Charlie Browning 11 vs Malcolm Robson 12
Another Wick sunset, another great game. Friday June 28 marked a remarkable day in the annals of recent club history. There, in the top deck of the pavilion were no fewer than six former presidents, vice presidents, life presidents and almost all the central characters from every Wick story you’ve ever heard told. The event was the 50/50 game to celebrate the achievement of two tidily assembled half centuries – one by Charlie Browning, the other by Malcolm Robson.
If, as was the fashion elsewhere in the capital on Friday, an extremist (perhaps Mellett of Old Suttonians or Outerbridge of Bermuda – talk us through your World Cup aggregate again) had packed a coffin with gas cylinders, petroleum and a mobile phone detonator (would you get a pay as you go phone? Wickman supposes, unless it was a one way trip it would be a bit stupid to use your monthly bill phone to do the job) and oh so subtlely loaded it onto one of the groundsman’s tractors and drove it flaming into the Wick, they’d have taken out 90 per cent of the Wick’s living post-war history in one go.
In that one room were well on 1500 years of collective Wick cricket knowhow. There was a Blanchard, a Leyshon, a Geddes and a Macarthy to name but a few and quite apart from Wick regulars such as Stephens and Sissen, Lofting and Nicholls. Charlie B and Malcom R themselves of course donned the whites and generously underpinned the bar all evening from all accounts. The scorebook was a veritable who’s who of 40+ cricketing talent. As golden arms were rolled over and instantly recognisable stances deployed again the years seemed to dissolve away.
The cricket was keenly disputed. 30 overs a side were essayed after June showers did their worst again at approximately midday. First Browning’s xi and then Robson’s dealt with the vagaries of this year’s Wick strip, the formers batting on a skiddy track that has become the norm, the latters coping with the drying conditions later.
There were many useful performances. Potter, for Browning, smashed one of Sisso’s more legendary overs for plenty at the end of the innings to set 148 to win before looking attritional with the leather and cork. Stephens, Culham and Macarthy shone in reply with Stephens forced to retire for being too good and reaching a vigorous 30something (more than could be said of many others). Everyone acquitted themselves well – including both Browning – who bowled economically to surprise his colleagues, the spectators and himself – and Robson who played an all round card with some aplomb, there as he was to shepherd his side home with an over to spare.
The bar afterwards was packed to the rafters and as Wickman wandered in and out he heard many conversations that included the words “and then you told that umpire…” or “I seem to recall you smashed it over the picket fence” or “…and he was plumb in front” as old mates caught up, reminisced and promised not to leave it so long next time.
While feeling a certain sense of history Wickman was left to imagine a similar gathering a couple of decades from now. Perhaps the 50th for a current first team player? Or simply in 2013 on the club’s 150th birthday? It’s a real pleasure to see to club’s past mingling with its present, but it’s up to us to make sure that the current crop attains a similarly august status in the club’s annals. Membership has doubled, the results on the pitch are right, tour – and the creation of a new stock of war stories – beckons and there’s a sense of purpose about the old place again.
The future is Wick.
Wickman hasn’t checked, but did anyone pick up FHB on their way out?
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