Village in Semi-Final after Shire Scare

Rob cunningly adapts Guru's bat cone to be a pile cream applicator

Billy Shite at Oglands Park, reporting for the Southern Daily Sporting Arse on the big Cup Quarter Final between The Village and The Shire. It was nice that the Great British Summer had deigned to not rain on us for once and it was nice to be back at The Parks and for there not be chavs all over the outfield. As we waited to start there was a screaming row between some lowlifes by the changing room which wouldn’t have looked out of place on the Jeremy Kyle show.

The Village had two debutants today with Matt Young coming into the batting line up instead of The Guru who was absent polishing his bells.  The Village copied England and rested a bowler for fear of burn out as there was no way that Geoff could play two games in a month and they replaced him with our youngest ever player in Nic Feest (or Neil as Spaul called him continually even though he was corrected every time).  At the other end of the scale was Seasick Harold Shipman (aka Barry the Legend) who came in for Nigel the Worlds Nicest Lawyer so we had a spread of approximately 50 years between our youngest and oldest player.

With it being Oglands, there had to be some controversy but luckily it didn’t involve the Village with the other pitch not actually having a strip cut to play on, meaning that Hedge End Hawks had to quickly head up to the Sports Centre where their game had been moved to, without them being told about it.
The Big Dog and New Boy Matt opened the batting and immediately discovered that the pace on any delivery had approximately halved by the time it bounced off the pitch, making scoring runs very difficult. Matt played one glorious straight drive over the bowler and stood admiring it before realising that he was going to have to run to get anything at all for it as it plopped to the ground and plugged in the turf.  The Big Dog was waiting for any bad ball and treating every other ball in the same way by trying to smash it, missing and deflecting it somewhere with his pad.

The Shire were obsessed with getting the Big Dog out and so were delighted when he was put down in the covers.  Not put down however was New Boy Matt who mistimed a straight drive and got caught at mid on-ish for 6.  The Big Dog was now joined at the crease by his fellow scourge of The Shire, Tommy 49 and both scored well, plundering the change bowlers who had come on.  Shire skipper Worty nearly made the breakthrough when the Big Dog went aerial again but the fielder on the boundary either didn’t see it or didn’t fancy it and so another chance went begging as Worty ripped out the remaining hair on his head.

One thing that was noticeable was (dropped catches aside) how well The Shire were fielding as the batsman continued to pick them out with amazing accuracy.  Tom got frustrated and eventually holed out for 14 to bring in the in-form Spaul who proceeded to bat like a man who knew the pitch was not up to his exacting standards before chipping a lame effort straight to a fielder to epart for more than 0, less than 2.  The Big Dog remained until he too holed out for 41, going for another big one and so it was time for the tail and time for the long handle with the Skip joining Shagger Blackwell at the crease.  The pair tried but no further boundaries were forthcoming and so the Mighty Village ended on 79-4 which 99% of the time, would be a losing score but much would depend on how The Shire adapted to batting on pile of stodge.  The Skip and Spaul set their field in meticulous fashion as best they could and then discovered that Left Handed Larry was batting and they had to mess about with it all over again.

The Village opened as usual with the Jeweller and he soon struck, removing the right handed opener with a yorker which he ill-advisedly tried to smash to Bevois Valley.  One down and a good start but the left hander remained which meant that Skip’s field placings would still be shite.

Next up was Corporal Mackem Pace Battery who had brought along a nurse to liberally apply another slap of pile cream in the break in play.  Fired up by the occasion and the strange warm sensation from his ringpiece, he steamed in a clean bowled the new batsman to put The Village firmly in charge.

Application of another kind was needed from the Shire batsmen and Left hand Larry provided it along with the new batsman who was a young quick lad who had cut off about 20 runs on his own by displaying pace and enthusiasm on the boundary.  Just you wait til you reach 40 mate, it all goes to shit then. The pair batted for the next 8 overs with not many chances aside from an edge which went through where the leaden footed Skip should have dived to.  Spaul bowled two overs for nothing and it was time for the erratic boys.  The Village were well placed at this point but a bad over from the Ginger Magician could see it all turn to shit very quickly.

There is a phenomenon in cricket where the most unlikely people are partnership breakers and unbelievably, in order to get a wicket, all the Village had to do was apply some Fox Piss.  His constant variations could not be read by Left hand Larry and he blattered one up in the air and it came down on top of Spaul who couldn’t avoid it and with his tongue flapping, pouched the catch.  With the batsman having crossed the phenomenon of “1 brings 2” also came to pass as Far Too Quick was bowled off his pads.  The hat-trick ball was sheeeeee-ite and got smashed behind square for Harold Shipman to go and retrieve.

The two new batsmen were the guy who tried to break his thumb in the last game and Gigantor who both tucked into Jonjo’s last over.  The Village were still in control at this point but they were soon up shit creek again as it only takes one bad over in a low scoring game to change things and Shagger Blackwell provided it, going for 12 which meant that The Shire only needed 12 off the last 2 overs.

Corporal Northern Pace Battery’s piles allowed him to bowl the 15th over and unbelievably, the umpires dropped a bollock in all the excitement and managed to let him get away with bowling a five baller.  No one realised at the time but the end of the over was called and it was time to do or die.

It came to the Jeweller to bowl the last over with 5 runs required to win.  Thumb Boy scampered a single to bring Gigantor onto strike with a big swish and miss before Jeweller produced a corridor of uncertainty ball which Gigantor chopped onto his stumps.  3 balls to go and 4 to win and the new batsman was the Minister of Agriculture.  The next two balls went for singles leaving two required to win off the last ball with the Minister for Agriculture facing.  Jonjo, realising that one of his misfields could mean us losing the match, peed himself as the Jeweller steamed in.... and bowled him to give the Village a win by 1 run.  Players converged on the master bowler and the Skip jumped on top of the pile which forced all of the air to leave Jonjo’s body in one go.  It was close but it was a win and in the Cup, the win is all that matters and the margin matters not.

The Village have set up a Cup semi-final against either Good Companions or Hedge End Hawks who are both from Division 1 but who would back against this plucky Division 3 side now.  It’s the magic of the Cup after all.  A word for the gallant losers from The Shire who improved dramatically on their 9 wicket demolition at the hands of the Village in the league match.  The Shire should beware though that when the next league match comes round, Geoff will be fully rested. Will he regain his place from young Nic though as it was nice to have a fielder who can actually bend down and stop the ball and not do the Ali shuffle as the ball flies past on its way to the boundary.

The Village have to rest their weary bodies and get back to their best for a match against The Arrow on Thursday.  Squad rotation will be the order of the day and The Skip will have to establish whether Harold Shipman can survive 2 games in 4 days.

Billy Shite for the Southern Daily Sporting Arse, Oglands

Cup Fever Preview : The Shire Part 2

Barry thumbs a lift to Hoglands Park

All we do is previews.... we don't play any bastard cricket.

Off to the war zone of Hoglands Park where it’s time for more Cup Fever and The Village versus The Shire Part 2.  Apparently we have the Special Forces Unit at the game to ensure people get off the pitch.  Just what we need.

With continual pissing rain being the order of the day for the past two weeks, this is the first fixture either of these teams have had since the last one between these two fine sides when The Village won by 9 wickets.  Changes ahoy tonight though and the Village have had to plumb the depths of their squad to field a team following disciplinary issues involving duct tape, a white van with blacked out windows and a sheep.   The Guru and Geoff are helping police with their enquiries, aided and abetted by Nigel, the Worlds Nicest Lawyer who will ensure that they get done for it.

This leaves the Village with the following side:

1 Colin Day – The Big Dog has been left hungry for 3 weeks now.  Carnage may follow.

2 Tom Richards – in the side despite refusing to pay his match fees due to poverty

3 Steve Paul – Revelling in his summer of cricket, Spaul will once again be attempting to prove that Worty’s decision not to give him a game 3 years ago, was a foolish one.

4 Luke Blackwell – Every cup game, a Joey gets promoted up the order.

5 Glen de la Cour – The Skip may have to unfurl the mighty Graeme Hick willow for this game

6 Phil Jewell – The silent assassin is in the house.

7 Jonjo Stovell – Surely some mistake putting this knob so high in the batting order.  Have you forgotten the shouldering arms incident?

8 Tom Barge – All I know about him is “he’s a left armer”.  Secret weapon.

9 Rob Saunders – Back from fighting contra-rebels in Nicaragua, the one man pace battery.

10 Nic Feest – Learning new swear words and insults for ginger people, our kids academy prospect who will probably be better than all of us when he grows up.

11 The Legend of Barry

Please, no more fucking rain.

Kerala Preview - More Rain Forecast

Just for the Big Dog - An Indian Buffet

Kerala at the Sports Centre in the first meeting since “Cheating Bstardgate” at the tail end of last season.   We of course, lost that game and we were told that it was Indian Justice as they tried to stir up some sort of race war.  Sorry boys, not interested.  We will keep our moral high ground and just ask who won the league?  Weather watch and early in the week, any green field was submerged in water so not looking good.  On Wednesday there was a shock in that a strange yellow object was spotted in the sky and on Thursday it’s still there but it’s forecast to batter down with rain again at about 5pm so, in keeping with the rest of this season so far, writing this is probably a complete waste of time.

Team is:

1 Colin Day – the Big Dog is back and he like to feast on anything, hopefully he’ll have a taste for Indian buffet bowling

2 Tom Richards – fresh from his glorious exhibition of batsmanship against The Shire, big things are expected from the Chichester University number 11

3 Steve Paul – hoping to continue his rich vein of form blah blah blah

4 Sean Tongs – have no fear for The Guru is here.

5 Glen de la Cour – fighting at his heaviest weight ever

6 Nigel Hubbard – well we might need a nice lawyer against this lot

7 Phil Jewell – Danny de… actually – I can’t be bothered with his, it’s gonna rain and get called off again.

8 Luke Blackwell – I mean it always rains on a Thursday and it gets called off.  Dunno why I bother.

9 Rob Saunders (Umpire) – cos I send about 40 texts a week and then resend them to people like Spaul who can’t be bother to reply the first time.

10 Jonjo Stovell – so I eventually get 11 players and then it rains… and then I remember that I haven’t called up Barry the Legend.

11 Geoff Edwards – Actually, we could do with Barry to keep an eye on the scoring.

Bring on the Jams... Hedge End Jams Preview

Young Barry contemplates 12th Man Insult.

The Mighty Village take on Hedge End Jams in a top of the table clash between two undefeated teams at Turnpike Way.  We’ve never played here but as far as I’m aware, the track is usually decent enough so it should be a good game, a fine contest between bat and ball etc.   There is a pattern emerging at the top of the league with these two teams and Kerala being undefeated.  This is the first match between two of these sides as the early season encounter between Kerala and Jams was called off.  So, as far as Southampton Evening League Division 3 can be… this is huge.

Lining up for the Village will be.

1 Colin Day – The Big Dog will possibly be arriving late because of a course he’s on.  If the food is a buffet then I don’t expect him to turn up at all.

2 Tom Richards – back on form after last weeks gem of a knock.  The return of Tom Huxley to the side means that two of our players will be comparing hairstyles.

3 Steve Paul – Try writing a sentence about Steve without using ‘rich vein of form’ in it as well.  Try writing another one without ‘Big Nose’ in it as well.

4 Sean Tongs – It’s the Guru, now 49 but with as much youthful enthusiasm as ever.

5 Tom Huxley – “He’s a batsman” says Jonjo, “he’s a bowler” says everyone else.  No surprise that Jonjo doesn’t know the difference.

6 Glen de la Cour – The Skip, that is all.

7 Phil Jewell – “He’s coming for you, he’s coming for you-oo-oo, that Danny de Vito, he’s coming for you”

8 Luke Blackwell – Master of the stop-start-fling bowling technique which was far too mysterious for the opposition last week.  Also, the safest pair of hands in the team, bar none except maybe Geoff.

9 Rob Saunders – he’s back having reduced large swathes of Syria to rubble on a one man army wrecking spree.

10 Jonjo Stovell – Ginger Magician still down at No 10 following the shouldering arms incident which is going to bug me for years.

11 Geoff Edwards – A vital component of the ‘in and out’ fielding set up.  If Geoff is ‘in’, you have to have someone behind him.

12 Barry Shipman - in case the Big Dog is eating.

Big Game, Come on….

Guru in Birthday Romp as Village tame the Shire

"We must raise awareness for the victims of minefields"

Billy Shite here at Riverside Park for the Daily Sporting Arse to report on the Derby game to beat all Derby Games…. The Shire versus The Village.  Like most great sporting rivalries, this has an odd origin, beginning as it did in a titty bar in Thailand.  Andy Wort (or ‘Worty as he’s known to people who can’t be bothered to remember his first name) fell off a ladyboy and did his back in, meaning that he had to retire from playing for the Mighty Village due to their stringent fitness standards.  Once rehabilitated he decided that he didn’t need those Village Bastards and started his own team; Southamptonshire.  As The Village fell on hard times and started again from the bottom league, The Shire rose ever upwards until today when they finally met in Division 3.  Parts of the above story may be true.

Riverside Park has always been one of the dodgier pitches in the league and there are two pitches there, one with a ravine across the square and one without.  The last time we played here it was such a minefield that Princess Diana had brought a film crew down to draw attention to it and raise money for the victims.  So, it was nice to find that we were on the pitch that doesn’t have a ravine in it and is traditionally, the flatter of the two.  Worty and the Skip walked out and surveyed the ‘greener than green could be’ strip – Worty won the toss and decided to bat under moist, “dark by 7.30” skies.

The Village team showed two changes from the Vespasian Vikings Cup Fever win with The Hux and Barry Shipman the Legend making way for Shagger Blackwell and Clive.  Never before can Clive have been part of bringing the average age of a team down.

The Jeweller started off with a maiden but there were two byes on the board due to ridiculous bounces that left the keeping Skip floundering around behind the stumps.  Spaul kept up the good work and the third run was also a bye as a pitched up delivery took off and flew over the Skip’s head.  Ridiculous and dangerous and can Skip borrow a helmet please?  There then followed a delay while the non-striker dressed himself for a few minutes before the other opener aimed an ugly swipe at Spaul’s next ball and was bowled as the steady drizzle came down.

The Shire were already beginning to feel the pressure of not having many runs, caused by tight bowling and decent fielding from all, especially Clive who was giving his wanking hand injury a good workout in stopping a succession of balls in ungainly falling over fashion.  Having spent all that time dressing himself, the other opener tossed his wicket away by taking on Tommy 49’s arm and being comfortably run out by the Skip as he attempted a 2^nd run.  The Jeweller had been spanked for a couple of fours, one of which had been expertly dodged by Geoff in the field as he did a kind of Ali shuffle as it went past his foot.  Geoff was on by now and making up for his fielding by going for 2 runs an over and even Jonjo’s right arm filth was landing on the explosive wicket and causing all sorts of bother.  That man Edwards was in the thick of the action in the field and the ball was following him which is not what you necessarily want.  On the bad side he spilled a fairly straight forward chance which would have given the Ginger Magician a wicket but he did manage to stop one fierce drive despite running backwards, turning his back, shutting his eyes and doing the Ali shuffle.  Textbook.  The score was up to 36 and the man was at it again and Geoff bowled the more aggressive of the Shire batsman behind his legs.

The one remaining worry for the Village (aside from having to bat on this pile of shit) was the Shagger Blackwell was ropey in his last bowling performance.  Today though he was on fire with the batsman totally unable to read the unusual run up and stop-start delivery.  The new batsman flashed at one and was expertly pouched by the Ginger Magician at point in a moment that vaguely made him look like a cricketer.  The Jeweller returned, Geoff switched ends and Shagger was unplayable and so The Shire limped on to 66-4 from their 16 overs.

Quick wickets were needed for the Shire to have any chance of success but they disobeyed the basic rule of playing on a shocking pitch and either pitched too short or overpitched and you can’t do that with the Big Dog when he’s ravenous and the runs did flow including a massive straight 6 which was some shot.  Tommy 49 was settling in and playing some lovely shots at the other end with his serene progress only interrupted by The Big Dog surprisingly and unexpectedly running a 2.  It was only a surprise until you realize that it was the last ball of the over and there was the strike to steal.

Worty captained from the front in the face of the onslaught and brought himself on and Tommy swatted him away for a couple of boundaries.  As the finishing line approached, The Big Dog latched onto a Worty full bunger and creamed it.  It was going like a missile and the daft bugger on the boundary tried to catch it, nearly lost a few fingers in the process and it went for four anyway.

The scores were now level and Tommy 49 hoofed one up in the air and was caught to bring in The Guru, on this, the day of his 49^th birthday.  One play and miss and one drive for a 4 and it was all over and Happy Birthday to You, Guru.

And so the Village sent their opponents back to The Shire with their tails between their legs.  This is a short match report but then again, it was a short match as the Village won it with nearly 8 overs to spare.  The jokey offer of a beer match was turned down in favour of going to the pub – how times change.   It was a comprehensive demolition which was always on the cards once The Big Dog and Tommy 49 had survived the first few overs.  The Shire will be back and they will have two more opportunities to put The Village in their place before the season is done with another League fixture and a Presidents Cup Quarter Final clash.  The bowlers won it for The Village today with fine efforts from all five bowlers used but in particular, credit to the Ginger Magician in particular who was surprisingly “not shite” for the second game running.  The Big Dog and Tommy 49 batted superbly to get the Village up to what could have been a small but testing target.  It was a committed display by the Village with that commitment to the cause being personified by Barry Shipman the Legend who turned up to perform 12^th man duties, despite having just had a tooth out – no anaesthetic, just a hammer and chisel.  He’s a legend you know.

Next up for the Village is a visit to new territory and Turnpike Way to play new opponents in Hedge End Jams.  The Village are building up a head of steam with three wins out of three but this promises to be their hardest game yet.  Bring it on…

Billy Shite, Riverside Minefield for the Southern Daily Sporting Arse.