Surrey Championship Dinner

Older viewers of the blog may well remember a few years back the farrago of Henry Kelly's visit to Sandown. If not, search the blog and enjoy a report of a previous visit to the SC Dinner when an inebriated Kelly bored and insulted Surrey's finest club crickets and administrators before being booed off. Folk that were there that night made lofty promises never to return etc etc. But with the venue moved to the Oval and reports that Surrey had cleaned up its act, Mao, Clarky, Mr Bean, Alison, Nathan and various excited 3xi players decided to climb in to pick up the 3xi Div 2 Champions Trophy.

Ever so suprsingly we all had a cracking evening. The booze was drinkable and the evening's entertainment was... well... entertaining. The evening was well compered by a chap called Roger Makin who blended quick fire wit with hilarious tales of conceding an enormous number of goals against the Squareheads in a hockey international back in the day.

Tea received 6 out of ten. Cauliflower soup with some excellent croutons, some kind of beef and ale pie with veg and a pudding that evades the memory.

Theo Paphitis of Dragons Den and sponsor Rymans fame submitted to a Q&A and acquitted himself well despite the lateness of the hour and the imbibed nature of the audience.

The man that put the Wales into the England and Wales Cricket Board - offspinner Robert Croft - handed out the prizes and then told a number of amusing anecdotes about his time at Glamorgan. As this was towards the end of the evening, recollections are sparse but mostly involved Viv Richards smashing crap bowling into the Bristol Channel and the punchline "That's comin back wid seaweed on it". It was very amusing if you were there.

Pictured are the 3xi with Alison, brandishing the "trophy" [coming to a wall near you soon] and giving manly hugs to Crofty himself. Who was a legend and didn't mind having a bunch of well-oiled folk demanding photos of him with various bits of brass and silver.