Beach Cricket sends Wickman to sleep

During the last Ashes Tour (Wickman thinks) there was a beach cricket tournament held in Oz. Think “Masters Football” and apply to cricket on a beach. Old gits with pot bellies looking unathletic and destroying your memories of how good they were.

Wickman saw the Windies, Oz and England last night late. He had Skyplussed it from a few weeks ago thinking “this will do me fine one evening after the missus has gone to bed. Beach cricket sounds like a good lark”.

How wrong Wickman was.

They roll a big plastic matting wicket out to play on. The boundaries are small. Run ups are minimal. Everyone without exception tries to get their front leg out of the way and smash the ball into the sea. All right, Wickman can hear you say, so far, so good! What’s wrong with that?

The concept, gentlemen, is like a genius version of club day. Boundaries aplenty and no respite for the bowlers.

However, the idiots have ruined it by miking up just about everyone.

And here’s the big question for you. Name one English speaking Test match or one day cricketer who has left cricket and gone on to have a successful career in stand-up comedy. Struggling? Me too. So some commentators (and not a top line up, not even Bob The Yawn Willis) are up in the box and they spend the whole time trying to encourage lively banter with those in the middle.

We discover, gentle reader, that Australian legends Dennis Lillee and AB couldn’t even write jokes for crackers. Damien Fleming – well he’s at least lively. Mark Waugh might be a laugh if he had a couple of lagers down him. Goochie? With that squeaky voice? Goughy? All right I suppose…

And when did you EVER see a great West Indian player even give a post match interview? Have you ever heard Curtley Ambrose speak? Wickman thought not. Dire television. Absolutely abominable. Wickman actually went to bed earlyish to escape it.

Nope this is a disaster of massive proportions designed to keep ex test players who don’t have lucrative media careers doin a bit in the Australian summer. Shun it, gentlemen, shun it. Although it does give Wickman an idea for club day…

Getting Wick with... Matt "Golby not Goldie" Golborn

1 Nickname(s): Goldie (Golby - it's got to be... Ed.)
2 Highest Score for HWRCC: 114 vs one of those North London teams in the Middx league
3 Best Bowling for HWRCC: 5-25 vs Village Greenies
4 Favourite Away Ground: Teddington Town
5 Favourite Food: Lasagne
6 Favourite Singer/Band: Neil Young
7 Favourite Movie: Godfather
8 Favourite Book: The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
9 Favourite Pub/Club: The Orange Tree, Richmond
10 Favourite Crisps: Salt and Balsamic vinegar Kettle Chips
11 Favourite DBW Sandwich: The tuna and the cheese ones, sandwiched together with some onions and cucumber
12 Favourite Quote: Anything from Snatch, Godfather or Napoleon Dynamite. Churchill said some good things as well!
13 Childhood Sports Hero: Gary Lineker
14 Best Wick Moment: Hitting 70 odd on 1s debut to help chase down some massive score
15 Worst Wick Moment: Retiring drunk at the "home" of cricket, Hambledon. a real low. (Plus getting stumped on camera by a rather fat looking Clarky hee hee hee... Ed)
16 Invite 3 People to Dinner (Dead or Alive) I cant count... Neil Young, John Frusciante, Seth Morrison, Ricky Gervais, Al Pacino

Another book review

Wickman likes a book from time to time. And not just the Joy of Sex or the Kama Sutra. And he’s not counting his specially bound copies of er ahem Playboy either. No, Wickman will, from time to time, take to the Airport bookshop and buy good old fashioned books.

Given that Wickman quite likes cricket he is often given cricket books too. From the obvious (three copies of Summers Will Never Be the Same ), through the obvious at Christmas (Steve Waugh autobiography, Michael Atherton autobiography) through to cricket “comedy”.

A couple of them are really good. Anything about Botham is genius because he did such incredible things. Anything about anyone who still has a career (legendary series excepted) is rubbish.

Cricket “comedy” books are nearly always dodgy. Even the good ones. Let’s face it, how many times can you describe the “characters” in the game before rigor mortis sets in? Recently Wickman was leant a copy of Rain Men which was a case in point.

Rain Men, if you haven’t attempted it, is a humorous (sic) book about the history of a team called Captain Scott. It was set up by some enthusiastic but crap cricketers at Oxford. Some of these people (like Marcus Berkmann – who is the author) have gone on to become reasonably famous as writers, sages and satirists amongst others.

Berkmann attempts to get us to share in what they set out to do. They weren’t particularly good at cricket, but they wanted to create a unique team which would play at villages around the South of England without taking it too seriously. He tells us what it is like to travel long distances to games. He tells us what it is like to lose lots of friendlies. He tells us that girlfriends and wives are a hindrance to cricket. He tells us what its like to have a bad average, no idea how to get runs and describes the politics of captaining mixed ability teams.

He tries to make it funny. But it’s not. So what if someone is tight and never buys a round? So what if someone is a statto? So what if someone always gets lost on the way? It’s not enough. Cricket books, to be funny, have to really draw you in to the team. You have to care about the people, the results and have some suspense to want to turn the page. Above all, as we are part of a great club, the funny things that happen to their team have to be funnier than the funny things that happen to our team. At worst the author has to write amusingly so that even if his stories are crap, we at least laugh at his style.

Berkmann’s Rain Men is a dull book. Don’t be fooled by the drool on the cover from reviewers. It’s really dull. Wickman started it three months ago and it’s not quite finished and mostly used for preventing tea rings from forming on Wickman’s bedside table.

Okay, you are saying, Wickman’s lost it. I’ve read that book and I liked it. You have offended me etc. Well, Wickman has cast iron proof that it’s crud now. It comes in the form of a book by Harry Thompson called Penguins Stopped Play.

Entirely un-coincidentally it’s a book about exactly the same cricket team from Thompson’s perspective. It charts many of the same games, people and events (before Berkmann and Thompson largely separated with one becoming Saturday skipper and other Sunday, one wanting the cricket to get better, the other wanting to find ever more tedious ways of losing and having japes). It also describes a series of tours undertaken by the Saturday side culminating in an attempt to play cricket on 5 continents in one tour.

This is a disaster for Berkmann. It’s like Matthew discovering that Mark, Luke and John are all writing about the life of the same carpenter fella and then realising that they’ve done a better job. (Before anyone writes in Wickman knows they didn’t all live at the same time, and no, Wickman hasn’t read all four versions and decided which one is best).

It’s beautifully written and laugh out loud funny where Berkmann is pedestrian. Really funny things happen to them and Thompson has a way with words which Berkmann can only dream of. Wickman purchased it at 6pm on Monday and had finished it by 1.30am on Tuesday have guffawed, chortled, snotted down his front, weed a bit in his pants, laughed uproariously on a very quiet plane down to London from Edinburgh disturbing other passengers who thought he was a nutter about to leap up and open the doors at 30,000 feet and 600mph and generally wept in amusement. Dear oh dear it’s good.

Thompson, of course, was one of the creators and writing talents behind Have I Got News For You. He probably wrote loads of stuff for Private Eye too. He came up with Buzzcocks. It’s Wickman’s type of humour granted. His obituary explains his many talents. And his death is one more reason why his book is even better than Berkmann’s. Because you realise on the last page, as his wife describes his death from cancer, and his funeral, that he has made you care enough about the people in his fantastically funny book, and his description of them, to shed a tear and privately wonder whether the team can be the same without him there to describe it. Berkmann? Can’t even remember a single anecdote.

So along with Fletcher’s crummy book, shun Berkmann. Buy Thompson. Wickman says it must be so.

Man Bites Dog - or why you shouldn't buy Fletcher's new book

When Wickman is at work he and his colleagues face a constant battle. This battle is to make the people who pay their wages understand what “Man Bites Dog” is all about.

If you see a headline in a newspaper that says “Dog Bites Man” you immediately think “so what?” Dogs bite men the whole time. Wickman thinks “I shan’t waste my time reading the rest of THAT article, clearly some silly arse has got himself bitten”.

“Man Bites Dog” is much more interesting. Why the heck would a man have bitten the Dog? Was it revenge? What did the Dog do? Was the Dog cooked? (Actually it probably wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in Korea).

The point is, it’s unusual. Wickman and his colleagues at work spend much time thinking about how to create this “F*ck me” factor for clients (as in “F*ck me, I had never thought of that”).

It stands to reason. If you can get people interested in your story, you are much more likely to retain their interest for your brand.

Which is why Big Dunky Fletch’s “revelations” about Freddie liking a pint or two and occasionally being pissed around the team during the Ashes series leaves Wickman cold. “Dog Bites Man”. Everyone knows Freddie’s a pisshead. He was notably absolutely Freddied in front of the nation, played Cricket in the garden of Number 10 (no doubt building stumps from Euan Blair’s empty tinnies) and later he might have even tried to slip one to the Queen had he not been married to the most beautiful professional cricketer’s wife ever.

So what does this say about Fletcher?

Firstly if that’s the best he can come up with to publicise his latest book he’s written something very dull. It shows poor judgement as a man to dish the dirt on your captain or your team in writing. As a leader, if it all goes wrong you take the blame, like a man, on the chin. You exonerate your team and claim you stuffed it up. He's basically a poor leader then.

Secondly, it shows poor cricketing judgement. Freddie was a rubbish appointment as captain on the grounds of hardly ever having done the job before, quite obviously not having the emotional maturity for the role and not being on good enough form or fitness going into the series to carry off the role. So why pick him? Hope over judgement.

Wickman will be saving his pennies.

Tun-up does something useful

...which is a slightly unfair headline. It was clearly Mrs T that did the useful bit.

Congratulations fella on the production of a new Tun-Up. Slightly more graphic photos on Facebook (she won't thank you for that in the future) confirm that unless the Wick gets itself a women's team, Ian's progeny will not be troubling the scorers.

It's time to refresh ideas for a creche. Given that all the most recent Dads at the Wick have produced girls, is there something in DB-W's sandwiches that is boosting oestrogen levels at The Wick? Wickman thinks we should be told.

Cricket at Christmas

It’s fast approaching the office cricket season. Wickman fancies a game of office cricket.

The office cricket season officially starts in December and reaches a peak round about the last Friday before Christmas. There is then a traditional post Boxing Day Test played all over the country.

It works like this.

Equipment and rules:

Roll up two pieces of A4 into a ball together. Wrap round with most of a roll of sellotape to form a lethal, approximately four oz ball.

Take one poster tube. Wind round remainder of sellotape to act as bat tape.

Pitch: Move tables from Board Room or similar large space against wall.

Bowler’s run ups: Leave door at end of room open to facilitate long runs.

Boundaries: All walls and windows. Six if the ball hits full toss, four along the ground. No singles.

Single wicket tournament: Bat until you are out.

Fielders: As many as can be packed into the space.

Bowler: Normally the whippy looking kid from marketing who last played when 12.

In Wickman’s experience the game is normally played near Christmas and between Christmas and New Year. This is when most of the company’s big wigs are doing their shopping or topping up their holiday allowances with cheeky days at the kid's nativity play. Dave from accounts, the financial controller, has been left in charge of the company and no one gives a sh*t because he’s an idiot.

Every male in the office under the age of 30 gathers together after they’ve got back from a five pint lunch. The biggest bloke grabs the bat. Someone starts off bowling off breaks, but gets clagged all over the Board room. The “ball” – which is lethal owing to the hardness and shine of the sellotape – won’t do anything off the pitch. The big bloke races to 42 off seven balls. Someone else is brought on and takes a hideously long run up, oversteps by four yards, chucks it and smears whatever wastepaper basket is being used for stumps all over the wall. An apple core, screwed up fag packet and someone’s balled up paycheck spray across the floor.

The big guy isn’t impressed claiming a no ball. But five pints each have emboldened the mob and he’s banished to mid off, fighting with seven other mid offs to be the main fielder. Then someone who reckons he can play comes in and plays himself in (three balls in a row are patted back) so that when the fourth ball catches his suit-leg flare he’s triggered by the baying crowd who want to see boundaries.

The game then enters a strange phase where a number of people are bowled or LBW first or second ball until the quiet IT guy from Bangladesh (well Bow anyway) comes in and strokes 176* from 62 balls before everyone realises that there are better things to be done. The bat now resembles a loo roll in a hamster cage but the guy’s still middling it and grinning maniacally.

Evetentually only the guy from the post room, who has no mates, is left bowling to the, by now, double centurion.

They get caught by the MD who has returned from a client lunch, massage, happy finish and trip to buy the wife a a guiltlace (this is a piece of jewellery to mentally atone for the happy finish). The post room guy is fired, but the MD doesn't fire the IT guy because he knows about the MD's porn habit.

Or something...

Getting Wick with... David Fudgey Fudge

1 Nickname(s): Fudgey, Kournikova, Lively!
2 Highest Score for HWRCC: 127 v NPL
3 Best Bowling for HWRCC: 5/27 v Shepperton (Yes I used to be a bowler)
4 Favourite Away Ground: Ickenham CC (always scored runs there and they have an electronic scoreboard… nice)
5 Favourite Food: Fish 'n Chips
6 Favourite Singer/Band: Jamie Cullum & The Untrained Eskimos!?!
7 Favourite Movie: The Sound of Music
8 Favourite Book: Fixture Book…
9 Favourite Pub/Club: Osbournes, Newcastle… Corrrrr!!
10 Favourite Crisps: Salt N Vinegar McCoys… They’re Mans Crisps…
11 Favourite DBW Sandwich: Grated Cheese… Old Skool!
12 Favourite Quote: “Was this pub named after the Great Fire of London” Delboy sitting in a pub called the 1066 on Tour in Hastings????
13 Childhood Sports Hero: Gary Lineker…
14 Best Wick Moment: Being announced 2nd XI Skipper for the 2007 season…
15 Worst Wick Moment: Breaking my ankle and missing 6 weeks of the 2007 season.
16 Invite 3 People to Dinner (Dead or Alive) James Hibberd, Sienna Miller & Bradley Orrrr

Religious artefacts

During the last Millennium many wars and major regional skirmishes were caused by the insatiable desire of Christians for Holy relics. An industry was formed during the last century by tricksters and hucksters out to decieve the public into parting with their hard earned. Recently other religions have got into the act with weeping statues and the like. Recently pot boilers have even been written by hucksters like Dan Brown trying to pass the search for relics such as the Holy Grail off as literature. And even more recently there have been sightings of Jesus Christ in cheese sandwiches, toast etc. It's complicated.

However Wickman has come across evidence of a genuine relic used by our Lord. See the nails protruding from its care worn surface once the white shroud was removed. Stuff the Holy water of Lourdes. Keep your Haj. Imagine the hundreds of Wick cricketers on pilgrimmage in the future hoping to touch this and to be inspired by the aura of The Lord.

This is, of course, the bat of The Lord. This may be the bat that has scored more runs than any other bat currently employed at The Wick. Here it is having its annual short back and sides. This, gentlemen, is what the bat of a deity is like. Remember too that it is older than many of you and if you do see it you will need to call it "Sir"...

Wickman's new favourite Aussie

It used to be Mick Lewis for conceding 113 runs in the greatest one day game ever. Now it's this loser. He's John O'Neill, CEO of the Australian Rugby Union and a total bigot. Wickman hopes that you have got your reading glasses on in the morning buddy for those back page headlines. Dumped out of the World Cup at the QF stage by rank outsiders. And England to boot. That must hurt. It must hurt very badly.

Wickman also hopes you are there to shake the hands of the likes of Latham, Gregan et al - all playing their final game of World Cup rugby against England in our 12-10 victory - they won't be able to look you in the eye when they get off the plane. That's because you and Lote Tuquiri, a sort of apprentice David Campese, probably did more to wind up the England players for today's win in Marseilles than any number of motivational speeches...

No one in England hates you mate. In fact you've given us a really good laugh. Enjoy the plane ride home old chum. See you in four years... bwahahahahahahahaha

How many people does it take to put sightscreens away?

Answer? 2

...and then picks up the trophy in the final

Having despatched Cheltenham in the semis it was on to the final for the Eels. The Eels won the toss and decided to chase. A good start with the ball from Hibby and his skipper pegged Midlanders Ockbush back. Some quality spin bowling was the highlight of the Eels effort, although all the bowlers chipped in with vital wickets and once again Eels fielding was absolutely top drawer.

Our hero Hibberd Jr returned to take two wickets at the death, fighting off a major bout of cramp, or gout or something to rearrange the Ikea for a couple of lower order bashers. Amusingly on the TV commentary Foxy Fowler had decided to point out that Hibby was not shy of pies and mentioned that while the Great North Run was going on on the same day, it would be unlikely that Hibby would complete it. Mpmmfff.

Batting didn't quite work for Hibby this time. A leaden footed whack at one early on saw him back in the Pav having contributed one to the total. Savident was on hand to build a patient and later flamboyant 78* to steal the trophy from Ockbush or whatever their name was.

The boys on the sidelines were delirious, full of Shepherd Neame Masterbrew and later feasted on kebabs and sank Wife Beater on the train back to London. What a day. Must go to Kent more often...

Hibberd Delivers in Canterbury Semi

For those of you who weren't watching SS3 on Sunday because you were too busy mounting your stamp collections or reordering your sock drawer, you missed a cracking afternoon's cricket at Canterbury.

It's not often these days that Wickman watches cricket at non Test grounds. It's probably 30 years in fact since he was last at Canterbury. In those days Fat Gatt was not so fat and was smashing sixes into the car park for fun.

Likewise Wickman has only ever seen Hibberd junior play on club day at the Wick. The year he played he managed a couple of wickets and couldn't get the ball off the square. Those Wick Men who were on the last tour but one remember him smashing a ton at Wadhurst or Crowhurst or somewhere. And of course Hibberd Snr keeps us updated as to his feats of derring do - viz the famous 157.

So it was an extraordinary pleasure to walk into the St Lawrence ground on the last day of September to see the sqaure already scarified, one solitary short boundaried wicket left for the day's play and 300 die-hard supporters (glory hunters in our case) braving the chilly periods when the sun went behind the clouds. For once we could walk on the outfield, gain access to hallowed areas without fussy stewards interfering and watch really good cricket in which we had a real stake - Hibby.

But Canterbury is a long way from London on a Sunday. A two hour train journey on top of the trip to Waterloo was not the best use of Sunday morning. Mutterings were muttered. In his absence Hibby Jnr was urged not to get a duck, go for runnnnnnnnssss and not make the final...

Joyfully, he did not disappoint. In his semi-final he bowled his four overs off the reel. He began with a wicket maiden, bowling a Cheltenham opener, spinning the stump into the air before it javellined into the turf. A wicket maiden in the first over of a 2020 game. FFS! He bowled through, tempting a dangerous oppo bat to spoon a catch to point to return amazing figures of 4-1-15-2. Unbelievable. The oppo never recovered and only posted 103 or so.

The Totton and Eling reply did not start brilliantly. The openers became bogged down by a two paced track and soon the rate crept up from a sublime four an over to a slightly more worrying 6 an over. A wicket fell and Hibby strode in. He had a look at his first ball and lashed the second for four, slightly mistimed through mid on having waltzed down the track to a bowler who looked to be the pace of Joey.

He went on to batter 30+ off 15 ball including a succession of pulled sixes and a glorious lofted off drive for four. The game went away from Cheltenham in those 15 balls. Team mate Savident (ex Hants) saw them home, but Rob Key had eyes only for Hibby Jrs all round performance when it came to naming man of the match.

The travelling glory hunters were ecstatic. Here are the very fingers of Rob Key scribbling down the name of Hibberd as MOM. MOM. On TV and everything...

TV whores travel to Canterbury...

In a shocking development for pre-watershed television, a number of whores appeared on daytime television this Sunday. The three publicity-seeking whores spent more time on screen than most of the cricketers playing in the North Gear Premier League 2020 National Finals. Someone watching television innocently on Sunday was moved to remark that it was particulrly unfair on little children that one of the whores was trying so hard to get onto television that they actually elbowed a small child out of the way when the ball came.

Hambledon CC suffers Wick treatment

Unfortunately Hambledon cc's club house has burned to the ground. This is very sad for Hambledon. It wasn't the most beautiful or architecturally significant building Wickman has ever seen, but then Wick men will recognise their plight following our own travails down the years when we have lost not just one pav to fire (misfortune) but two (carelessness).

Putting aside the annoyance of losing wall stash and memorabilia, Hambledon will hopefully be able to raise enough money to rebuild in style. BTW boys your away changing room was pokey and the showers were rubbish so it's a good thing all in all.

Best of luck with it. We'd love to tour to you again and this time not lose... also please put in a loo roll dispenser and spare loo roll as Timmy E was caught short after 24 hours on the lash. Touring teams need those facilities you know...