Posted by Wickman from Royal Cricket writes:
My sister in law and I are Surrey members so we decided to go to a 40 over game. I’ve only become a member this year, but I haven’t been organised enough to get to the Oval. So I was pretty excited about getting into the pavilion – even if that one trip was effectively costing me more than £100.
There are pictures of former Surrey cricketers on the stairs. I noticed that they hadn’t got around to putting the end date on Ally Brown’s picture from when he left Surrey. Perhaps Chris Adams is hoping he’ll come back. If I had known about how good the ground staff and drainage were I would have had more time to look at the pictures by arriving earlier. My sister in law said that as the pictures were inside, it wouldn’t have mattered had it been raining or not. For some reason it’s not as annoying when your S-I-L is right as when your wife is, despite them being blood relations.
I didn’t know that they had Pedigree on and hate the creamflow stuff so had a pint of Foster’s. My sister in law did too. She then went on to rosé. I discovered that they did have Pedigree – I just hadn’t seen the pump – so I then went onto that. She also tried the white wine which she said was a Chardonnay (she prefers something drier and Italian). Finally she tried the red. She didn’t say anything about it. I am guessing she was either quietly pissed or quietly impressed.
We both remarked that we had really good seats on the top deck right behind the bowler’s arm. We couldn’t understand why they were free. We noticed from behind the bowler’s arm that one of the Welsh players had a really fat arse. We remarked that it was unlikely that you would be picked for England these days with a fat arse so we rather wrote off this guy’s chances. Actually, he was really fat all over, including his neck which seemed to bulge a bit.
I found a lift in the pavilion. This was good because it’s a long way back upstairs if you fancy a cigarette. I was glad I only smoke very occasionally. The alternative would have been to sit further down perhaps. But my sister in law didn’t want to. When I got back to my seat I felt hungry but the food in the cafeteria didn’t look that good. So I went back down to get a burger but they had closed.
This meant I left the ground very hungry. Annoyingly, I also missed my train home from Vauxhall so I took one to Clapham Junction. There they had a West Cornwall Pasty Co shop. I tried a steak and ale pasty and a traditional Cornish pasty. I ate them the wrong way around. Because I had the steak and ale one – which was quite spicy, moist and rich – the other one tasted very bland, which sort of made me think I should have got two steak and ale ones. But I was trying to pretend that one was for “a friend”.
When I got home there was a documentary on Ian Botham.
Little bit too much description of the cricket itself – well Cosgrove’s behind I suppose – same thing.
But otherwise a top report.
I liked the style of this report. Short sentences are very vogue. Reminds me of Raymond Carver. Or maybe a seven year old. Who loves cricket. And beer. But then I suppose they’d be troubled. For a seven year old, that is.
Cosgrove’s neck is particularly bulgy, isn’t it? Thanks for pointing this out.
Yes. I felt the Cosgrove behind detail was excessive. Much like the arse itself.
Good reporting apart from this one slip.
Good match report, but wow, what a club website! I would strongly recommend that people follow the link to Hampton Wick Royal CC and read some of the match reports there. Absolutely superb. You should be very proud of that website, Wickman. And the club – it sounds brilliant.
(Warning, the match reports on the link do contain actual cricket, tons of it. D Charltons of a nervous disposition would be well advised to steer clear.)
To get a flavour, read the report on HWRCC 2XI vs Whitely Village 2XI from a couple of years ago. It contains the line:
“Eventually the big boat sinks, lots of people die. A shite film is made and an ugly bird gets her Dominic Corks out.”
Pure Cardus.
Tim, the recent revelation that Carver’s stories were heavily edited to pare down the originals’ linguistic flourishes makes me wonder whether whether we can truly describe anything as Carveresque.
Stuart, we do tend to edit match reports quite brutally, so maybe this truly is Carveresque.
Being a Cornishman I find it disturbing that people eat anything other than what the West Cornwall Pasty Co describes as being ‘traditional’.
They’re not bland Wickman, the steak and ale is unnecessarily flavoursome.
Hmmm, could do with a pasty now.
This may not be the correct place but it seems that youngsters only read the last post.
Doesn’t one of your totties work for the Gov, KC? Ask her to kick the Pakistan Ambassador out for supporting Butt, I’m sure it’s illegal in Pakistan, most things are.
One of our what works for the what?