Cricket - It's a Money Old Game.

Our Shrimpers XI pay in about £30 a game to our club.Like my bowling we disappear to all areas of Kent and usually provide a decent opposition against weak to medium weak sides. We honour all our fixtures and have even been known to provide a couple of players to top up the opposition to ensure a game. Our annual subs are a lot more than many of our oppos have to pay though kindly and reasonably our club is accepting of the fact that some of our irregular regulars are available for so few games that they pay the concessionary rate which is half the subs of our league playing fellow players or colleagues.

So the cost to our club for us to play is the cost of a ball which we always provide being a wandering side with no return white rabbit. After the game our captain (Picture 2) collects in match fees of £7 for full members, £8 for concessionaires, £5 colts and unemployed. We offer a family ticket as this eases selection problems. We don't charge anything for last minute call-ups and we don't expect fasting colleagues during Ramadan to pay.

The 'no return' was only a white hairline lie as we do play one side both home and away. Our tea costs coincide. £40. Do we all do it? The lady who makes our one tea charges £70. We get £40 from our opponents so that leaves £30 for us to find. The rest gets paid into the club via our treasurer at Selection.Some clubs charge us £45 and that we absorb. My son did say that the team they played last week asked for £50 but they were going to be promoted so perhaps are preparing for life in the higher echelons.

I wasn't around for the game or its organisation a couple of weeks ago. A family wedding in North Wales.I did selection by text and posted the team sheet for the Saturday's game to our captain on the Wednesday with all the contact nos. together with the post code of the ground, meeting time, who was going direct, etc.,etc.

I saw him the following week. 'Did you get the team sheet?' I inquired. 'What team sheet? He replied. 'I posted you one. Didn't you get it? 'No, but it didn't matter as I've done one for the committee. 'I didn't have a ball so I had to buy one off the opposition for £10. Tea was £45 and two of the colts who were last minute replacements didn't pay.' 'Fair enough' I said. 'So that's £56 in and £55 out. Here's the quid for the committee.' He guffawed.

I duly paid in the said amount much to the amusement of the treasurer. The following weekend on the night before our subsequently rained off return match making me whiter than white as far as porky pies are concerned the captain told me that he had now got the team sheet. I had to go and get it.' He told me. 'I had to pick it up from the post office and I was made to pay £1.50.' 'What for?'I asked. 'For a handling charge.' He explained. Not that was really an explanation as the envelope, he told me, did have a first class stamp on it. I can't remember the envelope being particularly large. It fitted into the post box easily enough.

Until yesterday I wasn't in favour of privatising the Queen's Head, but now I'm having 2nd thoughts unless of course like the team on the up and up the Post Office is gently warning me of things to come. All this talk of Balls and Handling will remind you of part of the conversation recorded in French and Spanish Cricket for Beginners that my wife and I had a few years back when we stopped at one of those Aires and Graces on a French motorway en route to Spain:-

Her: Park over there. I want to use the toilet. You can listen to the cricket.
Him: I need to use the gents too.
Her: I hate those hole in the ground loos.
Him: I only spent a centime. I had a numero deux on the ferry. Damn it we’ve lost a wicket. I’ll have to add ‘urinals’ to the number of ways of getting out.
Her: Why urinals?
Him: ‘Handled ball’ is already there.

Our treasurer is a good guy but I'm not sure how he's going to react in the first selection meeting of next season as we are the only side with remaining fixtures this year when I ask for our £1.50 back. He might think I'm taking the p**^. As I said 'It's a money old game.

The Shrimpers retained some of the traditional fixtures against the Banks in South London for a number of years. The facilities were fantastic. Worth every penny.The super showers were a bonus.
Even the game against this particular bank side was played in monsoon conditions. To get a good length you needed local knowledge of the tides. Putting sawdust down helped to assess the speed of the liquid pitch. It was like a Turner’s painting rather than a turner’s pitch. Even Handel would have had difficulty in calling the tune. We lost the toss and the coin. Our skipper reckoned their captain (Picture 1)had pocketed it. It wasn’t him who should have been upset; it was me that had lent him the pound coin.


It was a low scoring match. I got wickets so did my mate, now our captain, though I didn’t feel anything but cold. We only had to get ninety. Neither captain would agree to abandon the match. Our batting dissolved in the wet. My mate was number 10 and I soon joined him. We had 87, he was 10 not out. He walked towards me as I came in.’ It’s easy here.’ He said ‘We only need 4 runs and we’ve got ages.’ The previous pair had crossed so I was down the non strikers end.

The first ball my mate tickled around the corner straight to the fine leg who was up to save the one. ‘Yes!’ I bellowed setting off through the swamp. In the absence of high technology I was given out only a foot short despite my despairing aquaplaning dive. They ran off celebrating. I picked myself up and plodded off with my mate making sure that the mud that I picked up stuck, and that my name was Mudd in the changing room.


Sod the result I thought as I joined my mate in the shower. He wasn’t foaming anymore, so I offered him my shampoo with peppermint kick. ‘Cor!’ he shrieked ‘This is a bit tasty as the peppermint kicked in.’ you’re not putting more on surely? He said as he misinterpreted my motives in me turning my arse towards the direct flow from the showerhead to ease the pain I was feeling. The stuff was in a set of toiletries I had been forced to bid for in a ‘Promises Auction’ at school. The woman who had made up the lot ‘With you in mind.’ had a red hot ass herself which she was obviously keen to share. A different sort of tasty.

I noticed their captain who led the charge off the paddy field without any handshakes heading towards the shower. He looked the sort who would have no compulsion about nicking somebody else’s shampoo. He was a banker after all.‘We’ll leave this here then’, I said to my mate, who nodded as I put the bottle on the shelf. The shout wasn’t blood curdling but it sufficed. I wasn’t the only one to aquaplane that day but it was a different sort of crease he was reaching for. At the time I was reaching for his whites to get my pound coin back. ‘Quid pro quo’ Clarice.