2nd - 4th July

Mike Ireland (veteran seamer and occasional funky tweaker) has arranged another (actually the same as last year!) excursion to Bournemouth ("oh we do like to be beside the seaside..") this year. Your finalised teams (injuries permitting) and their captains are...

Note that in a notable break from tradition, there are no slackers playing a single game this year(!)

A late update to the teams from the funky tweaker following the untimely withdrawal of last year's batsman of the year:

"Due to the unfortunate injury to James (although I'm pleased to report that he's still coming along) there have been enforced changes to the teams. Captain Marvel Chris O'Reilly has manfully agreed to play all three matches and will fill the vacancy at Pylewell Park but the big news is forget the Elvis 1968 comeback, Steve Herring will be dusting off his whites and turning out on Saturday!!!"

Friday

Bindon Engineering - 6:00

Saturday

Hinton Admiral - 2:00

Sunday

Pylewell Park - 2:30

Ben Griffin

Tour Update

By general consensus this was even bettert than last year's best Barford tour of recent years with the combination of a better (and cheaper!) hotel, a selection of delightful grounds and opposition and good weather ensuring a veritable carnival of criggit. Place your bets for next year, but it looks like the fixtures would be gratefully repeated by all concerned. Photographic evidence is passing by the censors as I write, but the first of the match reports is now in and available for public consumption...

In the meantime, to whet your appetite, we have the chairman rehearsing his role as tour rep for next year(!)

STOP PRESS

Offical pap pictures of the tour are now available as individual snaps or as a slideshow - the unofficial tourist photos are here.

Selected highlights are:

• Erdy's innings and demise
• Simon's wicket
• A happy tourmeister
• Pete on the phone
• Spot the ball with Trez

Match Reports

As in previous years (more or less) unadultered match reports from the skippers can be found below...

Bindon Engineering v Barford CC - Friday 2nd July

We negotiated a difficult toss with a win and it all went up hill from there. Or it might have been an uphill struggle. I can't remember to be honest, it's all a bit hazy. So what follows may be an accurate report or it could be partial fabrication. Either way, it probably paints the skipper in a better light than he should be.

So once I'd won the toss and elected to bat the fun began. Messrs Chris (Prince and O'Reilly) opened the batting. Mr Prince soon closed it. Pete Romyn stepped in at number 3. Vertigo set in being so high up the order as his run came and his wicket went. Mr Peirson then went out. I believe he'd had a few, so was nice and loose. The sticky wicket was clearly a challenge though and tumbleybump over he went "sorry field" was his cry as he hit the deck. After nurdling it around for a good 20 minutes he gracefully sacrificed his wicket for the princely total of (fill in your own answer here but it wasn't double figures). The Griffin then made his tour debut. Wheeling his bat like a dervish he swiftly waved, wafted and stroked his way to a respectable twentyish. Skipper Morris sharpened his axe and with a piece of willow hewn from the gold of the Gods stepped up to the mark. One cuff to leg, a chinese cut to fine leg and two more scoring strokes brought up six and spelled "t h e e n d" as one didn't nip back and proceded to remove his middle stump. Richard Johnson and Timmsy.Timmsy added a few more before the 20 overs caught up with us with just 105 on the board.

Morris felt that wasn't really enough to defend but set about them, opening the bowling with Griffin from the Main Road End and Ireland from the Hospital End. The plan to use the setting sun to blind the batsmen with Irelands looping spin was thwarted by a cloudy evening sky. They did their bit though and Griffin had their No2 caught for 11 and Mike their No 3 for 6 - 35 for two and looking tight. The first bowling change brought on Hawkins and Jones, with Squadron leader Morris keeping his prize Spitfire in reserve. Jones removed their other opener (3-47) and a game still looked on(ish) Lo and behold Morris had a word and Wing Commander Peirson was tempted out of bowling retirement. Seven comedy deliveries later (including another tumble, which earned the Champagne Moment of the tour) he was tempted back in to it. He had done his bit though and pegged the score well (1-0-0-12). Timms then delivered two supreme overs of excellence (2-0-1-9) including one ball that might have turned, then again it might not. Either way the batsman lost concentration as the ball made its nebulous way down the wicket, played and missed and O'Reilly removed the bails. Bindon then unleashed their departing star player. In his last game before emigrating to the USA he wandered on to the field and smacked it around a bit. Various field changes were considered but the game was up. Needing four to win off 30 balls we all spread out to save the singles. Unfortunately we spent the four and that was that. 106 for 4 and Bindon were again the victors.

The main blame for this might be laid sqarely at the door of the tour supporters who were more tempted by the Kings Arms than Wareham Cricket Ground (you know who you are!) However, for some reason our august Chairman appeared to want to carry it on his not inconsiderable shoulders. Sandy, the offer is gratefully acknowledged but there were eleven of us out there and we'll all take our fair share of the responsibility!

Hinton Admiral CC v Barford CC - Saturday July 3rd

A fixture that produced a dramatic draw last year again promised much in the return match. In almost identical hot and sunny conditions, a slightly re-jigged team arrived at the picturesque ground after a healthy lunch in Bournemouth’s finest proper pub, the Goat and Tricycle. Another time game was agreed and the toss was, well, negotiated by your captain and unusually having lost it I was asked what I wanted to do. As the opposition were going to lose players after tea, we agreed to bat first and both Chris’s were sent into the breach. Unfortunately C Prince fell early, but O’Reilly was joined by P Johnstone who continued his good form of the season and the pair made it to 51 before O’Reilly fell victim to the brothers that were to cause us problems later on. Pete Romyn’s luck was out as he failed to score and despite getting off the mark with a 4, Henderson managed to find a find a fielder who plucked a shot out of the air. Shortly afterwards Paul J was run out for the top score of 45 and we were left teetering on 79 for 5. On a ground where the boundaries hadn’t appreciably grown since last year and a score of over 240 had only just secured a draw, things were not looking good. However cometh the hour, cometh the man and in a crucial partnership with free-hitting Ben Griffin, Donny’s finest, Steve Herring came to the crease. Unencumbered by a night of clubbing, he rolled back the years getting the innings back on track with 10 solid runs. The tail wagged with entertaining runs at the end and a target of 150 had been set.

Without the facilities of the hotel, tea was an exciting affair, slightly short on milk and plates, but more and more kept coming, and by the end, we were in danger of having to take a tea break within the tea break to make the most of the lemon drizzle cake.

The tight opening overs from Griffin and Jolly produced a flashing chance to Pete Romyn but not much else in the way of runs or wickets until the talented brothers got their range and started to ‘go large’ and were well on the way to a 50 partnership opening burst. Finally Ben stomached a catch off Tim’s bowling to dismiss the opener. Now it was time for spin, and Mike Ireland start twirling from the pavilion end but runs were still coming from the other end. ..until Paul J’s second over. Two wickets in two balls changed the situation and 62/3 was a much healthier scoreline. With only 8 wickets to get in total, we had an end to bowl at even if we couldn’t get their big-hitting opener out.

Game on and some optimistic field placings paid off after the break, with big turn and bounce from tourmeister Mike forcing a catch to pop up to short leg. Things started happening quickly and Hawkins weighed in with a wicket in his first over – another catch by Ben. Wickets were tumbling now, Mike bowled another jaffer and Tim J made good on an earlier (much easier) missed chance to remove their opener by taking a great catch off Simon. Hinton had slid to 86/7 and with the final pair at the wicket (including veteran Alan who arrived with a runner), surely there wouldn’t be another twist? Intent on defence and with time starting to run out, the last pair were providing stubborn resistance. 5 maidens in 8 overs from Johnson and Henderson couldn’t extract either of them and so the ball was tossed to Griffin who showed us how to do it by flicking the top of off stump with his first ball and a rare tour victory was secured.

Having stared down both barrels of defeat for quite a while, it was nice to enjoy another close game and once again thanks to Hinton Admiral for a great ground and fixture.

Pylewell Park CC v Barford CC - Sunday 4th July 2010.

The Sunday match of a Barford CC Tour is always a considerable challenge for most of the players! -  but the prospect of once again visiting the lovely ground which is home to the friendly Pylewell Park CC is a good antidote to the various self inflicted legacies of the previous two matches and nights on tour.

It was originally planned that one of our two “virgin tourists”, James, would captain today but his broken finger prevented him from taking up the challenge on the field so I was very pleased to see him with us on tour and grateful to take on board his thoughts about captaining the game.

On Sunday morning we only had one recruitment issue (to cover Fish who was unable for personal reasons to join us) and a mild concern about Richard Johnson’s colour! Simon got the short straw when I woke him from his post early morning beach walk slumbers and he said “yes” before he realised what he had done! This was a great relief to Mike who now had clearance to “do the slab” with Erdsy!

Thanks to some pre tour cyber due diligence by Mike, who had spotted that the Pylewell CC website hosts the Walhampton Arms as a local real ale and food pub and with some help from the “i-whatever’s” to find a post code for the SAT NAV’s, we all arrived in good time for lunch. (As a pub I don’t think this was a patch on the Kings Head Inn where we went last year but it was easy to find and probably more important, to park).

Pre-match thoughts from James - We have three wicket keepers and I think we will need the legs and throwing arms of Chris and Phil in the field, so Sandy should keep.
A time game is preferred and ideally we should bat second.

The ground looked very dry with a short cut outfield. This year the pitch, which had already been used, was at the far end of the square which was a relief. The wind would be behind the fielder throwing from the longest boundary and hopefully we would not have a repeat of last year, when on occasions it took three attempts to relay the ball back to the pitch!! The Pylewell skipper was very keen to play a time game because he had a lot of youngsters in his side and felt it was good experience for them to play this format. I lost the toss but persuaded him to bat first.

Barford opened the bowling with the in form pair of Griffin and Henderson who both bowled very tightly, Ben taking a couple of wickets and Paul 7-2-15-0 very unlucky not to do the same. The only down side during this excellent start was that Richard was certainly not quite with us and early in the game, following a chase for the ball (with a 60+ player), he vanished off the field! Great! This is a big ground with a very fast outfield and now we only have 10 men. Hawkins and Jolly continued the attack with Simon 6-1-25-0 unlucky to miss a difficult caught and bowled and Tim 5-0-23-0 bowling a very mean spell without the benefit of the wind helping his in-swing. Quietly and effortlessly during this spell of the game Master Mann (13 yrs) was demonstrating his prodigious batting talent.

After drinks two bowling changes brought results with Timms 4-0-24-1 removing the stubborn Royan (39) by inducing a skyer and Johnstone, with the help of an excellent catch by Morris, depriving Mann (47) of a 50 (I’m sure he will get many in the future). Significantly, Wodge (responsible for the famous quote from last year “the dog has got the ball” as we tried to retrieve the ball from an adjacent field) had arrived at the crease! Paul J continued his excellent spell with lots of variation and Jones 3-1-32-1 got the satisfaction of removing his opposing skipper but also got some long handle from the belligerent six-hitter. Ben returned to tighten things up and Johnstone 8-1-53-3 finally got due reward by bowling Wodge (78). When an over excited young player ran himself out (Brown – more of him later) and Ben 8-0-29-3 immediately bowled the new batsman for a duck the Pylewell umpire turned to me and said “great, everyone gets to bat”.

In our scorebook the final total isn’t recorded but for the purposes of this report batsmen are credited with 199 and bowlers conceded 201. So let’s settle on 201-9 declared at tea and that also means that Sandy didn’t let through any byes. Brilliant!
This was a good Barford effort with only 10 on the field.

Tea was a delicious array of tempting sandwiches and cakes, sufficiently good to see the re-appearance of Richard, who I was now reminded by our resident expert umpire (thanks Pete for standing throughout the match) could not bat before 7.

The Barford reply got off to an excellent start with O’Reilly batting carefully and Henderson continuing his golden Tour form. During the eighth over O’Reilly (9) was caught but Johnstone complimented Paul’s aggression with some graceful strokes and good running to take the score to 55 when Henderson (33) holed out to wide mid off.
Griffin, also in good Tour form, settled quickly and at drinks Barford had reached 80 for 2 and were well set.
After drinks the dismissal of Johnstone (22) by a ball from Brown, which for the first time in the match nipped back sharply, was the first indication that our progress to victory was going to be thwarted by another 13 year old. Peirson started well and at 104-3 things were still moving forward at the required rate
Then Griffin (27) was tucked up by an in swinging Yorker from Brown and the game was turned, much earlier than I was expecting, to Barford trying to remember how to bat for a draw in a time game!

What happened next I am not really able to report? At the fall of Ben’s wicket we had Jolly, Timms and Morris padded up and at that point Hawkins, Johnson and Jones decided en-block that this was the time for us all to get padded up. The changing room at Pylewell has no view of the playing area and much to our amazement as we went through our fight with kit bags etc Jolly (0) and Timms (0) returned! The scorebook shows that in one over the score advanced by one (from the squiggle I think it’s a wide) and Brown had taken three wickets, all bowled. Barford 105-6!

In the next 5 overs the score progressed to 120 with some resistance from Morris (4) and Hawkins (0) before both were bowled by Royan. Enter a less than well Johnson who played a great 21 ball block and leave over the next nine overs to help Peirson, who is at his best in these situations, to take the score to 134 and more importantly into the last over of the game.

Brown was recalled for the final over and with his second ball trapped Johnson (0) lbw leaving Jones to navigate the last four balls. Greeted by Sandy with the helpful advice “he’s swinging it in” the first ball was a long hop outside off stump, easily left, and the next one wasn’t! – Somewhere the “very late” had been missed out. Jones bowled (0) and Sandy (21 no) was stranded. Pylewell had won with two balls to go and my enduring memory will be the sight of an elated 13 year old running towards me with both arms high in the air. His final figures were 7-0-26-6 but in his last two overs he took 5 wickets for 1 run (and that was a wide). Later I signed the ball on behalf of BCC and donated it to him – it was his first “6 for” and like the batting of Mann I doubt it will be his last.

We repaired to the Pavilion to share a drink with our friendly hosts who thought it had been a great match played in the correct spirit and we mutually agreed not to light the BBQ because by now - it was freezing cold.

Barford Man of the Match

Without question - for excellent wicket keeping (he wanted to stop at drinks) and magnificent batting in difficult circumstances – it’s Sandy

Tour Highs & Lows

Highs

• England being KO’d in the World Cup
• Lunch at The Dundas Arms
• Sandy falling flat on his face attempting to bowl at Wareham
• Goat and Tricycle and it’s proximity to the Hotel
• An undisturbed nights sleep on Saturday night (Rich Jones)
• Food at the Amalfi Restaurant
• Choice of Hobgoblin as a bottled beer
• Dry weather
• Tea at Pylewell Park
• Outstanding 13 year old players at Pylewell Park
• TJ’s boundary catch at Hinton Admiral
• 1’st round at the Hotel on Sat night (everyone had a drink) which cost us £21.50
• A decent hotel (despite being much cheaper than last years)
• Pete Romyn's slip catch at Bindon
• Sandy's Jack Douglas-like performance after waking up in the back of the Landrover (I've included a clip if you're not familiar with the comedy legend!*?)
• Erdsy returning to active duty and chipping in with a cameo at Hinton Admiral
• Sandy's defiant stonewalling at Pylewell
• Phil's 'Our Man In Havana' look at dinner
• Excellent hospitality from all three hosts

Lows

• Seat belts in the back of the Landie after Sandy has been using them
• Going the wrong way from the Dundas Arms and ending up on the road to Salisbury
• The absence of the well endowed young lady at Bindon
• Closure of The Vicarage Hotel at Hinton Admiral (including staff attractions)
• Extortionate price of tea at Hinton Admiral
• The cold wind after tea at Pylewell Park
• No hosepipe moments
• Too much good behaviour making the Judge’s job very difficult
• Excessive wind generated by bottled beer
• Fish unable to attend
• Chavs car surfing at Bindon
• The tall people not clubbing-have they accepted middle age with grace or is Erdsy embracing monogamy?
• The chairman and Campari-again!!!