Hornsey Cricket Club, England, United KingdomSunday was a day off in London, to recover from three matches in Yorkshire, a walk up Highgate Hill, and for some, a late night after the Pub Crawl.
London was the do-it-yourself part of the WAM England tour. Our Yorkshire sojourn, had been organised by the good folks at Top Order Tours, but London was a homecoming for me as we were to play Hornsey Cricket Club, the club I played 100 games for over three seasons in 1986-1988.
As it was DIY, we had no coach to collect us, we did though have the W5 Bus from Archway to Crouch End, that took us from outside the Premier Inn Archway direct to the top of Tivoli Road where the Hornsey Club is located.
The bus stop was outside the old Archway Tavern, a local landmark that has seen better days and was known for being on the cover of the Kinks LP "The Muswell Hillbillies".
Twelve WAMs in their blazers, accompanied by the early rising WAGs, looked very stylish on a Monday morning in Archway waiting at the bus stop. If you have been to Archway, you will appreciate the type of admiring glances we got from the locals.
We completely filled the W5 bus up, leaving room for only six old aged pensioners, whom the WAMs gallantly gave their seats up for. Ten minutes later we were striding down Tivoli Road on to the famous Hornsey Ground.
The Hornsey Club was established in 1870 and has played cricket at the current Tivoli Road ground since 1883. The original ground was adjacent to the current ground, further up Tivoli Road. The ground is full size and is enclosed behind the backyards of a row of houses, a high school and a public swimming pool. The most notable feature is that the ground has a significant slope ( 6 to 7 feet) across the ground, much like Lords, and which surprised most of the WAMs who hadn't seen anything quite as dramatic as the Hornsey slope before.
We were fairly early but were greeted by young Rob Deveney, who had visited Perth and played a couple of games with the WAMs at the beginning of the year. The majority of the Hornsey team were like Rob, young, but there were three players with a bit of grey in their hair, two of whom I had played with back in the day.
The Captain, my old friend Johnny Bruce, and I debuted in the same game for Hornsey at Old Merchant Tailors in May 1986. He has scored over 20,000 runs and taken over 900 wickets for Hornsey since then.
Richard "Disco" Charlton also played in my debut match at OMTs. Disco remembers me as the bowler in a 1st team league game who bowled a lovely inswinging attempted yorker that the batsman smacked straight to Disco at short leg and into his forehead. Disco missed a week of work with concussion and still has a lump above his eyebrow...
The old team mate connections didn't end there, the umpire was Chris Waite, who I the first contact I had when joining Hornsey ,and the scorer was my old friend and team-mateNick Coleman, who had come up from Oxford for the match. All four have played in excess of 670 games each for Hornsey!
The Skipper and Brucey negotiated the terms of the match resplendent in their respective blazers. Once again we decided on 40 overs each, with the WAMs to bowl first.
With Pigeon maintaining his self imposed removal from opening the attack, Cranky (1/13) had choice of ends and chose, unsurprisingly, to bowl downhill with the slope going down to the right. The pitch we were playing was the slopiest of them all and Cranky found a line and length immediately and moved each ball down the slope. Stinky (0/23) bowled well up-hill and we kept the runs tight early on. Cranky bowled the ball the ball of the tour, getting the ball to come in and up the slope and crash into the young bewildered left handed opener's wicket.
Murray (1/21) kept up the downhill pressure and removed Disco. As the Todds are always in bed by 9pm it is likely the first Disco that Murray has ever seen.
The young Hornsey batsman then then began to take control, running hard as we chased the ball on the large ground. Two retired at 50, but the runs kept flowing. Pigeon (1/41) and the Virgin (0/23) could not reprise their Oughtibridge bowling heroics. Myself (0/31), the Duke (0/24) and Skip (0/24) made no impression either, and even a wounded Cougar (1/19) when he emerged from his lair was unable to slow the runs....
Cranky had his second magic moment for the day when he completed a direct hit run out from mid off. It was only the Major, Robin Reliable, who got on top of the young Hornsey batsmen taking 2 for 12 off four overs to finish as our leading run-scorer of the tour.
Hornsey had set us a target of 256, which on large ground would be a task as well as a big ask for the WAMs.
The afternoon was warming up, finally we experiencing a summer's day of cricket, and we were enjoying the best match weather of the tour. After four games it was apparent that you go to Yorkshire for afternoon teas and London for warmer, sunnier weather.
The Virgin opened the batting with me. I got off to a good start hoisting Brucey to cow corner twice for boundaries but then dragged a leg spinner from young Rob going for a cut onto my stumps. Out for 8. The Virgin (36*) and the Duke (35*) had no problems with the bowling and played it with ease, walking singles and hitting fours, only once each did they run a double. Both retired at 35, the Duke being undefeated all tour, a magnificent effort.
Murray came and went for a duck, in the manner that only Murray can manage. Pup avoided the same fate after quacking in his previous two innings and went on to score a polished 21 with several lovely boundaries.
Cranky (35*) and Chopper (35*) were also in fine form, scoring easily, walking singles and hitting boundaries. Both hit a six. Cranky's was the shot of the tour and his third magic moment of the day. His lofted on-drive cleared the boundary and bounced off the footpath and over a fence into a neighbouring backyard. Lost ball!
The tail didn't wag much this time, Stinky scored 10 not out, and the Major 3. The Brothers Davies both quacked, but we finished at 6 for 210 with four retirements. A good effort and on any handicap system we were clearly the moral victors!
After the match were the usual presentations. We presented young Rob with the last WAM England 2018 souvenir tour cap, much to Murray's disappointment, and the "official" CA Sandpaper award to Brucey and the Hornsey Club. Hornsey presented caps to Chopper for batting and keeping, Cranky for bowling and the Duke for organising our tour to England. Brucey also presented me with a cap because I asked for one...
It was a very pleasant warm evening, on the balcony, taking in the view of Alexander Place in the background. The Skipper excused the team of wearing blazers as it was too warm, but the local curry buffet was hotter and enjoyed by all.
It was the end of the tour, and towards 10 o'clock players and partners departed back to the Premier Inn on the W5 bus or by mini-cab.
A few hardy souls who weren't quite ready to finish touring, joined the red wine cabal and continued to celebrate the tour at the nearby Whittington Stone Pub, at the bottom of Highgate Hill. It and it's clientele would have been out of place at the top of the hill. Surprisingly they closed at 11:00.
So we moved down to Holloway Road and to the Mother Red Cap, an older style Irish pub that I would not have dared entered 30 years ago when living at Archway. The request for a bottle of red wine was met with the information that there was only enough red wine left for three glasses...
We managed to order sufficient drinks from the elderly "bargirl". Pigeon had the munchies and went next door and came back with a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, which I'm not entirely sure is what a Pigeon should be eating, but was actually delicious.
At Midnight even the Mother Red Cap closed and our tour was officially over.
Thanks to all who organised and participated in the WAM England 2018 Tour.
It "were a reight bobby dazzler".
Brad
2018-09-12
Great job as always Catto , well played .