The weekend that never was... and what might be

HUW TURBERVILL was supposed to return to club cricket on May 9 after 20 years away. The coronavirus crisis has delayed his comeback, and given him pause for thought about the past and future of the amateur game

Today was gonna be the day

That they were gonna throw it back to you

By now you should've somehow

Realised what you gotta do

(with apologies to Oasis’ Wonderwall)

This weekend would have seen my first league cricket match in 21 years.

On the list of ‘sacrifices because of the coronavirus crisis’ playing for Beddington CC 5th XI would not be near the top I don’t suppose, but I was still excited.

May 9 would have seen the start of league action in Surrey, Middlesex, Kent and Sussex, although many counties, including my native Suffolk, would have begun sooner.

The arrival of the actual date comes as a hammer blow, even though we knew over the last six or seven weeks that we’ll be lucky to get any recreational play in at all this season, if we’re honest.

If we do it won’t be bio-secure, but it may be saliva, shower gel, high fives and hug-free.

When I took a time-out in 2000 to focus on a fiancée and then an expanding family, I did not expect it to be such a long break.

In fact a comeback in 2016 was aborted after the first match back; leaving at 10am and arriving home 12 hours later went down like a cup of cold sick. But now the children are of a certain age, and Ben is old enough to play some matches with me, it had felt like the real thing.

^{Club cricket has had to take a back seat}

Hopefully it will come again.

Men’s club cricket between 12 and 27, for Halesworth, Yoxford and Woodbridge in Suffolk, was a true love. 

They were great days, learning about cricket and life, from postmen, policemen, farmers, teachers.

Team-mates bought me Adnams shandies at 14 that sent me home squiffy (scandal!); and ordered me vindaloos for my maiden curries (agghhh!).

“Stand so close to me at slip that when I fart you can smell it,” said wicketkeeper Dick.

“Never cut left-arm spinners!” advised Geoff.

“What goes on tour stays on tour,” said Barry, after I told his wife he’d been throwing up all night when we arrived home – oops.

There was my debut for Woodbridge when I came into bat with my school coach Paul on 96 not out. At the end of the innings I had struck 19 off six balls, and he was stranded on 99. He still goes on about it.

There was that time after a match in the changing room when no one knew where to look, as our captain told our star batsman: “If I ever see you shake your head at me again in the field I’ll smack you on the snout!”

Taking the field at Mildenhall as one of six fielders for 20 minutes because a carful of hungover team-mates were ridiculously late.

And the temperamental team-mate who was so displeased with an umpire turning down lbws that he clattered into the back of him when bowling (he’d been watching too much Colin Croft, I suspect). 

These are the kind of life lessons that have proved indispensable.

I was captain of Woodbridge from 1994–99. We won more matches than we lost (phew), although our victory percentage on Saturdays (about 80 per cent) plummeted on Sundays (33 per cent) as most of our team were young, footloose and fancy-free.

For the last 20 years I have played a fair bit of cricket, but of the jazz-hat variety. Is it still fun? Is the yobbishness now out of control?

A friend of mine who returned to the club game last season after an even longer absence than me said he was shocked by the sledging, with one opposition captain laying into a 15-year-old in one bad-tempered game.

Players umpiring their own matches led to fury and indignation, even when honest mistakes were made.

Even the plumbest lbws are rarely given. After a string of convincing shouts were declined, he said that they had looked back through the scorecards for this club (all online) and found that they hadn't given one of their own batsmen out lbw in matches against their top six rivals in three years (sounds like the Aussie umpires of 1970/71).

Cheating, no?

He concludes by saying that there was some kind of argy-bargy in pretty much every match….

I was bracing myself…

Beddington in South London/Surrey is my new club. It’s a lovely two-pitch ground in a public park, between Carshalton and the Ikea Towers of Purley Way.

In pre-pandemic times they fielded five Saturday sides, two on Sunday, and had more than 100 colts, so they are much bigger than the clubs I played for in Suffolk. 

Former Leicestershire and Northamptonshire seamer, and local hero, Ryan Cummins is the (unpaid) club pro.

I fell in love with the venue while walking my dog, and have been coaching my son’s team for the last six years.

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I went to my first cricket club AGM for 20 years in December. It was interesting.

I knew a lot of the challenges already of course, hearing about problems from readers of and colleagues at The Cricketer, but keeping clubs afloat is hard.

Beddington CC own the pavilion, but only use it for half the year. The rest of the time they lease it to Carshalton Football Club.

They lease the ground from the council.

At the last review their rent increased by nearly 50 per cent. The battle commences again with another scheduled for this year. 

They have Sky TV. It costs £3,624 a year.

Heating the pavilion is also expensive. Beddington paid £6,800 last year for electricity. They have an old boiler and it needs replacing.

They seemed to have a stroke of luck last year. The club was selected by Nissan for a visit by the World Cup trophy, and Phil Tufnell. He told me on the night “it was a lovely little spot”, and he was right.

A Nissan electric eco-system was installed, with solar panels on the roof, and although there have been teething troubles and repairs are imminent, this should ultimately save a lot of money.

There’s also the problem of theft and vandalism, as so many clubs have. Dogwalkers in the park are often a tremendous help, keeping a vigilant eye on wrongdoers. As well as morons driving cars and riding bikes on squares, ground-maintenance equipment is often stolen at clubs.

I was already aware of what was the No.1 problem clubs faced, from working for The Cricketer: attracting/retaining players. But now this coronavirus crisis means clubs will also be trying to plug £15,000-20,000 black holes.

ECB schemes, council grants and Sport England donations will all be needed.

What will the scene be when club cricket finally resumes – either in a sanitised state, or properly?

Will players have been lost forever?

Will many gratefully come back, appreciating what they have been missing?

Let’s hope we find out sooner rather than later.

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