Friendly
Sat 6 May 2006

You always know it’s a sad state of affairs when your abiding memory of a game is the state of the wicket, the outfield and the rest of the facilities. This is exactly what happened against Shepherds Bush Thirds - a nice bunch of lads who were great about it, but your correspondent was more than a little embarrassed by the situation. After years of disregard by the local council, our home for so many years and the site of so many great individual and team performances, Warren Farm finally saw this man (and others) play there for the very last time.

To set the scene, we arrived en masse to find rubbish strewn all over the place, vandalised changing rooms, an outfield with huge mounds of earth on it, and a wicket pockmarked by football studs! Throw in some pretty minging weather and everyone could’ve easily been forgiven for just wanting to go down the pub. But no, we had a responsibility to get a game on, and thus we did…

I can’t actually remember who won the toss (yes I know this report is late) but we were in the field to start off. Myself and Si Carson opened the bowling and while I struggled for a proper line, length and rhythm Scooper was straight into his stride. Despite the slippery surface, a soapy ball, and some decent batsmen he continually put the ball in the right area, and aided by some gentle out swing he had Shepherds Bush’s top 3 back in the hutch – 2 clean bowled and 1 LBW. Poole, making his competitive debut for PCC took over from Lonnen and he too was straight on the money – at times finding extravagant bounce out of the pitch and causing the batsmen real problems. He got his reward for some tight bowling by removing their skipper with an absolute pearler. After 7 overs on the spin, Scooper took a well deserved break and Gert Le Grange took over. The score was hardly rolling on, but the middle order were proving to be a little bit more stubborn and starting to frustrate us. So Skipper Lonnen eventually turned to the spinners. It proved to be a masterstroke as both debutant Richard ‘Foxy’ Wyllie and Simon Wilkinson bowled so well in tandem that it was nigh on impossible to take them off… Yes there was the odd bad ball put away, but in general the pair were superb in strangling the oppo and forcing mistakes. Yorkshire ended up with more wickets, but he can be thankful to Rich for the pressure he helped to create. We were also very good in the field – bodies on the line, chasing down everything and holding our catches and so went off for tea having bowled ‘em out for 163 off 45 overs.

The rain continued to fall but both sides were happy to play on… Our batting response was, at best, patchy. Admittedly not helped by the wicket Nick Ridgway and Ed Bird both got balls that they could do nothing about. Steve Poole looked fluent enough for his 18 – one huge six over extra cover sticks in the mind – but then fell playing back to a ball that shot along the ground. And so, on 44-4 we were struggling a bit. And it got worse when Swaps fell 11 runs later. No fear though, the old warhorse Davies was at the crease and, after a shaky start, Le Grange proved to be a perfect foil for ‘Gramps’. A great recovery by these two got us in contention and it was all going swimmingly until Dyll was finally removed by Chauhan for 30, which sadly sparked something of a collapse. Despite stiff resistance from Le Grange, the last 4 batsmen came and went all too easily, and Gert was left stranded without a partner on 44 at the end. Shepherds Bush had stuck to their task well and bowled us out 25 runs short of our target.

It was a surprisingly good game given the backdrop, and if nothing else gave people time in the middle and the chance to make some new mates and nick names – the other debutant in the side Ed Feast picking up the moniker ‘Meaty’. I would also just like to add that I was rather sad at the end of the day to be leaving Warren Farm. I have so many fond memories of the place – 101 not out (be fair, I haven’t mentioned it in years), 6 for 22 against Swamibapa in Div 6 and, of course my hat-trick against Southall Dragons. But the bottom line is this club deserves so much more… And if others start to feel the way I currently do the search for our new home may well be nearing its conclusion.

TL