MEMOIRS FROM THE MIDDLE ... AND HOW TO LOOK GOOD NAKED (aka Legends Of Cricket 101 : Kirsty Conroy & The Medium Pacer) (c) DHJ 13 They say that I make things up in my head and believe my own Lies , they call it Grandiosity , so I found this in the Newspaper Archives after I got an Acid Flashblack just before , to make sure that I wasnt wrong : ... Paul Slater hammered 140 and he was well supported by Paul Ashton (82) as an opening stand of 203 led to a Pudsey Congs total of 273 for eight against Adel. Joe McGowan picked up six for 43 in that total and team-mate Martin Knowles made 57 in Adels response of 213 for seven. ... From 2007 , my only ever 200 partnership ! I remember shaking hands with Slats at 200 , and I remember the first ball of the innings ... I faced it , textbook on-drive all along the ground for four and sweetly timed on-the-up ... Slats saunters down the wicket with the smooth swagger of someone who just lost their Cherry , gardening and chuckling , and all I did was smile at him , lick my lips , and wink ... After that shot , we both knew we were going to do something special , and I do believe that 203 was , at the time , the Club Record Partnership for all teams - and thats at the Club that VVS Laxman broke all League Records before India picked him ... Glory days these , and Id do well to keep performances like this in mind when I go out to bat nowadays - after all , theres only Mark Rigby who can rock up and play the Meyler Cup Final , answering the 11th hour call from semi-retirement , and bowl his way to Man-of-the-Match as if he was knocking up with Jacob Holland in the yard ! Indeed , what would I give just to find the Game this easy again , just one more time ... Well , Ive said it publicly anyway , but theres nothing pretty about an out-of-shape Sportsman , washed-up and over-the-hill , up to smoking 20-a-day and carrying a gut , playing with a knackered shoulder , his reaction times now worse than a corpse and who sprints like one too , who cant even touch his toes let alone get Gloves to a grubber down the leg-side or field the ball with a long-barrier , and consistently embarrassing himself every weekend trying to relive past glories ! Still though , I do it , although the only thing Consistent about my game now is my Inconsistency ... During a heart-to-heart in the Home Changing Rooms a few years ago , when I told him that , Im flogging a dead horse playing Cricket , its time to retire , the Palace Shields Premier All-Rounder , and the most talented Cricketer that Freckleton CC have produced since Stuart Parkinson , Josh Holden , pulled no punches and told me straight - he just simply said to me ... ASH , CLASS IS PERMANENT Well ... They said that about Mark Fiddler too , but wheres The Little Master these days when the First Team need a player because Kev Whitsey gets a 3 game ban for Streaking and dry-humping an Umpire for a £5 bet , or Luke Muncaster refuses to stand in because he wouldnt get a bowl , or Sachin Patel is demanding Petrol Money to come back from University , or Jake Muncaster says hes a Blackpool player even though the first thing he does when he gets home is check the Freckleton scores ?? Ill tell you where he is , hes sat in Ponkys with another of the Clubs Golden Generation to have hung up his Whites , Tom Watson , watching the World turn , eating nuts and thinking about Football ! And preserving his Dignity ... Richard Reynolds and Richard Emery have both played for Freckleton yet now , both have turned their backs on the Game , both choosing instead to believe that sniffing the bar maids apron instead of taking Wickets will deliver them to the Promised Land , and of course , where now are my two Ibiza 2001 Crew wingmen , John Melling and Andrew Thrower , two of Kirkham Grammars most celebrated Cricketing Heroes ? Can they say that Cricket is their Mistress , Lover and Whore , like Nick Ashton can say with his head held high ? I was speaking recently to a man Ive never heard anyone say a bad word about , my good friend , Zac Dalton . He says he was shit hot at Cricket , although some people still say that Lee Norris Jenkinson is the best theyve ever played with , but what does it matter now that both are out to pasture ? Heck ! There are too many like these , too many who lost the bottle to make the difference ! Not like my Dad , David Ashton , my first Hero in Life , and a Freckleton CC Hero too , because , although he wont admit it yet that he will *never* Open the Batting for England , he still wont give me his Club Cap in case the Seconds are short and he gets a game ... I play Cricket because if I didnt , then thered be nothing to inspire me and nothing to look forward to , because thered be no buzz , no tension , no excitement - I play because I care and I play because it really means something , and I play to do what we did last year and finish crowned League Champions ... So , the Moral of the Tale ? All Im trying to say is that we cant all be Class players like James Whitehead or Michael Rigby , and we cant all hit the lofted Straight Drive as sweetly as Richard Beesley , or have the Match-Winning potential of Jonathan Millward or Lancashires natural heir to Glen Chapples Throne , Kyle Hogg , and we cant all hope to be as good in the Field as the likes of Lee Williams or Jamie Hogarth or future 1st XI Skipper , Andrew Hogarth ... Not everyone can Swing any Cricket ball in any weather like Jason Thorpe , very few can say they can hit the ball as hard as Frankie Street , and when you really face up to it and are honest about this World ... Not everyone looks as good naked as Jonathan Goodin ... And , certainly , these plaudits are not mine too - but if the Lesson of this Story is to never forget the day you once took home first prize in the raffle , or if theres a Message behind all this telling us all that Sport is really all about separating the men from the boys , or maybe if the Meaning of Life is to impress birds and get wasted while you do it , then theres not many like myself who can boast that they took 24 off the first over of the Match at BAE Preston after sinking a full bottle of Havana Club Rum before the warm-up with Peter Ingham ... Now that really is what youd call : TOP CLASS
Posted on: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 19:24:41 +0000
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