Think Ahead

Personally, in the round, I think cricket is the greatest of all games. Like life itself it has the capacity to knock you down when you think you have it cracked. When all looks bleak it demonstrates that if you get your head down, be determined and work hard things can change. At its heart, evidence suggests, that he or she who is committed to dedicated practice has the better chance to succeed.

I stopped playing rugby aged 43. I might write about my later years in rugby later but for now that is it. I was in truth lost on Saturday afternoons. The weekends came and went without drama. My son Tom was approaching his teens and he was a very good cricketer. He played for Hertfordshire under 12s after a dramatic performance at the trials where he was the star player. In our back garden I had laid out a cricket net where Tom would practice for hours. I was the bowling machine.

(Cricket nets have a net around 3 sides and often they do have a mechanical device that sends balls down at the batsman. Literally Bowling machines.Our net was, heavily used.)

I loved bowling at Tom. In fact as time went on I could not wait to leave work and come home and charge in at him. It was great fun.

Understanding my appetite for competition Liz, bless her, rang the local cricket club and spoke to the third team captain somehow. ‘Hello’ she said ‘my husband is desperate to play cricket but he is in his mid forties and has not played in a match since he was around 12. It might seem strange but if ever you have a ‘cry off’ he would happily fill in.” Two days later my phone rang and on the Saturday I was a ‘cricketer’. I bought some kit from a store in the city and took it home and rubbed soil in the pants and shirt before asking Liz to wash them on a low heat cycle so the stains would be obvious. I got very very nervous but I should not have worried. Half the team was pretty useless and in time, happily over the years, as my confidence grew, so did my involvement and contribution. I started taking wickets, lots of them.

Anyway I love the technical side of all sports. I can’t pole vault properly but I can tell you exactly how to place the pole and how the mechanics of the event are perfected, as an example. Close to Harpenden were some indoor cricket nets. The area has a lot of good cricket clubs and schools who play the game, it is a high quality facility. Tom trained there with the county squad. I called up and booked some batting lessons with the head coach. He was, at first, surprised to see someone of my vintage appearing for a lesson and even more so when he discovered my batting experience was strictly limited. I spent hours in the nets over the next few years. I was never a good batsman but I got a lot better and became an all rounder, in my own eyes at least.

The point of the story is not my cricket tuition however. Simon Caunce is one of the most delightful people I have ever met. A very good looking man he is charming, funny, fair in his out look but at the same time a steely competitor. I experienced one of my greatest ever sporting experiences with Simon but that is stuff of another tale.

Simon was the top man in the cricket club. The first team captain. He was an all rounder who batted in the mid order and was a more than handy pace bowler. I am pleased to say we got on well. He was very supportive to Tom and whilst I was not in the same cricket league as him (I in the third team he captain of the first) he invited me to ‘club nets’ at the indoor facility. One of the coaches had mentioned my name, not for my talent but because I was unusual.

I turned up excited to face the fast bowlers of the first team. I got the ‘last slot’ in the net and by this time the atmosphere was light hearted as the prospect of the regular beer in the bar was on the horizon.

I faced a few balls and jumped around a bit. The experienced eyes of the first teamers saw a fault and after a sort of huddle, in which a plot was being developed I assumed, I took my guard. In came the first bowler and aimed the ball right at my feet. A yorker if you know the game. I jumped but got my bat down. The second bowler Rushton Scranage by name, what a name , (he was a wholesale greengrocer I seem to remember). Again right at my feet. Again a hop and the ball stopped. Got this I thought. Simon Caunce was a whole yard in pace faster than the others. I hardly saw the bloody ball he delivered. Suddenly searing pain, he had hit my left instep on the full. Despite the protection of my cricket boot the pace of the ball had cracked a bone in my foot. I yelped and fell to the ground. The immediate hilarity of the ‘bullseye’ and the cackles of wild laughter gave way to real concern. Simon ran down the wicket sot of cradled me in his arms and apologised over and over again. I was in real pain but I managed a grin and I hope I managed to see the funny side of it. I was carried into the bar and weirdly I think my status in the club was elevated as I was part of a ‘war story.’

At the hospital there was not much they could do and they put a light strapping around my foot. The next morning agony as I tried to put on a shoe and go to work. I hobbled around for the day cursing. It was a friday. The following day I was driving along Harpenden High Street and a sign outside The Methodist Church Hall caught my eye. Shoe Sale!. I parked up and hopped in-literally. “Can I help you sir”?

‘I want a pair of black toecap shoes in a size 16 please’ (my usual size is 9). The assistant half asked a question but thought better of it and returned with a pair of boats. I put the left one on and ‘bliss’. I could mange a gentle walk without the shoe pressuring my foot. ‘I will take it’ I said. ‘I will wrap them up for you’ said the young woman who served me. No thanks I said just the left one. She was clearly mystified. I paid around £30, it was a sale, and headed off, a much happier person.

On the Monday morning I stood in my customary spot on Harpenden railway Station platform, where the second carriage door would stop, in a line of perhaps a dozen fellow commuters. We seldom spoke as it took a late train or perhaps really inclement weather to provoke communication. One of the others was looking down at my feet. On my right foot a trim well polished Churches City shoe, on my left a ‘clowns foot’ protruding literally inches beyond the other. He thought about asking a question I discerned, though better of it, but his obvious curiosity provoked interest in others and for the next number of weeks I would hear giggles as I walked down the platform in the mornings one foot in front of the other, literally.

There is message in this tale, a very important one, so pay attention. A few years later on Harpenden Common on a Sunday I was had the pleasure of playing for the Sunday eleven with my son. It is part of another tale but for now the important bit of information is I was bowling and the batsmen hit the ball back at me, very hard. Instinctively I threw out my foot, my right one, and stopped the ball. Agony, another broken foot.

Back at home I went to the cupboard looking for ‘the shoe’. I found it but immediately realised a massive mistake. Wrong foot! So next time you break a foot and buy an oversize shoe to accommodate it do not be a fool take what you have paid for. Get the pair!