Golden Oldies beat the weather

Posted by Tony Hutton

Arthington v Millbrook C.C. (Queenstown, New Zealand) - Friday 13th August 2010

Friday the thirteenth - the weather forecast last night and this morning was so bad, heavy rain throughout north east England all day, that I had decided to stay at home rather than set off on a fruitless tour of grounds on the last day of the Golden Oldies Festival.

However around 11 a.m. I received a series of text messages from David Thorpe to the effect that play was about to start at Arthington, despite persistent rain where I live only two miles or so from the ground. My first reply was to say 'you cannot be serious', but when the third message arrived saying 'blue sky, wickets pitched and Brian Senior in full flow', I had to set off.

Sure enough Arthington were batting, although the blue skies had already gone. It was cool and cloudy but to everyone's suprise cricket was going on with the visitor's smartly clad in red and yellow baggy caps.

Early chat suggested that this might be a bit of a mis-match. Millbrook had registered late and had not been seeded, whereas Arthington were in the lowest category of 'social cricketers'. Opener Joe Nash, son of the redoubtable Dennis, who has been getting all the publicity this week, soon went, but the other opener the equally redoubtable Rodney Jones got his head down. He managed to combine watchful defence with his own unique one handed hook shot for four.

A second wicket fell but Jones was joined by experienced all round cricketer Ron Davies and this pair, although taking their time, put on a valuable partership and took the score past the hundred mark. Eventually after some dispute with the scorer, Rodney Jones retired for 37, although he maintained he had made 41.

While discussing this with the three spectators, we managed to elicit that his next sporting fixture would be a chess olympiad in Sibera ! When asked which country he would be representing he added nonchalantly 'the country of my birth of course'. This turned out to be Papua New Guinea !

Ron Davies also had to retire and the scoring rate dropped. At one stage as the innings neared it's end only five runs were scored from five overs, but a few lusty blows eventually took the 40 over total to a respectable 137-4 against a side which not only bowled accurately but fielded very well too.

After an excellent buffet lunch for both teams at the nearby Wharfedale Hotel, battle resumed. The sky was almost bright now and still no
sign of the forecast rain, we could not believe our luck.

Dennis Nash, the oldest British competitor in the competition, bowled his usual accurate eight over spell and eventually took a wicket against this strong batting side. He could have had more but for dropped catches. However the New Zealanders were obviously in a different class, and even with two retirements at 35 runs each, they raced to victory in only 20 overs.

With news coming in of other games abandoned or reduced to 20 overs a side, we realised how lucky we had been. Full marks to all concerned at Arthington, particularly groundsman Brian Meredith, whose mower had broken down at an unfortunate time. They really went out of the way to welcome the overseas visitors all week and the whole Festival has been a great success despite the weather.

The organizers publicity machine have issued newsletters during the week to keep everyone up to date with what has been happening and one of them contained what must be the quote of the week from Sir Thomas Ingleby at the opening ceremony at Theakstons Brewery last Sunday.

He is reported to have said 'This occasion gives me the opportunity to deny for ever that I couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery'.