Back Row (L-R): Nigel "The Hoob" Hubbard, Colin "The Big Dog" Day, Geoff Baselayer Edwards, Tommy 49 Drop Richards, Lookie Pace Blackwell, JJ Gimp Fox Piss Stovell
Font Row (L-R): Jeweller de Vito, Mikey Sperm Sprayer, The Guru, Skip, Kevmac Arthy, Seasick Steve.
Not Present: Gonzo Spaul, Corporal Mackem Rob Saunders, WG Clive Davison, Mick the Teeth - Village Legend
Billy Shite here for the Daily Sporting Arse at the End of the season Show with the Mighty Village taking on Knowle Village knowing that a win of any magnitude would be enough to guarantee winning the league and returning to their rightful place in Division 4 where they last played in 1993 when Skip was half the man he is now, weighing about 12 stone and only being 24 years old. The only previous Village title was in Division 3 in 1997 so this was due and it was time to get the job done.
The eleven men good and true for this momentous occasion chose themselves as the selection committee was shorn of Mackem Rob who was in training for shooting people on the streets of London and Spaul, who had admitted to himself something that the rest of us knew already, that he was completely fucked. We could not have dreamed of being here all day as it has been absolutely pissing down but luckily, A.Prick was off duty today and none of the other groundsmen could be arsed to inspect the pitches. If the game had been called off then the Village were guaranteed Champions but in one of those strange quirks of fate that happens in sport, they now had a chance to fuck it up.
One major chance of fucking it up was averted when Skip won the toss and decided to bat, this avoiding blind batting which happens at this time of year to those batting second. In went Dayer and Tommy 49, the latter recovered from the broken finger he got when fingering his ball sack. Knowle Village seemed bolstered by several new players but they must have got them exclusively from the “Can’t bowl” section.
There was some serious humpty going on from the first over as Dayer in particular took heavy toll, smashing fours all over the magnificent outfield at Hoglands Park. It looked all over for the big man soon after as he top edged one which came down on top of a bloke who had 20 minutes to get under it before ‘doing a Saunders’ and grassing it. Heavy toll was taken in a ‘you really should have caught that’ kind of way and the big man raced to 50 in no time at all.
In the meantime on the other pitch, we had chav wars going on as a spectator fielded the ball and chucked it at a car. When the wicket keeper nicked the chav’s mobile phone and threw it on the ground, smashing it to pieces, it was obviously all going to kick off and the Police ended up arriving and asking the Village if they saw anything. No one had. Funny that.
Tommy 49 was becalmed by comparison to the big dog but he was accruing runs at the same rate as JJ accrues notches on his bedpost. It was still a surprise however when he picked out a Knowle fielder who could catch and departed for 20. In a surprise change to the batting order, Skip went in ahead of the Guru and after expertly steering his first ball away for a leg glanced four, proceeded to bat like a man with a bag on his head. Dayer was limping like a man who needed a mobility scooter but he wasn’t having to run at all because Skip was not hitting the ball at all, just mowing and missing. In a miraculous change around, Skip tried hitting the ball and mowed three fours in three balls before missing and getting bowled.
The Guru came in and immediately showed the crowds what they had been missing by playing proper shots straight away and peppering the boundary rope, such as it was. Dayer’s running between the wickets had slowed down from ‘stop’ to ‘backwards’ and so it was exclusively fours or sixes from now on. He was on 84 and in sight of only the second Village ton in history when he repeated Tommy’s trick and managed to pick out a fielder who could catch despite hitting it miles in the air off a top edge.
Dayers’ departure brought in the Sperm Sprayer, to hopefully spray the ball all round the park. Sadly it wasn’t to be as an 11 year old bowler bowled him a long hop, his eyes lit up and with a swing, a miss and the sound of falling timber, he was gone first ball to bring in The Hoob, freshly returned from his holiday. He showed that he had been watching one of the departed batsmen but sadly for him, it wasn’t the Dayer, it was the Sprayer – bowled first ball.
In a race to get the pads on first to go and face the hat-trick long hop, the Jeweller was the winner and he and the Guru spent the rest of the innings mowing the ball around with the Jeweller surviving another very amusing dropped catch. Surely there could be no way back for Knowle Village as they were about to attempt chasing 185 to win.
It was already beginning to get a bit dark when the Knowle Village openers came in. One of them was Gigantor whose head is not visible when there is low cloud. He must have looked on from his lofty perch with a mixture of amazement and incredulity as the Jeweller gave him some width outside off stump and he sliced it away to where Geoff, resplendent in his winter baselayer, stuck out one hand because he couldn’t be arsed to move and use two and somehow it stuck. Unreal.
Kevmac, refreshed by his three match absence was on next and you know what happens when the Mac is in town, that’s right…rickets… I mean wickets as he was top edged up in the air by the other opener for the Skip to make some ground and take one of those high hanging ones which make you look like a right fanny if you miss it.
The village of Knowle knuckled down at this point and hit a few runs with Kevmac taking some tap in his next over. It was time for the enforcer so on came Lookie Pace to slam down some slightly wayward stuff including one which took off and hit one of the batsmen in the face. It was getting severely dark by this stage and so, worried by a potential abandonment and potetntial strange decision by the league to award a draw or something, the Skip gave the ‘spin only’ order. No problem from the other end where Geoff was wheeling away with all the guile and experience that you can only get from 40 years of cricket.
Having spent some time berating JJ over his fielding, Tommy 49 became Tommy Drop once more as a sitter was cowed straight at him at mid wicket which he duly shelled. No excuses were forthcoming due to the recently broken finger which hadn’t played a part at all, nor did it in the next over where he performed a similar ‘in and out’ effort before running away to the boundary to allow JJ to field close to the bat.
With Lookie Spin having finished off it was time to bring out the Gimp with JJ forced to tone down his usual express pace and bowl spin. The first ball was shit – pitching on his toe and heading for second slip before it turned and rolled along the ground. A couple of balls later and a spinning long hop was edged and caught by the Skip who completed the stumping as well, just to make sure as he’d been having a few appeals to which the square leg umpire was responding with the face of someone who has just discovered shit on their shoe.
Geoff’s final over produced two wickets when the batsman smashed one straight and high, no one really knew where it had gone but the Hubbard was underneath it and pulled off a miraculous catch, impeded though he was by the near darkness. Surrealism took aver a couple of balls later as JJ caught one at mid-wicket which Tommy Drop would almost certainly have grassed. Kevmac returned to clean up another before the Hoob, in a Herculean effort, succeeded in not giving away 138 off the last over.
It was another crushing win by the Mighty Village, this time by 130 runs which is a 16 overs a side game, is some going. The innings of Dayer made the victory today as did batting in the daylight, even though the Sperm Sprayer and the Hoob would like to blame the bad light for their one ball innings. There was a danger of the game not finishing at one point but fair play to both teams to getting it done.
The season was over and the Mighty Village were crowned Champions of Division 5 and deservedly so. Kerala may argue as they beat the Village twice but it matters not as The Village thumped everyone else out of sight. The celebrations will be loud hearty and with a great many headaches on the morning after. The Southern Daily Arse may carry a match report from the celebration night out which is scheduled for September 30th with pictures of JJ Gimp with one of his ginger eyebrows shaved off.
This is Billy Shite signing off at Hoglands Park, in the dark. Time for a pint and on September 30th, time for several.
