Take That and Party

One of the most entertaining and laugh-a-minute days in recent memory at the Field of Dreams with scandal that would have made even a News of The World reporter blush.

Pre-match mirth for the visit of Long Whatton, saw See Soar roar into the car park in his work van with the plate, Y 841 FOO, needing only the addition on an 'L' to make a perfect personalised number. His team mates looked on in envy as he demolished a monster portion of fish and chips as a pre match warm up.

The start of the football season normally creates selection headaches, but we hadn't expected the Scottish Premier version to coincide with at least a dozen regulars being unavailable. Pre-match chatter revolved around the summer's hottest party invite. Rumour had it that Justine's 40th had accounted for most of KCC's senior pros. Bradman was an obvious absentee, but Strong, XX Dale and Baker were all tarred with the same A-list brush. "Does no one want to play cricket on a Saturday?", asked Tinno, though it transpired that most of the absentees had plausible excuses elsewhere, apart from Benji who was seeing his girlfriend.

Cowlard had spent a good half an hour practicing his Greco-roman wrestling with the scoring gazebo, hoping to jump straight to the top of the Super Scorer's favourite's list. Unfortunately Shelley was an A-lister and turned up to announce she was off to enjoy the party! Tuckers was delighted, eyeing up the vacant tent for a couple of hours kip, for once feeling rough on a Saturday due to a non drink related illness. Tuck needed to dig deep though, as Tinno won the toss and chose to bowl first on a dampish pitch.

We were on top early with Angry Hiller bowling a hostile spell up the hill, spurred on by sister Day sledging him for breaking the 50 mph barrier for the first time this season. The Angry-ometer was dipping into the red zone as he repeatedly beat the edge, and then saw snicks race through vacant 2nd slip. Things snapped as a long hop quite rightly disappeared onto Nottingham Road, leading to a tantrum that contained enough F’s and C’s to show that Andy would easily fit in with his new Cockney chums. He finally got a deserved wicket with Tom taking a fantastic diving catch in front of first slip.

Cowlard meanwhile was more relaxed, sedated by Lemsip for man flu, and took a perfect wicket down the hill, a beautiful away-swinger catching the edge for Beakey to take our first slip catch since Laddy left.

Rocket’s head was a shed after the rush of tea preparation, and took to the field with his trousers on back to front, looking like MC Hammer. A quick break in play allowed for a whirlwind break-dancing change only for the buffoon to get back up with his whites still facing the wrong way! Still it was a case of ‘u can’t touch this’ as a full toss from our long haired hero clattered into middle stump to take wicket number 3.

A decent stand then put us on the back foot for a little while as off the field action heated up.

A game of keepy-uppy among the local youths descended into chaos, with the ball repeatedly being kicked onto the field. After several good-natured warnings, Rocket had seen enough, and half volleyed the footie straight into the Vicarage, racing to the top of the Champagne Moment nominations for the season. The local numpties were apoplectic. The VI-in-chief tried to scale the Vicarage fence only to find anti-vandal paint on his hands, comically using his copy of the Sun to try to wipe them clean. Back-page Bobby for once had to clean up the headlines rather than write them himself, as the tabloid filth blew across the Field of Dreams.

Poor Jacko Palmer had got caught up with the local yobs, and was in danger of being found guilty by association. Bobby was quick to alert KCC legend Sticky, who raced up the road to make sure that PC Malik had no need to interrupt his sandwich break.

The last thing we then needed was for the Red Bull dolly birds to arrive, dishing out free samples of caffiene-fix, to send the numpties even higher. Off sulked the VI's threatening to return to dig up the pitch, and with a golf driver to apparently "hit the long haired **** in the head". The joys of the Field of Dreams in summer.

After a string of promising performances, young Sam Wood had attracted a travelling fan club, easily trebling the day’s attendance. Some smart fielding was accompanied by admiring ‘whoop whoops’ and ‘Go Sam’s’, much to our young hero’s embarrassment, and the older players’ envy!

Long Whatton’s 4th wicket partnership was reaching a worrying level until the Hiller Sisters made a double breakthrough. Sam took a great catch at deep square to make the cheerleaders swoon still further. Tinno got in on the act pouching a fine swirling catch to take his ratio to 1 in 10 for the season.

Some other stuff happened and the innings closed at 173-9 with wickets shared around; Angry Hiller 3-56, Rocket 2-40, Day Hiller 2-49, AC 1-29.

Tea by the Rendu’s catered for all tastes. Spicy mango chutney and chicken wraps pleased the foodies, while extra jammy doughnuts kept the youth policy quiet. Tea tasted like Twinings rather than Tetleys out of the new KCC mugs.

In reply we got off to a great start. Beakey had been dropped from the Stiffs, and had a point to prove to the selectors, smashing 12 boundaries in a fine run a ball 60. The Postman was delivering at the other end as we raced to 70 without loss until Tinno holed out for 29. Tom was (less than) fresh after a week in Magaluf and was still in beach cricket mode smashing a long hop straight to mid wicket.

Drurs (23) and Beakey settled nerves, before both fell in quick succession to soft dismissals. Day Hiller hadn’t ever batted as high as no.7 even in back garden games against brother Andy and Tinno, but raced to 10 in just two shots, a flat-batted 6 to mid wicket being the shot of the day (to that point). He soon departed along with AC (4) to leave the visitors smelling an unlikely victory.

We needn’t have worried as Rocket (12*) dug in, and Sam went from hero to super-hero smashing an unbeaten 25, finishing with a fantastic straight 6 to seal a 19 point victory.

With Thrumpton slipping up, we’re back to 2nd in the table, with a table topping clash with Risley to follow in a fortnight.