'AWNIOGO': NORTON (A)

Saturday May 27

Any team that harbours serious promotion aspirations must fancy taking 40 points from Norton this year. Last season’s wooden spoon ‘winners’ have taken a monumental nosedive in form during recent times. It wasn’t all that long ago that they were one of Section B’s top teams and promotion candidates themselves, but that was the era of Nigel Davies, Martin Bradshaw, Mike Ikin, Gary Inglis, Ken Shuttleworth and, as professional, a certain character with a Lovejoy-style Barnet. Nowadays the hired help comes in the shape of Guyana’s Andy Jackman, but unfortunately for Norton he rarely turns up. Literally. 

Ken Shuttleworth, ex-Norton (the first England player I played against)

Once again I was only partially fit having strained the ligaments in my right ankle playing football on a greasy outfield after nets on Friday evening. This is the same ankle that I broke in 1992 whilst, by a strange coincidence, playing football on the outfield! Once bitten, twice shy? You’d think so… The look on Heardy’s face when he saw me limp back into the bar twenty minutes after running out with a football in my hands was priceless, although I have to admit to feeling just a bit of an idiot. So, on Saturday morning I hobbled down to the sports shop in town, handed over £7.99 for a state-of-the-art ankle support, stoked myself up on co-proxymol, and got into my awaiting chariot, the Heardmobile. 

The scenario that was awaiting us at Norton C.C. was quite encouraging: the opposition had no professional; the wicket was sporadically dotted with wet patches; and our team was extremely fired up having drawn two and lost the other of the last three matches. The team was the same as last week’s except for one enforced change. Wayne Stones had gone to the Isle of Skye to try and kill himself by climbing up 1,000 feet high sheer rock faces, so we welcomed Rugeley’s finest, Dave Astle, into the side for his 1st XI debut.

We won the toss and invited them to attempt to bat first. Things started well enough with Mauler bowling Mick Caddie neck and crop in the third over. Then Billy – obviously in a hurry to get some wickets so that he could shoot off to his all-day rave in Milton Keynes – removed West to leave Norton on 12 for 2. 

From that point on things went badly as it took us another hour and a half to take the third wicket as Boulton and MacBeth took the score to 81. They prospered largely due to some missed opportunities in the outfield. Billy dropped a difficult chance at long-off, Seth spilled an easy one at deep extra-cover, and Barry Brian missed an absolute dolly at slip. Boulton’s knock was the better of the two, but MacBeth, all knees and elbows, supported well by way of a catalogue of ungainly strokes until Addo finally removed him in his tenth over, thanks to a brilliant, low one-handed catch at slip by the newly smiling Mauler. MacBeth’s 34 had been carved out from 129 deliveries, and he can consider himself the best player in the county to share his name with a Shakespearean tragic hero (aside, perhaps, from Clive Othello of Meakins). 

After MacBeth’s dismissal, it was a display of pure comedy batsmanship. The wickets tumbled without us doing a great deal at all. The track was taking a lot of spin and whilst Harv bowled steadily in a supporting role it was Jonny Agile that did the damage. Having taken 0 for 20 from his first 9 overs, he finished with the amazing figures of 7 for 24 off 15.5 overs. Norton’s last 8 wickets had fallen in the space of 11 overs for a paltry 18 runs, leaving us a target of exactly 100 for victory.

Things started quite comfortably as we gathered 31 runs from the first 10 overs. I had offered one chance when, after a rush of blood, I skied Slater to mid-on, but the chance was missed and after that we were in cruise control. Norton were much too slow in bringing the spinners on and by the time they did we had made over half the runs. Only bad weather could now deny us victory but Addo and I were on the case. Black clouds were ominously gathering overhead and a downpour looked imminent as the wind became so strong that the sight-screens repeatedly blew over. At 73 for 0 from 20 overs we decided to leave nothing to chance and smashed off the remaining runs in 16 deliveries. The victory became immeasurably sweeter when we heard that we were the only side in the section to have claimed 20 points, our rivals all suffering at the hands of the weather. 

windy day at Norton

With Addo in a good mood I took the opportunity of telling him that I would not be available for the Talbot Cup Quarter-Final against Newcastle as I had a prior commitment to play for Nottingham University in the last 16 of the BUSA Championships. He wasn’t pleased and didn’t mince his words, describing it as “schoolboy cricket”. Apart from the fact that I will only have this year and next to play with the University, it was a massive insult to my team to describe them as “schoolboy” (they’d got their school qualifications, after all), particularly after we’d just played a league match against a side that would struggle in the Stone League. Anyway, we agreed to disagree…

MODDERSHALL WON BY 10 WICKETS 

NORTON 99 all out (48.5 overs) 
I Boulton 43, K MacBeth 34, J Addison 7-24
MODDERSHALL 100 for 0 (22.4) 
J Addison 56*, S Oliver 43*

MODDERSHALL 20 points
NORTON 1 point