Hedgehogs Flattened!
Billy Shite at Hoglands Homeless Refuge for a game between
The Mighty Village and the cutely named Hedge End Hedgehogs who are a
collection of 17 year olds with the odd Dad thrown into the mix. With a one win in three record so far this
season, The Village needed to win this one and so the selection committee come
up with a pearler and recalled, after a two year absence, Village Legend Mick
the Teeth. You don’t earn Legend status
easily, unless you are Barry – Mike has earned his status through deeds on the
pitch, one of which was seeing his first ever ball for the club get smashed
into the trees and as far as we know, it’s still orbiting the earth. Also of course, he’s come up with the most
legendary reasons for missing matches that anyone has ever heard including “I
have a dead bone in my leg”. Someone
always has to give him a lift or provide him with a piece of kit and it’s
always a laugh seeing “no fixed abode” on a signing on form. Today though, wearing Skip’s dads cricket
boots – he’s here. Also here and making
his debut is James Wilson, fresh from a hard days graft of watching soldiers
from his ivory tower (according to Sergeant Sunderland). James was available once before when there
was that balls-up over pitch allocation and the Village only had 7 men anyway
so they ran away to the pub.
So the full line up was Wilson, Spaul, Fox Piss, Mick the
Teeth, The Sheikh, Skip, Sunderland, Small Feest, Geoff, de Vito, Seasick
Barry.... count them and count them again, that makes 11. Also, Big Feest was present so technically
there were 12 and the Village had a scorer.
Every week the Skip has a gameplan which has been devised
based on winning the toss which is completely pointless as he never actually
wins the toss so Hedge End won and decided to insert said Village. With the Big Dog still absent with his
injured digit, the opening duties fell to new Boy Wilson and Spaul who
confidently swapped singles before Spaul played a textbook forward defensive to
the last ball of the first over but sadly, after the ball had yorked and bowled
him to bring in Jonjo and the faint whiff of digestive biscuits and fox piss.
After a steady and watchful start against the opening
bowlers, the change bowlers brough a more attacking approach as they equally
took toll and the score raced. Jonjo had
soon passed his record score for The Village of 9 and it was beginning to look
like a total of 130+ was on the cards.
Usually, the run rate in an innings will ebb and flow but it just took
off into the stratosphere as the boys went wild, smashing sixes and fours all
over the place with the Army nearly claiming a victim as a straight 6 from Wilson flew into the
skate park, narrowly missing a kid as we all looked away. Fair enough, she probably would have grown up
to be a weapon of mass destruction or a Taliban suicide bomber or that’s how it
would have been spun anyhow. Both batsmen flew past 50 and the total to 140,
150, 160 and still going. Mick the Teeth
was padded up and ready for ages, stalking the boundary rope and more and more
bits fell off of his shoes.
As we arrived at the last of the 16 overs, Wilson , in true professional manner, tucked
his gloves under his arm, settled for the asterisk next to his name and let
Jonjo bat, which he did, flicking the most predictable bouncer ever over the
wicket-keeper as the Hedge End skipper lost his rag. Revenge of sorts was his on the last ball as
Jonjo tried to smack the ball back to Hythe and was bowled. The Mighty Village
As The Mighty Village took the field it became obvious that
bits were falling off of Mike’s shoes at an alarming rate which was going to
make his bowling interesting. That was
for later though as Sergeant Sunderland snatched the ball from the Wizard of
Ozz and took the first over. Despite
looking confident (which all 17 year olds tend to do), one opener top-edged an
attempted hook and the Skip defied his hamstrings, weight and lack of mobility
to claim the catch. So, one down and The
Village on the rampage – not quite as Biffa came in and larruped The Sheikh
over the cow a couple of times as he tried to extract life out of the
featherbed pitch but the faster he bowled, the further it went.
Off of the next Sunderland
over, Biffa again aimed over the cow and got a massive top edge which came down
with snow on it again. Sensing Mick the
Teeth’s reluctance to test his shoes out with running in to catch it, The Skip
set off again but the exertions of taking the previous catch had obviously
caught up with his as the fat git didn’t even get a glove on it. The Wizard’s next over brought more carnage
both in term of runs and a fielding incident where Seasick Baz was clearly
going to pick it up and return it until Sunderland came in from the blindside
and shoulder charged him over the boundary in a disgraceful act of Ageism. Mick the Teeth was on to bowl next and he
immediately made that incident look costly by disappearing over the cow trees
three times in his first over, courtesy of Biffa.
With Geoff on to bowl, despite telling the Skip to fuck off
when he was told he was bowling next, we
then had some twats on the pitch and as is always the case, they always go up
to the Villager most likely to kick off and smack one of them in the
mouth. It used to be The Great Raymondo
but today Sergeant Sunderland kept remarkably cook as the Spanish / Italian
idiot in the hat wandered across the pitch clutching his can of beer just to
ask someone what was going on. When
he’d gone Biffa (who was getting annoying, both by scoring lots of runs and by
being over friendly and chatty) aimed more lusty blows over the cow as the Skip
pondered setting an 8 and 1 field.
Before he could though, Biffa stopped the game to ask The Skip to
tighten the adjustment on the back of his cap which he did, despite a request
from Geoff to pull it over his eyes.
The Edwards father and son duo were combining well, Junior
was getting smashed all over the place, whilst Senior was baffling them with
his own brand of flight and guile. Jonjo
was in the outfield doing his best to give back the 81 runs he scored with
Guru-esque boundary fielding in a Michael Johnson running style. Junior Edwards
was providing amusement though as his shoes continued to fall apart and he got
driven for 4 which nearly took out a tramp on a bench who just swayed out of
the way clutching his can of Tennents Extra.
Mike nearly bought a wicket straight afterwards but instead of catching
it, The Jewell went for the ‘sun’ excuse and moved out of the way as it nearly
hit him. It was all over for Biffa when
Daddy Edwards was back on to bowl and there may even have been some movement
off the pitch as he got bowled aiming another mighty heave over cow. “Well Bowled” he patronisingly said as he
walked off.
The Skipper was in for the Hedgehogs and he had his angry
face on but the Jewell in the Village Crown was on to bowl and cleaned him up
and things were looking good again.
Geoff struck again with another arm ball before cleaning up the one
remaining decent batsman by lobbing in a wide one and seeing him stumped in
arthritic fashion by The Skip. The
remaining three overs passed with the only incidents being Sunderland
getting all arsey over the non-striker backing up too far and then breaking the
stumps with his next ball. Mick the
Teeth tried his best to concede 40 off the last over, impeded though he was by
all the spikes bar one having fallen off his boots and so they resembled his
teeth really.
So, The Mighty Village are on the march with a comprehensive
win which I think it’s fait to say, they made a little difficult for
themselves. Next they march on to
Millbrook Rec on the outskirts of Tehran to play
against Riverside
and I have a feeling that the Village Selection Committee may have some actual
decisions to make. Lack of availability
has meant that players have been signed on this year at an alarming rate and
sooner or later, you arrive at a point where everyone wants to play. I feel that point is now. This is Billy Shite at the Hoglands Homeless
refuge.
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