A compilation, for posterity, of thirteen Instagram posts that tell the story of summer 2024.
Match 1. Stones CC Sunday XI 114 ao. Stainland CC Sunday XI 43 ao.
On a balmy late summer Sunday afternoon last year the two of us went for a walk that took us past the cricket club at the top of the hill. I knew that there was a game on because of attempts, as yet unsuccessful, to get Youngest over his threshold for getting involved in cricket, which, because of his autism, is high one.
As we sat in the barmy late summer sun that afternoon I expressed regret that I had never played club cricket.
‘Why don’t you then?’
My Dad played, but gave it up when I came along. I recall playing a couple of games for Nottingham High School’s ‘Cluniacs’ which, looking back now, may have been my Geography teacher’s laudable attempt to get the kids without huge bags of expensive kit involved in the game. That was in 1994. It has been beach cricket and a solitary corporate game since.
Yes. Why don’t I.
I love football for its febrile and tribal nature. I played and I watch and I feel part of it. I love cricket for its sanguine and genteel nature. I watch, but I have never played and do not feel as though I am really part of it.
I emailed the club. I got a reply. I have been to nets when Tuesday night London commitments allow, and I was not encouraged to stop doing so.
This afternoon I played my first game of club cricket, which may possibly go down in club folklore. Striding out at number 9, in all the gear but only the vague notion of an idea, my first involvement, literally, was to almost get run out and my second, involvement, literally, was to get bowled. Bowled. First bowl. In my first game of club cricket.
The lads, as I think I can now call them, ran through the opposition in no time at all so I did not get the chance to trundle in and make amends, but I sought to be as busy and encouraging in the field as I could.
That matters not one jot though. On a late April afternoon, that was initially finger-numbingly cold, but later heart-warmingly pleasant, I was part of a team that won a game of cricket and I am now part of a club that, hitherto, was just at the top of the hill.
Match 2. Luddendenfoot 2nd XI 138ao. Stones 2nd XI 142-6.
Stafford, S.R. 2-0-4-1. DNB.
As of 2:56pm yesterday afternoon I was not playing this weekend because the Sundays do not have a game until the 19th and the Seconds to that point must have been quorate.
As it transpired withdrawals from the Firsts resulted in the need to mix things up and I was delighted to accept a ‘sorry for the short notice’ message.
Under leaden skies and with it still soggy under foot, the Skipper put them in. I was invited to marshal square leg.
Fielding is like keeping goal. The raconteur in you wants the chance to shine. The recluse in you wants the ball as far as way as possible for fear of failure.
There was a spell when the ball followed me around, which I enjoyed, being more naturally inclined towards the former. I made a couple of good stops that the cricketing gods rewarded me with by generously directing a dolly in my direction, which I somehow contrived to spill. My contribution then when Ludd’foot were 8 down was probably neutral at best. Dropped one. Saved a few. The Skipper then invited me to keep warm.
My first delivery in club cricket was almost as inauspicious as the first one I faced last week. A rank half-tracker that a bemused batsman quizzically watched dribble past, bouncing multiple times before finally reaching an immediately-wary wicketkeeper. The other 11 that I coaxed down did though largely land in the general area that they were supposed to and one of the batters very generously guided one of them straight to gully.
I did not get to bat because, after a flurry of middle order wickets that made me fear / excited that I might, two young brothers put on a lovely 70-odd that took us just shy of the line.
Despite the dropped dolly I was awarded the ‘fielding mark’ in the bar afterwards. If that was genuinely merited then I am delighted. If that was the young lads just acknowledging the efforts of an early-to-late-middle-aged man then I am humbled.
A cricket dressing room is a great place to mix things up.
Match 3. Leymoor CC 2nd XI 44-9. Stones CC 2nd XI 46-1.
Matches to come may be decided by margins as thin as a diving parry that saves three runs. Stainland’s 2nds, for example, won by a single run today. My sole contribution this afternoon was such a diving parry, but it was very much not decisive.
I call that my only contribution, but I was at least there. Leymoor turned up with ten players, which did not of itself, in fairness to them, determine the outcome, but was still a gap in the field for them that I at least fill for us.
That I will contribute more at some point I remain confident. I enjoyed another net this morning and will be of a much more calm and collected disposition when the time comes again, but today was not that day.
The core of this Stones side are solid cricketers in the here and now. Leymoor were an ensemble of very pleasant o’d boys with their best days behind them and very pleasant young men with their best days ahead.
Most importantly though, this was the afternoon that I had been looking forward to since that barmy late summer afternoon when I resolved to try to get involved. My first two outings were most enjoyable, but at times all I could think about was not being able to feel my fingers. This was a barmy early summer afternoon of the kind suited to basking in the breeze between balls whilst thinking about anything and everything. About cricket. About the meaning of life. About cricket as a metaphor for the meaning of life.
I may not have earned those bonus, early-finish pints as much as some of the other lads, but I enjoyed them just as much.
Match 4. Low Moor Holy Trinity CC 2nd XI: 102-2 (30.2). Stones CC 2nd XI: 98–7 (45).
Stafford, S.R. 2-0-6-0. DNB.
‘It’s all in the mind’ I overheard somebody say sympathetically the other week. Platitudes, like stereotypes, always contain a degree of truth.
What if it’s beyond you though? What if, regardless of how hard you try, your body just cannot do what your brain wants it to do?
What if it’s behind you though? What if you, regardless of how hard you try, you just cannot do what you used to?
These questions came to mind between balls as Low Moor’s middle-aged early middle order pair, both clearly still very capable, put on the 70 required to steer them home after hope was glimpsed at 28-2. To be fair, our early middle order pair, of a more senior vintage, batted well, but not at a pace to post a competitive total themselves and they didn’t leave enough time for the more adventurous and more nimble youngsters in the middle and late middle order to do so.
Today for me has been tied physically and psychologically to yesterday’s RTPI NW 5-Aside Tournament. Physically, five of us playing five games without subs was taxing to say the least and my aches today were not debilitating of themselves directly but were indirectly by dint of just being there. Psychologically, I think that we all enjoyed the challenge yesterday, we dug in, and in our own ways showed glimpses of the players that we once were.
Perhaps it was losing, but today was the first time this season that I felt the loss of not having played cricket before rather than the joy of just actually playing in the here and now. I knew how good I was at football. I will never know how good I could have been at cricket.
The Skipper tossed me the ball midway through their big partnership and asked me to find him a wicket. A wicket? An economy rate of three can be deceiving. Three of my twelve deliveries just about found the track. I think I got a second over simply because of his charitable disposition.
Fundamentally, I am just happy to be involved, but I do also want to get better, cognisant of the gaps between what I do and do not know and what I think I can and cannot do. It’s all in the mind…
Match 5. Stones CC Sunday XI: 161-6 (40.0). Golcar CC Sunday XI: 162-5 (29.0).
Stafford, S.R. 3-0-12-0. 1*.
As I was surveying the Home of Cricket from the balcony ahead of today’s proceedings one of the Golcar lads who was doing the same headed back to their dressing room. “It’s a great day to be alive”, he told his teammates.
There are few finer spots when the sun is shining and for those prone to sentimentality, even someone as novice in such matters as your correspondent, today’s proceedings were the epitome of Sunday cricket. On the basis that Golcar’s XI all looked about 18 I would surmise that their average age was probably about 18. They clearly have a strong youth set up. Stones’ average will have been somewhat higher because whilst one of our number plays in the same age group at Ryburn Utd as Eldest, two, possibly three, fellas were older than me. We clearly like to let people that want to play cricket play cricket.
There they were, a gang of lads, learning the ropes and progressing through the ranks together. Here we were, an ensemble of enthusiasts with little in common save for a shared enjoyment of the game. It was not close, in fairness, but they were at least made to work for it.
Personally, I was invited to bat at 8 and padded up at 49-4, but did not enter the arena until we were 132-6 when there were but a handful of overs left. During my ten unbeaten balls I scored my first ever run in club cricket and was neat and tidy enough for the Skipper to suggest that I should not be batting at 8. A monkey has been on my back for a few weeks so it was satisfying to show that I might actually be able to at least hold an end up.
My three overs were less of a mix bag than my two previous outings, but loose balls still cannot be entirely ruled out. As threatening as a Coldplay album I may well be, but again the possibility of holding up an end remains a feasible target.
At the end of Match 5 I have a wicket, a run, and numerous new teammates to my name. Double figures, a boundary, a maiden and a catch are the next milestones.
“Did you enjoy that?”, asked one of the Second XI lads afterwards.
“I did and I always will”, I replied.
Match 6. Stones CC Sunday Section 112/4 (27.0). Crossflats CC 3rd XI 111 (33.3).
S.R. Stafford. Vibes.
My Ma and Pa came up from Newark to make a surprise appearance this afternoon, which was lovely, and they could not have picked a finer afternoon upon which to do so. They did at least get to see the Home of Cricket in all its glory even if they didn’t get to see me do anything more than fling myself around in the field every now and then.
The Stones Social Media Manager described today’s team as ‘a good mix of youth and experience’, which was entirely right. The Skipper, a very nice chap who was very patient with us a couple of years ago when I first tried to get Youngest involved with the club, kindly asked before play ‘what does the afternoon look like for you?’ What is someone with neither youth nor experience supposed to say in response? Of course I want to bat, but ahead of fellas who have been there and done it? Of course I want to bowl, but ahead of thrusting young turks desperate to cut their teeth?
Crossflats were also a good mix of youth and experience and their wise old heads (one of whom has helped me with a couple of club-sponsored 1-2-1 net sessions) clearly relished the chance to nurture young talent. That, as my O’d Man observed, is what the game is all about.
At 66-4 for the game was very much in the balance, but in the end our wise old heads and thrusting young turks (one of whom plays football with Eldest and took four wickets on his senior debut) contributed a little more than theirs. I was padded up in case of a couple of late wickets, but for now my contribution remains that of Bez in the Happy Mondays: the generation and maintenance of a positive atmosphere. I did get to patrol the covers today, which I consider a step up from square leg, and I very much enjoyed it.
The chance to shine will present itself in due course and I am practicing as much as possible between outings, but each one is a chance to learn more about the rhythms and intricacies of the game. As to this afternoon, reflecting over a couple of Cruzcampos in the late afternoon sun, there was consensus that cricket was very much the winner.
Match 7. Lightcliffe CC 4th XI 171/8 (40.0). Stones CC Sunday Section 109ao (31.0).
S.R. Stafford. 6-0-33-2. 1.
During the week that I was born, February 1978, England were in Christchurch for a game that is remembered because Ian Botham, so legend has it, ran Geoffrey Boycott out for not scoring quickly enough.
As I departed the balcony at 53-4 this afternoon the instructions from the Skipper were both clear and, since I can defend good balls more comfortably than I can attack bad ones, consoling. I was to bat the overs.
After a couple of overs watching me either leave or block the young turk at the other end (the one that plays football with Eldest and who made a senior debut last week) wandered down and politely pointed out that whilst it was legitimate to play myself in we did also need to score some runs. He had already during those couple of overs nearly run himself out so I do not think that he deliberately called me through for a run that was not there, but it is not inconceivable…
The fielder credited with my run out is Youngest’s teacher, Mr Brierley (who is also kindly trying to get him interested in playing cricket because he, like me, sees his latent potential). James (as I can now call him) will inevitably want to tell Youngest first thing tomorrow how he launched me over the boundary wall for six.
In the weeks since I last turned my arm over I have sought to reinvent myself as a bowler of mildly-threatening off-spin instead of a bowler of non-threatening dibbly-dobblers. Five wides in six overs and an economy rate of 5.5 is proof enough that I am still not yet landing six in a row on a handkerchief, but I am a little more confident now of how I might.
Of note also is that I nearly grabbed my first catch. Patrolling mid-off like a middle-aged Jonty Rhodes I launched myself towards the top-right corner of an imaginary goal and, whilst saving three, very nearly held on for what, without fear of hyperbole, would have been the game’s champagne moment.
After every game of Youngest’s football tournament I took caretaker charge of last week I asked my temporary charges what they had learnt. Every day is a school day. I should have sent him back.
Match 8. Stones CC Sunday Section 151ao (38.1). Stainland CC Sunday 1st XI 154-3 (40).
Stafford, S.R. 9-0-32-2. 16.
At 12pm this afternoon the covers were peeled back and the senior players breathed in through their teeth in the same way that tradesmen do when inspecting a faulty boiler.
It was raining first thing, but it was not raining at that point and so the game was on, and what a tremendous game of cricket it turned out to be.
Stainland, top of the league, won the toss and put themselves in. On a sticky wicket their batters were circumspect and we worked hard to not let them get away. Our last two overs did though go for 29, with some bodies and minds tiring, and this proved decisive.
The game was in the balance every time a Stones wicket fell, and every time a Stones wicket fell it started to rain a little harder. Somebody just needed to get in and stay in. It looked like a Dad from Youngest’s school, turning out for the first time this year, would get us home. Even when he went for 44 with 12 runs to get and two wickets in hand there was still some hope.
For me personally, it was too gloomy to see, but above that murky sky the stars may have been trying to align. I was invited for the first time to bowl a full nine overs unchanged, perhaps because of a dearth of alternatives, but perhaps also recognition of the practice that I have put in of late. I also found myself in the mix right at the death when trying to play Sundance to the Dad from school’s Butch Cassidy. I gave it a go when he went (I hit my first ever boundaries today), but was the final wicket, nibbling at the first ball of the penultimate over when just four more runs were required.
To be on a cricket field in the English summer sun is to be, as I had always imagined, close to heaven. To watch the world go by between overs and so on and so forth. Today though was wet and miserable, and yet there was still nowhere else I would rather have been and I really wanted to win. We so nearly did.
As I observed over a pint afterwards, I do feel like I can more legitimately describe myself as a cricketer today, which is more than worth the aches and pains that I will wake up with tomorrow.
Match 9. Stones CC 2nd XI 265/3 (45). Luddendenfoot CC 2nd XI 199/7 (45).
S.R. Stafford. 2-0-15-0. DNB.
I was doubtful as the players took lunch on the second day of the second test yesterday that I would get the chance to make a pilgrimage to my favourite place, and possibly England’s greatest place*, tomorrow.
As I watched two of our top three put on 137 for the second of only three wickets conceded today it occurred to me that I head to Trent Bridge with, for the first time, a more complete appreciation of the psychological plains within which cricket exists.
On the outside of the game is the superficial and platitudinous ‘how do you explain it to an American’ / ‘how can you play for five days and have a draw’ level of understanding. ‘Yes, but it’s so much more…’
On the periphery of the game, where I have been as an observer not a participant hitherto**, is a comfort in embracing it in the abstract as an allegory for the vicissitudes of life itself. You tried, you lost. You got lucky, you won. The weather, the pitch, the ifs, the buts.
On the inside of the game, I see, is the dynamic of a team environment in which you are all reliant on each other for success, but at the same time, in limited overs games especially, your ability to succeed is a direct function of the failure of others.
One young lad batted very well today for his first hundred. His mates will no doubt be buying him a pint right now, but might not have been disappointed earlier if his failure meant that they got a go.
It is more than conceivable that I was afforded a couple of overs today as a reward for flinging myself around and saving a few runs, but every other bowler, whilst supportive afterwards, would have been cursing the twelve balls that should have been given to them.
A biography of Abraham Lincoln called ‘Team of Rivals’ has been on my Wish List for a while. It purports to explore how he was ‘secure enough to pack his Cabinet with the rivals he had defeated.’
How to win and keep everybody happy? I bet Abraham Lincoln would have made a good skipper…
*http://samuelstafford.blogspot.com/2020/06/englands-greatest-place.html?m=1
**Yes I know I have only played nine games.
Match 10. Leymoor CC 2nd XI 211/8 (45). Stones CC 2nd XI 212/8 (43.3).
S.R. Stafford. 1-0-32-0. 1*.
Life, as the Irish philosopher R. Keating observed, is a rollercoaster and you just have to ride it’.
Under leaden skies the Skipper won a toss he would probably have preferred to have lost and put them in. To keep them to a hundred was the chat, which seemed reasonable enough at the outset and still achievable at the half-way point, but then chance after chance went down, and when chances go down heads can either go down or get lost completely.
Your correspondent had an up and down time in the field. Of the two targets I again set myself I achieved one. I took a catch, my first, and a decent one it was at that (and was tidy otherwise), but, when afforded an opportunity in the 43rd over, I did not, and still have not, bowled a maiden. Let the records show that I was 32 (THIRTY TWO) runs away from bowling a first maiden today.
The mood at tea was sombre. If short of rancorous then it was at least uncomfortable.
The lows.
Wickets were lost early in the chase, but, as the lad who scored a century the other week waltzed his way to a bright and breezy eighty, the sun came out and all seemed well.
He then went to the first ball after a drinks break and the question then became, as wickets continued to fall, who could help get another young lad, who compiled a very tidy half-century, over the line.
Fate decided, as I strolled out into the late afternoon sun at no. 10, that I was to be that person.
The highs.
The mood as we sat outside the pub adjoining the ground afterwards was jubilant. Heads were back on. The things that needed to be said were said.
Then off we all went, with another twelve points in the bag, waiting to see what the cricketing gods have in store for us next time.
Match 11. Clayton CC 2nd XI 113/4 (27.1). Stones CC 2nd XI 111 ao (36.0).
Stafford, S.R. 1.
‘A bad day at the office’ said that Skipper as we trudged back into the changing room, which was a coincidence because I had already given thought to using a workplace-based reference in the whimsical opening to today’s match report.
As the sun simultaneously came out over Clayton and set on Stones’ hopes of winning, I was reminded of how corporate golfers would console their playing partners after a bad shot back in the days when that was the de rigour form of entertaining clients. ‘The worst day on the golf course is still better than the best day in the office.’
By common consensus the pitch, after an hour’s rain delay, was ‘spicy’, but at 101-5 with about ten overs left we were on the brink of posting a competitive total.
I strode out at no. 7 hopeful of just holding up an end whilst the Skipper kept us ticking over. When he went the Sunday Skipper intimated that we would both need to move things along.
Some people can hit a ball, or kick a ball, or throw a ball, as easily as putting one foot in front of another. Our Kid is one of them. When we started playing golf as teenagers, to continue with that theme, I would buy the magazines and follow the practice drills and try and try to beat him before ultimately having to reconcile myself with the fact that he can just put the ball on a tee and hit it miles without giving it a second thought.
By the time I have sought to judge line, length and pace, and then tried to get my feet, hands and head into a position that allows the bat to come through straight I just about have enough time left to hit it.
The need to be “proactive” had a profoundly discombobulating effect on me and the comical nature of my ultimate downfall was noted over the post-mortem pints. I am not sure that I even played a shot let alone the right one.
As it transpired I could have hung around for longer to watch the dashers have a dash. I was one of five wickets to be lost for eleven runs. Lesson learnt.
All of that being said, and with another catch to my name, the worst day on a cricket field is still better than the best day in the garden.
Match 12. Crossflats CC 3rd XI 251/5 (40.0). Stones CC Sunday Section 212/7 (40.0).
Stafford, S.R. 4-0-23-2. 12*.
With all due respect to the good people of Keighley it is not somewhere that many people chose to spend a nice Sunday afternoon let alone a miserable one.
Having watched their talented young openers put on 176 for the first wicket whilst defending a large outfield with only ten players (seven of which could reasonably be described as not immobile), and all the while in that fine kind of rain that gets you wet, it was apparent at the interval that some of our number might rather have been somewhere else.
I refereed Eldest’s match this morning and had to head straight over so would I have been disappointed to get word of an abandonment and a chance to rest my middle-aged bones in front of Super Sunday? Possibly not, but it wasn’t, so let’s get stuck in and worry about getting the grass stains out later.
At 21-3 in reply hopes of fightback were somewhere between slim and none, but a couple of fellas gave it a really good go and I helped one of them get us a couple of batting points. When he went I was afforded the role that I was born to play: to dig in for a few overs and prevent them getting maximum points.
One of our number lives just down the road and I gave him a lift today. We talked on the way home about the game and about what we do and I shared with him what a wise man once told me, which was that some people radiate positive energy and that some people drain it and that any team or working environment needs more radiators than drains.
It was cold and it was wet and it was hard work, and the records will show that it was a defeat, but as we all departed it did not feel like a defeat and I sensed that, actually, upon reflection tonight, everybody will have enjoyed making the trip and contributing towards achieving something this afternoon.
Perhaps not as much as a hot shower and a cold beer when they got home though.
Match 13. Stones CC Sunday Section 104/3 dec (25.0). Lightcliffe CC 4th XI DNB. Match abandoned during 2nd innings.
I romanticised during the week just gone about this final afternoon of my first cricket season. Might I bowl a first maiden at the death to clinch victory? Might I hit the wining runs? Might I sit in the late summer sun with a well-earned pint basking in the acclaim of my new teammates?
The end of the season when it actually came, in horizontal rain and a breeze firm enough to start taking leaves from trees, was unapologetically unromantic and something of a blessing for everybody apart from our Skipper, who had compiled a tidy 40-odd before being invited to accompany the sodden visitors from the field.
As we sat waiting for the inevitable, one of our number shared tales of his time as a prison warden at Wandsworth, which was illuminating to say the very least.
In 1828 Mary Russell Mitford wrote in ‘Our Village: Sketches of Rural Character and Scenery’ (again heavily romanticised) about cricket team members “having their role in the village social fabric, not as a divisive hierarchy, but as a compassionate, democratic unit in which fun is allowed to flourish without snobbery or judgement”*.
As the sun sets on the season then I have, alas, no tales of heroism on my part to share, but knowing more people in, and feeling more connected to, the village than I did just a few months ago is satisfaction enough.
It was ‘Fines Night’ up at the club last night and I went to show my face for an hour early on before the Sambuca came out. One of the lads asked if I would be playing again next year and I instantly replied that I would.
It might take a while to get anywhere near being a half-decent one, but I am, at least and at last, a club cricketer.
*From Brendan Coopers ‘Echoing Greens’.
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