#amatuersport

[hartsholmecc-blog]

“In the Bleak Midwinter”

The cricket season has STARTED!!! It’s here!!!

I HAVE FRIENDS AGAIN!

That’s what my brain is screaming.

My Fiancé is considering whether it ever actually ended, having had to deal with a winters worth of committee meetings, stats gathering, overseas moaning, visa applying, ad-hoc socials and the non-stop beep-beep of our Whats App group (Yes, the conversation is childish and the abuse fierce).

However it is of course only February 3rd and however much I would like to pretend, it is still very much the depths of winter and the season is a mile away. But in any case … leave the house at 8.45am, to visit a freezing cold sports hall, in the pissing down rain, to prepare for amateur sport in the notoriously regressive and stagnant county of Lincolnshire.

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I suppose I had better briefly catch everyone up with the happenings of the winter months:

The period between October and March is very much reserved for the die-hard cricketers. Those who have so little life outside of the sport that they happily cling on to the limited actions that can be completed whilst there is no actual competition in progress. In some cases (mine) they even miss it all so much that they actively create tasks to be completed so as to keep a grip on their habit. Take the common heroin addict, to chuck it all in at once would have severe side effects … they at least need a little bit of methadone to keep them ticking along. Well my methadone would be the stats book I updated and the side effects of not having it to focus on would be having to spend even more time with my partner, something she definitely does not want a bar of! Even worse – without these distractions I would actually have to grow up and focus on being a professional from time to time.

Fuck … that … shit!!!!

So months October & November were spent collating a 44 page Statistics, Records & Honours book that has basically amounted to a little cricket booklet of porn to anyone who is interested in local cricket (You would be surprised how many sad fuckers are out there). Taken from a booklet in existence and up to date until 2009 I painstakingly (bullshit, I did the whole lot with a semi-on) went through 8 years’ worth of stats and scorecards to get it on track, as well as adding a few sections and beefing the content out. It is now a work of art, and something I can stare at when lonely and more importantly, in need of an illusion of a sense of belonging.

Next thing to tackle was the new over-seas process. Simple in previous years …? Just work out your budget and pick who you want …? Get some young Aussie or Kiwi who loves a drink and plays a decent standard …? Flights, accom, a job …?

Ye … that process has gone to shit! Fuck you very much, Home Office!!

I would love to pretend that this was resolved by being nice, cool and chilled out, check a couple of things and crack on regardless. But as you will come to notice, my mind doesn’t work like that, and I cannot stress enough how staggeringly sad for all things cricket I am. I didn’t just do what normal clubs do, and read the ECB guidance. I read every piece of documented evidence available as well as every article and every Home Office guideline published. I am talking a mind numbingly large amount of words, formatted in the dullest way possible. Point 7 C states … Please refer to document 7B part i.  … And so on and so forth.  Once again, I may moan but I secretly loved it, and would have been absolutely gutted had someone decided to take the task upon themselves instead. All these people who take on the backroom work at a club may moan their little titties off, but I bet my life on the fact that they would not have it any other way; I wouldn’t that’s for sure. Talk about needing something to define you or having a little bit of power and grasping on to it, amateur sport is packed full of these mini-Hitler’s; of which I am very proud to be one.

The long and short is that all the old ways of securing your overseas have been knocked on the head. The risk free choices that you are left with as a club are either to pay over the odds for an EU/Brit passport holder or go down the Tier 5 Sponsor route and be safe as houses. HCC chose the latter so it was on to the Sponsors licence application/ sourcing of a first class professional for me. I love all of this, but what I do not love is dealing with sharky recruitment wankers. Seeing as I used to be one, my patience for being spun a line is pretty slim. Fortunately I found a good one so didn’t have to deal with any bull-shit.

First of all we signed a 1st class lad from Sri-Lanka. After a quick Facebook chat, post contracts being signed, we had to pull out of that deal sharpish. Turns out he was looking for a wife, an extra job, as well as constantly referring to me as his ‘best friend for life’ … oh and he was sending me x-rays of his dads recent operations, stating how in need of money he was. Now I am sure most of this was just lost in translation, he’s probably a lovely bloke and he did look a serious cricketer, but something wasn’t right and I got out of that agreement within a day.

After many weeks of courting different pro’s and hours’ worth of form filling that isn’t of much interest, we settled on a Zimbabwean lad. Opening bowler, mid 80’s, 2 U19 World Cups, inclusion in a test squad vs South Africa, a load of 1st class wickets etc. etc. ….

In short – too fucking good for us!

Cost wise – it was a shit load, somewhere in the region of 6k all in. But that’s the legally allowed rate for any Tier 5 pro (must be paid minimum 200pw + licence fees etc.) so we’ll see how it goes and re-asses next year as to whether to go down the same route again.

The main points to take are that whilst he is called Cuthbert Musoko, he has been christened ‘Bertie’ by our 1st team VC, Thorpey; and to say that this name has caught on even before he has arrived is an understatement. It is also worth a mention that whilst we were initially promoted back to the Prem, this was over turned as part of a complete balls up at the league AGM. So we are going to see a guy that bowls mid-80s, rock up in Division 1 of the Lincolnshire league. I’m so happy :)

Final update, just to keep it short and not bore you to death, Club AGM happened and I am HCC’s 1st XI captain again, much to the disdain of Milly and much to the pleasure of my geeky inner monologue. Other appointments included AJ to club secretary; he has already had the piss ripped out of him for this as he is a beautiful boy and would look great behind a desk wearing a set of high heels.

So anyone that thinks you just rock up to nets in the spring and it all starts again, no no no, there are the saddest of people beavering away to bring some level of professionalism to the depths of amateur sport.

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So I leave the house, my now habitual 40 minutes early, for the first net session of the year. I wish this was just the annual excitement building up, but no, I’m early for everything cricket related. Our off spinner Sven is of the opinion that pre- Milly & Harrison (my son) I was late for everything by a good half hour; now that I have a family making me do chores whilst at home I will be at the top of his street at least 10 minutes before we had agreed.

I pull up in the school car park (our nets are held in a school hall, I don’t just spend my ‘early’ time lingering in and around local education facilities) and wander off to the sports hall laden like a pack horse. I am especially heavy on baggage today as I have had to take a change of clothes to attend a family lunch over in Derbyshire straight after. Full kit bag, gym bag, bat and waddling my way down the walk way getting piss wet through, wearing only shorts and a t-shirt.

Wooly, our resident club Labrador and all round fitness freak, (he also happens to be our 1st team keeper) is already waiting, well he’s not waiting, he is running shuttles as a warm up (too keen). We had agreed to do Langer runs (100 x 22 yard sprints, in full pads, done in pyramid set’s) at the start of the session as a bit of fitness. So we both pad up and get started, as the others slowly stumble through the door (needless to say Saturday morning isn’t the most popular of time choices for nets). As we get half way through, last night’s 4 cans of Thatcher’s Gold are starting to return on me and I steadily begin to regret my over enthusiastic suggestion to start the season with running.

So - I’m running backwards and forwards, in a stifling hot and stale school gym, fully padded and sweating my saggy man tits off. What do you think our group of club cricketers are doing? I tell you what they are not fucking doing: setting up, getting stumps out, warming up … anything remotely useful. They are sat on their arses, taking the piss out of each other and shouting abuse at me as I gasp for a mouthful of air whilst trying to choke down the flavour of fermented apples and bile that is by now repeating on me.  

Eventually a couple decide to crack on with what they have come here to do and get some stuff out, I then shout at a couple more to help them, through my staggered breathing, whilst Wooly (breathing fine I may add) orders one of the youngsters to put their pads on. I always find it amusing how long it takes people to do things, would they have just sat there all session until we finished running and suggested a start to proceedings? Or perhaps they were having far too much fun laughing at the two twats who thought fitness was in any way remotely useful in February.

Anyway, the youth club atmosphere ebbs away and the session slowly begins, (I say session, it is the standard, two nets, two bats, everyone else bowls format) and after catching my breath I have a bat. The theory behind running first was that we would then be training whilst fatigued and it would help in the long term (the pros do it, so it must work). Well if you replaced fatigued with fucked then you have some semblance of where my head was at as I faced up. 

I’ll keep this short –

First net = shower of shit. Feet went no-where, didn’t watch the ball, prodded at anything that came my way, played too early and the first half of it was a waste; until I realised that I was no longer playing indoor cricket and just trying to smash the back wall.

Second half was considerably better.

Within about 45 minutes people had started to drift off for chats and any excuse not to bowl. Standard in any club net, bat first or you’ll barely have anyone bowling at you by the end (hence why all the teenagers and bowlers get shafted with this graveyard slot to pad up). Our resident club coach had also turned up, not to add anything really, just to distract the players and provide them with another face to chat bollocks too; I made sure I gave him 20 minutes of my time just to be polite.

During all of this time, Wooly being the keen sporting type that he is had taken Reg (Our young 2s keeper) off to the side to do some 1-2-1 work. God that boy loves to squat (Wooly not Reg).

We then decided that it was a good idea to set our cordon up and take some catches at pace, what with having a gas overseas on the horizon. All I can say is, I hope the lad can bowl straight.

Whilst we had a great time and it was seriously funny watching Reg continue to dive across Thorpey at 1st slip and proceed to leave them (Bob definitely wore a few as a result), we were so bad that instead of patting ourselves on the back for holding catches, we were just chuffed when we got in the right position whilst shelling them. Wooly did have a great time smashing them at us though, as did the small semblance of spectators pissing themselves at our efforts.

I have a feeling that 3rd man is going to be mighty busy this season! The shout of ‘Browny’ started going up at each chance that went flying through the slips down to where our resident 3rd man would be stationed throughout the year. Sounds simple and retarded, it is, but it’s also gold when shouted at the 4 or 5 of us currently giggling at how shit we are and knowing how grumpy Brown will be at his extra work load this summer. As for the guy bowling gas and watching his snicks be put down, I feel for the bloke! Chances of getting pissed off and leaving mid-season!?

Overall the turnout wasn’t great, we have always had a problem with training at our club, same old faces an’ all that. But all in all the right people turned up and it was good to see everyone back together. I would say we had about 7 or 8 first teamers in attendance, so that’s not bad for the 3rd of Feb.

Oh, almost forgot! This year Bob (Thorpe) has decided that we will be posting the team each week in video format a la, Sky Sports. We got 3 or 4 done, watch this space, they are genius!!! One of the outtakes is attached to give a feel of how tragic we all are and how hilarious we find ourselves.

So first winter net session over, and off I go to the Derbyshire section of my son’s 2nd birthday. I was late, of course, and proceeded to fill up on lasagne, Diet Coke and chips; undoing any good work I had benefited from during the Langer runs.

So, what to fill my time with until next week!?

Work? Run? Read? …

No, I know, how about writing a Captains Diary; in the process ensuring that I supply myself with a whole summer’s worth of little ‘Methadone’ hits!