fat at 13?

 

[LlcoolJ]

Was he, shall we say, showing a bit of Puppy Fat at 13?

I bet he enjoyed the teas.

 

[Guinness Boy]

[MENTION=29192]Brighton Lines[/MENTION] will remember when our club had its own travelling umpire back in the 90s and probably way before that. His surname began with a "K" but he was known to everyone as "TOCK" which stood for the "The Old C***t K*****s"

If that's what his "own" team thought of him God knows what the oppo called him.....

 

[Guinness Boy]

I bet he enjoyed the teas.

Cheese and pickle?

I also bet he didn't bowl. I smashed his bowling around on a Red Letter Day at Lords and I'm shit.

 

[Weststander]

I bet he enjoyed the teas.

Mike Gateaux was the name I gave him in the mid-80’s, when arguing with someone as to who was better - Gower or Gateaux?

 

[Eeyore]

[MENTION=29192]Brighton Lines[/MENTION] will remember when our club had its own travelling umpire back in the 90s and probably way before that. His surname began with a "K" but he was known to everyone as "TOCK" which stood for the "The Old C***t K*****s"

If that's what his "own" team thought of him God knows what the oppo called him.....

Not sure what happened to old TOCK. That was a long time ago now. Strewth.

 

[Eeyore]

Cheese and pickle?

I also bet he didn't bowl. I smashed his bowling around on a Red Letter Day at Lords and I'm shit.

Took a few Test wickets, Martin Crowe being one.

Had a strange waddle to the crease. Bit like a jelly.

 

[Brian Fantana]

I had something fairly similar playing on Saturday. I used to play club cricket from early teens up until about 10 years ago, but gave up due to many of the reasons/characters described on this thread.

My cricket these days is pretty much an annual charity match organised by a friend in Cambridge, and played on the university ground - Fenners. Due to having a fairly young daughter, I've missed the last couple of years, so wasn't expecting much from my performance on Saturday. After being asked to open the batting, I was fairly certain I'd be back in the pavilion before the first over was out. Fast forward 65 balls faced and I was somehow on 94 - aided by some Malan-esque catching from the opposition. I tend to bat quite far out of my crease, especially against seam bowling, and being 6'3 I always reckon this makes me quite difficult to give out LBW. Not for the jobsworth old **** umpiring. Despite my starting position, and taking a stride down the pitch, he gave me out for a ball that hit me just above the knee roll. In all likelihood, the keeper's head was in more danger than the stumps. Could. Not. Believe. It.

 

[Badger]

Banned for 9 games

https://www.bbc.com/sport/cricket/45100324

 

[Mr Putdown]

I played village cricket for Hartfield for years. Just wondered if I might have played against any of you?

 

[Guinness Boy]

Took a few Test wickets, Martin Crowe being one.

Had a strange waddle to the crease. Bit like a jelly.

When it comes to taking wickets I give you "hanging balls"......

 

[Eeyore]

When it comes to taking wickets I give you "hanging balls"......

Oh indeed. And I do remember when you used to bowl the occasional over. Bit like Ian Salisbury without the spin (did he spin it ?). Your bowling arm seemed to follow through about 5 minutes after your leading arm.

That said, you never regarded yourself as a bowler, so one cannot complain- and you did pick up the odd wicket.

Our chief spinner, whom I am yet to see turn one, probably faired little better.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Oh indeed. And I do remember when you used to bowl the occasional over. Bit like Ian Salisbury without the spin (did he spin it ?). Your bowling arm seemed to follow through about 5 minutes after your leading arm.

That said, you never regarded yourself as a bowler, so one cannot complain- and you did pick up the odd wicket.

Our chief spinner, whom I am yet to see turn one, probably faired little better.

I'm the original pie chucker.

You missed my finest hour playing ex-pat cricket in Japan. There was a tournament where everyone had to bowl an over. We were playing an Aussie team and their captain used to regularly smack 100s and had a particular liking for our captain's bowling (who had had a trial for the Japanese national team). He took one look at my pies and his eyes lit up like the Goldstone's floodlights on a Wednesday night. He took an enormous mow and was caught a foot inside the boundary. This story sadly doesn't belong in this thread, however as he subsequently bought me a beer over a some fried chicken at a local Izakaya.

 

[dazzer6666]

I once ran John Edrich out........

......he must have been close to 60 years old, and not the quickest between the wickets [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Banned for 9 games

https://www.bbc.com/sport/cricket/45100324

Good.

 

[Guinness Boy]

I once ran John Edrich out........

......he must have been close to 60 years old, and not the quickest between the wickets [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]

I once ran out the CEO of the company I was working for. Unfortunately I wasn't fielding.

 

[dazzer6666]

I once ran out the CEO of the company I was working for. Unfortunately I wasn't fielding.

Our Group Director in the Channel Islands obviously used to be a cricketer in his time and asked if he could play for the office team. He was a half-decent spin bowler as it turned out but in his 50s. We had a decent team at the time and were pretty competitive.......

I was opening the bowling once against our fiercest rivals, bounced the opening bat who gloved it straight to him at gulley, whereupon he obviously dropped it.

Shouting “FFS you useless ******g t***t” wasn’t a career-progressing comment on my part.

 

[Eeyore]

I once ran out the CEO of the company I was working for. Unfortunately I wasn't fielding.

I was ran out in all of my first five innings of 1998.

I'm not sure that isn't a record.

 

[jackanada]

Not thread on Sussex cricketing bell cheeses would be complete tales of Mayfield cricket and importing south African near internationals to bowl 95mph at spotty teens and gentlemen whose reflexes are at best somewhat dulled by age and beer.