Third Man received an interesting reply to his question: Was Anyone Still Playing Cricket Last Weekend? And it wasn’t from the Isle of Wight where the cricketers of today have apparently become too sensitive to withstand the rigours of October cricket (or too obsessed with football).
A Mr Alistair Lloyd, a vet from the village of Ambridge, emailed to say that their village played Edgeley at the weekend.
Third Man travelled down to Borcetshire yesterday to see whether he could find out the result. No luck, though. The village pub, The Bull, was very quiet and not a local to be seen. And there doesn’t appear to be any reference to it at Cricket Archive either, which is strange.
If a tattered fixture list on the village notice board is to be believed, Ambridge C.C. has a fixture next weekend too.
Tony Archer pushes forward looking rather like a celebrated former Norfolk wicket keeper.
The village has a good website , but you’ll need Flash and a facility with imaginary numbers to get the best from it.
According to the site, the cricket club’s revival in the 1960’s was down to the vision and drive of just one man, Sid Perks, the landlord of The Bull.
Sid has recently died and attention is centring on his bereaved son, James, for whom cricket may be a way both of grieving for his lost father and coping simultaneously with the loss of a perennially selfish step father call Kenton – not to mention all that goes with being a boy in GCSE year.
It is a pity that the scriptwriters are running out of time. Nevertheless, Third Man hopes that The Cricketer Wisden will list next weekend’s Ambridge outing as the last ‘proper’ match in the season.
The photograph at the top of the page shows Ambridge at home earlier this year in their grudge match with Darrington.
Update: Inga McVicar has kindly posted on her excellent and helpful site Pondering the Archers saying that she thinks Ambridge won last weekend and has promised to wander across to the village cricket ground next weekend to see how Jamie, Al, Tony, et al get on. They may have to have the thermals on, Ingar, even if they are from stout farming stock. Thanks.
SUPER UPDATE: Adam (injured shoulder) received a text message from Alistair on 10.10.10 to say that Ambridge had sneaked a 2 run win to finish a disappointing mid-way up/down the league table. There being no other offers, it would seem that Ambridge CC played the last official match of the 2010 season. Imagine that!
