Posted by As the overseas professional (unpaid), my influence extends beyond the field of play. I am proud that I have brought a little something to my Australian club beyond my stellar on-field contributions.
I am not just the most important player at the club. I am a role model and mentor as well. I feel that the under-11s team could have benefited more from my expertise, but the youth team coach is infuriatingly closed-minded when it comes to my philosophy of liberated batting.
His loss, but unfortunately theirs too. Offers of private one-on-one tutelage have been firmly rebuffed by several of his brainwashed charges as well. More’s the pity.
But other than that, I have been a shot in the arm for this club. I have revolutionised their ways. As a measure of how far they’ve come, they used to have just the one bottle of gin behind the bar at any one time. Now they keep seven.
Feeling that my work here was all but done, I accepted the offer to sit out the last dozen or so matches of the season to allow some of my protegés a chance. I opt to assess their performance from the clubhouse, still resplendent in my cream flannels and looking immaculate, gin in hand.
In the last match of the season, one of our bowlers is ruled to have delivered a no-ball. As I rain blows down upon the umpire, I wonder whether the message is really going in. I take the only option available to a man in this situation. I throw back my head and let fly a huge, bestial roar.
Another valuable lesson imparted, I stride back from whence I came, pausing only to vomit onto the parched grass with the serene dignity afforded to only the very few. The players are dumbstruck. They admire my restraint. They admire me.
Reads uncannily like the birth of the barmy army.
I admire you Laurence.
Liberated batting. Liberated living.
That is worth roaring about.
I’m finding it hard to adjust to the idea that Laurence will no longer be gracing King Cricket with his tales of derring do.
In the absence of religious belief (I speak only for myself here), Laurence provides a much needed form of spiritual guidance. Much like the good genie, Jin, in Aladdin.
In my heart, and I’m sure that of many others around here, Laurence has become nothing less than an institution. I firmly believe that is precisely where he should remain, in perpetuity.
Laurence, I salute you.
God bless you, Laurence. You are a hero of the type not seen since classical times. Well done sir, well done.
Ged,
A fitting tribute to the resplendent Mr Elderbrook, I fear I shall be lost without his words of wisdom which have given me such insightful guidance.
Indeed, Henwelder, Laurence’s words of wisdom are a tonic for the troops.
Jin *and* tonic.
What a legend Laurence is.
Laurence Elderbrook = Ignatius J. Reilly?
I’m a rebel, I hope he gets on one of those Qantas planes with the dodgy RR engines and grabs the only parachute from a pregnant Mrs KP