'AWNIOGO': FOREWORD

The unquenchable optimism of the cricket follower...

Who knows what possesses someone to write a 100-page account of a cricket season. Unpaid, too. I certainly cannot remember what, or who, provoked me to write this. I don’t even have an original copy (which is a shame, because they’re currently changing hands amongst collectors for four-figure sums). All I know is that at some point during the season it was suggested to me, and, ever alert for ways to waste time that simultaneously convinced me I was doing something productive, I set about writing reports after each game (even though, before the blogging era – maybe even before the Internet, come to think of it – I had nowhere to publish them). At the end of the season, they were all compiled in a book – a book that sold, if memory serves, some 37 copies. Nevertheless, the book is here for posterity.

1995, the season covered by All We Need Is One Good Over, was the year that both Yahoo! and eBay came into existence, the year the DVD was invented, and the year that Sergiy Brin and Larry Page, the founders of Google, first met one another; it was the year that Tim McVeigh bombed the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Richey from the Manic Street Preachers went missing, and that the Bosman Ruling was passed; Serbian leader Radovan Karadzic was charged with genocide in 1995, and Forrest Gump won the Best Picture at the Oscars. In cricket, Steve Waugh made a Test best 200 in Jamaica to seal the series that saw Australia finally put an end to the West Indies’ two decades of dominance and embark upon their own hegemony; West Indies came to England later that year in the series where Dominic Cork took 7/43 on debut at Lord’s and a hat-trick two games later. Bob Woolmer and Dermot Reeve’s all-conquering Warwickshire side won a championship and C&G Trophy double; one of their charges, Shaun Pollock, made his Test debut that year, during the series in which Mike Atherton’s 492-ball, 643-minute rearguard at Johannesburg salvaged England a famous draw; meanwhile, Darrel Hair was calling Muralitharan for throwing during the Melbourne test, leading Arjuna Ranatunga to walk his men off in protest.

Looking back at 1995 from a vantage point some 17 years later, it is clear that a lot has changed with both Moddershall Cricket Club and the players who turned out for the 1st XI that year. In particular, the number of professions that have been left behind (although not mine, not quite), the number of nicknames that were still glints in the milkman’s eye (it’s hard to remember Shaun Brian before he was The Moose; likewise Doc). I also noticed, belatedly, how many players’ middle names were their father’s first names.

The biggest change is in personnel, with only Andy Hawkins and Shaun Brian still donning the Moddershall colours. Players have come and gone, left and/or retired, many of whom played significant parts in the club’s most successful period (which can be said to follow on from the start of this book…not that I’m claiming any causal relation between the two). If anything, this book gives an idea of how we first started to gel as a side, and how, with Addo’s coaxing, we came to be supremely confident in our ability to win cricket matches and one of the area’s premier sides/clubs.

Reading back through the original version of the text, it was clear that a few changes had to be made. A considerable number of years in education have polished my grammar (and given me an idea what humour works and what doesn’t), while roughly the same amount of years locking horns with the great and good of the NSSCL has seen the youthful waspishness give way to a degree of calm and acceptance – not that everyone would be inclined to agree with me on that.

Needless to say, it’s far from being impartial, partly a function of originally being for Modd eyes only. So, I have toned the odd thing down, made a few alterations to improve its readability (largely cosmetic changes that don’t change the essence of what was written), and wisely omitted a couple of things, including a poem entitled ‘The Betley Attack’ in which I manage to rhyme Jervis and “self-service” [sorry, Richie, lad].

Therefore, one or two sentences have had to be censored. Hopefully these changes will enhance the text; at the very least, they will save me from litigation that I cannot afford.

It is now here for posterity. And for my CV.