Arriving at the Griffin even earlier than normal, Leo Nieboer can’t get into the changing rooms. Normally there are junior games here, but today the Griffin feels like Chernobyl — so eerily quiet and still that Nieboer wonders if he should be there.

Yes… the vibes were off from the start, here on this cloudy Dulwich Saturday. Nieboer even sees a black cat, hiding round the back of the main building. It takes a quick look in my direction, then scuttles off. Of course this means nothing, to most people, but Nieboer is a superstitious f*cker, and in the past seeing black cats run away from him has indeed coincided with various kinds of unmitigated disaster, from injuries and public humiliations (including ducks and being cucked) to unexpected and irrevocable loss of funds.

To add to this sense of the unheimlich, Matt Spencer, Nieboer’s vice captain for the day, has got the shits. He asks for a designated shitwatchman, in case of bowel-related disasters, which AJ Prasad volunteers for a little too quickly, in my view.

At least the toss goes Nieboer’s way — he elects to bat — but even this has an ominous quality to it, because Addiscombe’s skipper wanted to bowl anyway.

Three overs in, both openers are gone, Stephen Britto and Qammar Jamshaid — an experimental pick — each nicking behind. Jay Patel nicks off, and now, not unlike our vice captain, we’re in a shitty situation.

Nieboer and Joey Anderson steady things for a bit, start to look like turning the tide, or at least stemming it, only to then both shoot themselves in the foot. Their partnership of 22 is the highest of Plough’s innings. Anderson top scores with 12 (10), Nieboer second with 9 (26).

Which tells you just about enough, really. Ploughmans are 54 all out. There’s not much point going into detail. It’s bad, this hour and a bit, really bad, and to be honest Nieboer still hasn’t quite wrapped his head around it, sat here tapping away on this gloomy Monday morning, hunched over on his balcony like some stranded ape.

The next hour, however, is actually tremendous fun. Addiscombe’s batters take 20 overs to score the 55 runs. The boys are full of chat and the kind of gallows humour that grows naturally out of a situation like ours. Nieboer keeps trying to shake hands with their batters, but they won’t accept it. Nobody wants to shake Nieboer’s hand.

Damon Greeney bowls lovely lines. Spencer does his very best to take everyone’s heads off. But it’s actually pace off that has Addiscombe suddenly going nowhere. Giordy Diangienda, making his first league appearance from 2023 and fresh from a transfer that Britto believes to be bureaucratically shady, at the very least, is the star of the show. He takes 1-15 off his six overs and demonstrates excellent control.

At the other end, the boys are getting a right kick out of Tom Glynne-Jones. Everyone’s crowded round the bat and asking the batters why they just don’t get on with it. He’s ripping it past the outside edge and drawing plenty of ooohs and aaaahs.

Clare Hood, our beloved tea lady, has now arrived with our tea. With Ploughmans 35-6, Nieboer had to tell her to bring it earlier than normal. The texts went like this:

LN: Hiya Clare! Were having a bit of a collapse here so may need tea quite soon

CH: Oh dear!

LN: Indeed

CH: No danger of a straight bat from any of you boys, eh? Maybe just get to drinks and go from there, no? Maybe you just should have, like, I don’t know, wanted it a bit more? Maybe this foul group of virgins you’ve assembled get NO TEA. How does THAT sound?*

*message may be slightly embellished.

But even with tea sitting there, the steam rising and forming a beckoning finger that flies right up our nostrils and has us nearly floating towards the benches, Addiscombe have decided to make batting look extremely difficult.

“Put the salad dressing away,” Prasad shouts.

“The lettuce is going BROWN,” Britto cries.

“This is all you’ll be remembered for,” Nieboer mutters.

Eventually the game does end, off a wide, which feels rather fitting. And after a few stern words from Nieboer, plus the customary moving sightscreens back in place, which makes us sweat way more than the game of cricket we’ve just played, we can enjoy our tea.

It’s an excellent affair, even by Clare’s high standards. She’s made an honest-to-god chilli con carne, replete with rice and nachos and jalapenos, alongside homemade ginger biscuits and donuts, and for a brief second I forget about the nightmare I’ve just endured. This is sublime stuff. It’s almost like mum has given me a hug and told me everything’s going to be okay, which is usually Oli Lonsdale’s job, but he’s not here today, sadly.

Giordy is talking to us about his new job. As of Monday, he’ll be a train driver — or at least formally training to be one — and Tom Elmslie, here to watch and score like a true champion, reckons he should get a head camera, like Francis Bourgeois. I should have done that today, I think.

“I’m here at the Griffin, hoping to get some tones from the Ploughmans, and maybe even some good old thrashings.”

We wonder whether Bourgeois takes that chat into the bedroom. Tom nods, then offers his own Bourgeois impression.

“Standing up and heading for the tunnel now is the class B62 — a bygone relic from the golden age of inner city travel.”

It’s a testament to this club, I suppose, that you can suffer a defeat like that and still come away from the ground grinning like a child.

Giordy takes Nieboer back to the DSG in his dad’s new car — a Hyundai straight from the showroom, complete with that new car smell and a vaguely spaceship-like feel. Giordy tells Nieboer that the batters should have done a lot better, which Nieboer just kind of nods at, staring straight ahead.

They get to the DSG. Nieboer drops his bag off, then heads off for a friend’s birthday, which ends up mushrooming into a vicious nightmare, Nieboer churning around in a sea of drunken horrors. Such awful things occurred that I can't bring myself even to think about them now, much less put them down in print.

That awful black cat needs to be shipped to Papua New Guinea. Or maybe we need to just, like, bat a lot better, next time. Either way, there’s always next week.