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..with two barnstorming Sunday losses against Marton and Kineton! But never mind, we got to see Barford’s newest opener, Simon Morgan, refusing to leave anything in the locker in getting his 9 runs against a youthful Kineton. But no-one picked his total in the sweepstake, so it’s a rollover…
Watch as his magnificent strokes almost get to the boundary…
And commiserate as he gets out to one that even he couldn’t get down to (in Sloooo-moooo toooo)…
Well, doesn’t time fly? We’ve only just recovered from the winter deluge and polished off the last of the Christmas cake and it’s time to start playing cricket again. Personally I think you’d be wise to take the lead of some our elder statesmen who wouldn’t dream of being seen in whites, let alone playing cricket, before the asparagus season is over…
Anyway back to business, and in the words of our inimitable Social Secretary:
“We now move on to our pre season get together. This will again take place at the Snitterfield club on Sunday the 13th of April, 12 until 4pm.
This is your opportunity to come along and have a beer a bite to eat and a chat with your team mates new and old before the season starts the following week (hooray). Wives, partners, girlfriends and children are most welcome to attend. The more the merrier…
Don’t forget your cash or cheque book’s though as Phil Morris will be on the prowl looking to collect your annual subscription fees if you have not already paid them.
Your first match secretary of the season, Paul Johnstone will also be there looking for some kind of bribe in the form of money or alcoholic beverage. This is if you wish to be considered for the first game of the season, ha ha.
Finally, I am on the lookout for a few volunteer’s to bring some food along. This can be in the form of any kind of main or dessert, hot or cold. If there is anyone out there who could help out by providing something to eat, please drop me a line back.
Hopefully there will be as many of you there as possible.”
Any and all offers of help will be gratefully received – as for the 4pm curfew, that is highly dependent on whether the Chairman has finished his traditional opening day frame of snooker…
It’s not often we get the chance to “blow our own trumpet” as it were, especially given the usual levels of performance on the cricket field, but this weekend’s “Sunday Times top 100 places to live in the UK” has afforded just such an opportunity.
Barford has crashed through into the top 100 for the first time, ranked at 57th in the country, and is the top village to live in the Midlands. And the first (and hence, of course, most significant) reason in the accompanying blurb is the “sociable cricket club”, where apparently you don’t need to be Alastair Cook to join – personally, I think we’re more after the Alastair Sim type. I’m also not too sure about the reference to the “thwack of leather on willow” – normally I find it’s the thwack of leather on flesh with an accompanying cry of “ouch” (or something similar) that is more redolent of a Barford summer…
Shamefully, the local rag has seen fit to ignore the huge impact of the cricket club and focussed instead on minor issues such as crime rates, house prices and school performance.
Imagine if we actually played in the village!
A potentially chaotic evening, thanks to the mysterious disappearance of the Social Secretary and the apparently unrelated double-booking of the Secretary, was thankfully avoided as a roomful of quizzers had their grey cells exercised by urbane Quiz Master Martin Lusby. In the end it was “alright on the night”, as the “Moonies” resumed their winning ways, but only after winning on tiebreak from the “Quizzard of Oz” – who really should have started on -10 for their choice of name.
Copious amounts of Lasagne were both produced and eaten, followed by an electic choice of puddings, washed down by the usual refreshments (which rather bizarrely included a substantial amount of (untasted) Iron Brew WKD – what were you thinking, Drage??)
Many thanks for Martin and Sue for running the Quiz so effectively and to all the helpers who prepared and/or bought food, set up and/or cleared away, ran the bar and helped wash up. The Treasurer has escaped with the proceeds and gone off skiing – whether the club coffers will be replenished remains to be seen!
STOP PRESS: Looks like the Treasurer didn’t manage to spend it all, so we may be able to pay the rent at Snitterfield this year 🙂
After a break of 17 months to allow the social calendar to be optimally rearranged, the Annual Quiz Night returns to Barford village hall on Saturday 8th of March at 7pm. Your genial quiz-master for the evening will be super sub captain and legendary ex-Treasurer Martin Lusby. Please ensure you inscribe the date in your diaries and get a team together for an intellectual cornucopia. To magically have this (and all our other events) infused automatically into your smartphone or tablet device then grab this link.
Tickets are priced at £8 each or the Social Secretary will do a deal of £16 for two, and will include a sumptuous feast (main+pud) prepared (or at least re-heated) by the finest chefs in the club – judging by last years tea roster that’s not really saying much. There will as always be a cash bar,to ensure the grey cells are sufficiently lubricated…
As the Secretary notes:
“Once again the numbers are very limited to this very exclusive event so please get back to me as soon as possible with your ticket requirements to avoid any disappointment. As always it will be tables/teams of four, but don’t worry if you are only a two as I will easily be able to pair you off with another couple.” (And you think he’s joking!)
It’s the new year and therefore time to begin the annual process of transforming from a shower of hapless fatties into an elite cricketing machine.
In the hope of keeping numbers up, we’ve changed the format a little this year so that we don’t have both nets and coaching running at the same time. We will begin with 6 weeks of Sunday nets at Warwick School, before moving on to Kenilworth Wardens for a further 8 weeks of Monday coaching with Paul and Mark. The dates for these are as follows:
Sunday 19th January – Warwick School – 11:00am to 12:00
Sunday 26th January – Warwick School – 11:00am to 12:00
Sunday 2nd February – Warwick School – 11:00am to 12:00
Sunday 9th February – Warwick School – 11:00am to 12:00
Sunday 16th February – Warwick School – 11:00am to 12:00
Sunday 23rd February – Warwick School – 11:00am to 12:00
Monday 24th February – Kenilworth Wardens – 8:00pm to 9:30
Monday 3rd March – Kenilworth Wardens – 8:00pm to 9:30
Monday 10th March – Kenilworth Wardens – 8:00pm to 9:30
Monday 17th March – Kenilworth Wardens – 8:00pm to 9:30
Monday 24th March – Kenilworth Wardens – 8:00pm to 9:30
Monday 31st March – Kenilworth Wardens – 8:00pm to 9:30
Monday 7th April – Kenilworth Wardens – 8:00pm to 9:30
Monday 14th April – Kenilworth Wardens – 8:00pm to 9:30
The cost of each session will be just £3 and everyone is welcome, so please spread the word.
To keep up to date with all the upcoming nets, head over to the nets page or to have all the nets and fixtures info infused automatically into your smartphone or tablet device then grab this link.
The plaintive cry for Christmas drinks has gone out from the Fixtures Secretary eager to share his views on everyone and everything (he’s probably suffering from sledging withdrawal symptoms after missing the recent Curry Night). This might conceivably incorporate the “Sandy Peirson Memorial Cyclo-Cross Drunken Bike Ride Event”, although other forms of transport are also available.
It’s looking like the evening of Thursday 19th December at the Punch Bowl in Warwick is the current favourite but watch this space for further details as and when they are available…
An intrepid band of Barford’s finest congregated in Warwick to enjoy an evening of beer and curry. The best that could probably be said about the beer at Wetherspoons was the price and the ale cognoscenti in the group will probably not be returning any time soon. Some hardy souls did try the 99p pint, but one of the rejected samples is probably still settling out…
The action then moved to Saffron where the extensive menu provoked heated debate, but not much enlightenment. For some unknown reason, the advance party of the new Social Secretary and his young acolytes had decided to accompany a bulk order of poppadoms with Diet Cokes rather than the traditional lager, and spent the next 20 minutes trying to cover their embarrassment!
What’s that you’re drinking skip?
A good range of curry was sampled, although the Coventry professionals let the side down a little on the spice front and Jake now has a new nickname of “Korma Boy”. The evening ended with a quick trip to the Rose & Crown which offers a nice point and a great vantage point for checking out the late night taxi clientele! The chairman had composed a little(!) poem in honour of Simon’s first event, but forgot to deliver it in the excitement:
Ones first time is important
You’re in a nervous sweat,
Your sang froid has gone dormant
But you can surely bet
That butterflies are rampant
Within a heaving chest
They seem to have a penchant
For bursting out your vest.
A virgin’s nerves are natural
One’s not done this before,
All past, hard won, collateral
Has just marched out the door
( and ) if you follow in the footsteps
Of past masters like our Paul
You have to try to put steps
In place to break the fall.
So Si, this is your christening
As Barford Social sec
And I hope you’re coolly listening
And not a nervous wreck
For on this first occasion
You will be judged, – and surely
The cooking may be Asian
But Europe before the jury.
Now Simon has a history
But, on that, we will not gloat,
But it’s still a complete mystery
What ‘s happened to the goat!
But now, from dear Leek Wootton,
He’s pulled the lovely Kaye
And he’s no longer the glutton
For the wives of yesterday.
So now he quietly breezes
Where once he would have stormed
He’s careful who he squeezes
And says he’s quite reformed.
He’s no longer a voyeur
He states with solemn pledge
As another divorce lawyer
Goes crashing off a ledge.
So our esteemed committee
Tried to hide a nervous fear
And thought it quite a pity
That the only volunteer
For the recent vacant social post
To which we now allude
Thinks Nuneaton can’t be beaten
When drunk and semi-nude!
So Barford’s turning point has come
Regarding social dos
Simon follows young
James Wilson’s mum
When ordering the booze
And when it comes to curry night
It’s here for all to see
He must have just got something right
To tempt the likes of me
From the comfort of my favourite pew
With whisky, pipe and slippers
To be here, with the likes of you
And 7 Bedworth strippers (where are they Simon?)
So let you all rejoin with me
And thank him, at this stage
So raise a glass to an act of class
Mr. Simon Drage!
It didn’t take too long for the new social secretary to flex his organisational muscles:
“Well the temperature has dropped by umpteen degrees and there is a crisp wind to knock you off your feet. To make matters even more enjoyable (not) the forecasters say it will get worse before it will get any better.
So here’s something to warm you all up. No I’m not talking about the link to the 0800 chat line that I own, where you can talk to my dirty East European girls about whatever you like until your hearts content, ha ha. I’m talking about the Captain’s Curry Night.
This will take place on Friday 8th of November. The meeting place will be Wetherspoons in Warwick town square at 7:00pm. After a few cheap drink’s we will then head off to some Indian restaurant (Saffron for 8:30pm) that Ben mentioned to me yesterday the name of which I forget today. But rest assured as he tell’s me it’s proper nice.
It would be great to see as many of you as possible for this strictly boy’s night out. So if you have been involved with the club forever, a few years or just a few week’s, you are all welcome, the more the merrier.
If you could all drop me a line back to let us know if you think you will be able to make it or not, just so we have an idea about numbers that would be great.
Cheers.
Simon International.”
The Club AGM has come around again and the following plea from our recently ennobled factotum is presented in full:
Chaps,
This year’s AGM will take place at the Joey on Monday 14th October at 8:00pm. It’s your chance to have your say about the running of the club, or to just get out the house for a couple of hours (in which case I suggested you bring earplugs and a pillow). Phil has ordered sandwiches and chips, although in doing so he grossly insulted the bar staff with an unfortunate reference to organ grinders and monkeys, so God knows what we’ll actually get.
Following the barnstorming success of the club dinner, Paul Henderson has decided to exit the stage with the audience wanting more, and will not be standing for reelection as Social Sec. Simon Drage has kindly offered to stand for this position. All other members of the committee have agreed to continue in their current roles.
All members are, of course, entitled to stand for election to any of these prestigious and financially rewarding positions, so if you want to topple one of the existing fat cats simply complete the attached form and send it to me. Go on – surprise me.
As part of the agenda we are also going to do a brief review of this year’s fixtures, to help Mike in planning for next season. I’ve attached a list (not entirely complete) of fixtures – if you have thoughts or suggestions about the fixture list then please bring them along to the meeting.
If you are unable to attend the meeting but would like me to raise any points on your behalf, please send me a mail.
I look forward to seeing you on 14th.
Simon
PS This AGM has Jon Lambdon written all over it.
Attachments:
Agenda
Fixtures 2013
