2014 Season Review

PRESIDENTAL REFLECTIONS

I enjoyed my year as President enormously. It’s a job I wholeheartedly recommend if you have the time to do it justice. There’s a lot of good quality cricket to watch and so many friends to catch up with. More importantly, I believe that everyone else enjoyed the season too. 

The club is in very good shape I feel. We have a super fixture list, a group of very capable match managers, an experienced committee to oversee the club and, vitally, more good quality cricketers wanting to play for the SOA each year. Let’s not forget the umpires and scorers either, who are an integral part of our brand of cricket and its attractiveness to the players.

On that front, I have been delighted with the way we are attracting more and more, good quality cricketers to the SOA. Not just bums on seats as one member put it, but individuals who will I hope be as passionate about the club as I am.  20 new playing members joined the club in 2014 – and they’re a very good mix of people.  To name just a few, there are fine club cricketers such as Gus Shrimpton, Pierre du Plessis and Simon Lee; County juniors such as Charlie Miller, Alex Ling, Harrison Ward, Jake Taylor and Harvey Eltham; and high-calibre Home Counties players, such as Robbie Eason, Andy Harris, Sam Jones and Matt Warner.  All play the game in the right way and I’ve been delighted to welcome them - and all our other new members. For the coming season, our MMs can also call upon players who make up a very healthy prospects list of about 40.

In August, the Western Tour was a big success, despite being outplayed a number of times. 50 players and 25 supporters came down in 2014 which was a fantastic effort on everyone’s part.  The opposition, particularly in the first week, were very strong last year and, despite playing pretty well, we were consistently second best. Overall, we won 3 and lost 5 of the matches we played. We did though beat Sidmouth for the second season in succession. We attracted a very good side to play again this year and bowled, fielded and batted extremely well. Skipper Nick Pykett’s inspired one over spell removed Sidmouth’s danger man and left us chasing 251 on a flat track. Our batters knocked them off in 28 overs at 9 an over for the loss of 4 wickets. Great stuff. I’d also like to mention the last game on tour which was played in the drizzle at Taunton. Neither side wanted to go home early, so we all got wet.  Their umpire triggered Frankie Crouch and we lost, but, whatever...these things happen! It was a good day and Somerset Straggler’s hospitality was superb.  The inaugural fishing trip from Exmouth was great fun, and chunder free. The fish were largely untroubled. 

The tour was something of a microcosm of the season. We didn’t win as many games as we would have liked, but I had a lot of positive feedback from people who enjoyed playing for the SOA.  The proof of the pudding is in the list of new members and prospects. We did have some great successes on the pitch though. The Gloucester Gypsies game was a particular highlight. An all-day game, lovely venue, lovely weather, high class opposition, great hospitality, an SOA side brimming with talent; what more could you want? Alas, we struggled to 192 all out - 100 short of a good total. At tea, Gypsies were cruising at 93 for one. ‘I just need a wicket’ skipper Paddy Daniel said to me. It didn’t sound like a request, but I was one of the umpires. Paddy got his wish and more as the Gypsies lost 7 wickets in half an hour. The SOA won. The Gypsies were philosophical. The key for me though was that we had a lovely evening in the sun outside the pavilion swapping stories after the game.

Three personal notes: First, I’d like to wish Phil Manger, our President, the best of luck for 2015. Second, I’m delighted that Chris Hutton has agreed to be President Elect. He is an SOA man through and through and a great enthusiast for the game. Last, on the 14th March 2015, my father Geoff very sadly passed away. He was a cricket lover and an SOA member. He and my mum Margaret (also an SOA member) came to many of our matches in 2014 including on tour in Devon. I know they both appreciated how welcome they were made. 

See you out there. AJ

Andrew Smith (SOA President 2014)

SEASON 2014

2014 was the warmest year yet recorded in England, and the cricket season had its due share of the good weather. In 2012 twenty-two matches were rained off, in 2014 only eight, five of them in a row in May. The record of matches played for the season, including the Western Tour, was: Won 12 Lost 14 Drawn 9 Cancelled 4. Three of the 20/20 matches were won, one lost and one cancelled.

The 20/20 matches, introduced perhaps as a concession to the young, have proved popular with all ages. The managers' reports indicate that they have been very sociable occasions as well, in the traditions of the club. They are also a means of introducing to SOA cricket potential new members, possibly luring some of them into 'real cricket'. The recent trend of putting out strong sides for key fixtures has brought county players into the Club, resuming a pattern of earlier times. Against the Authentics, writes Greg Pearson, 'the SOA XI resembled a very competitive Home Counties XI with a hint of Southern Hemisphere‘.

One may hope that such recruits will be further enticed by some of the manager’s reports which follow, which often record the wider experience of a SOA game; the scenery, the lunch, or the ale. Tom Scrase concludes his Pangbourne College report 'This was a most enjoyable game of cricket played in excellent spirit with great hospitality in fine weather, and with a lovely pub to visit in the centre of the village for the après cricket.' Anyone who does not feel enticed by such a description is perhaps not for the SOA.

Umpires and scorers

Even well-kept score sheets often fail to note the names of these non-players, who make a day's cricket much more pleasant for all the players. We have had the post of President/scorer before (Les Collins, Miles Hedges) but now President/umpire is proving popular (2012 Mike Knox, 2014 AJ Smith). It is good that the President keeps a close eye on things. I hope that we shall have the names of all the umpires for 2016, so that their contribution can be recognised. The score was kept on too many occasions to count by Neil Harris, as well as by Sue Hayes and Susan Moss.

Location, location

Not the least of the pleasures of SOA cricket is the number of beautiful grounds where we play our cricket. There are the villages - Great Tew, Shipton-under-Wychwood, Bledlow; the schools - Radley College, Stowe; the parks - Middleton Stoney, Ascott Park, Tiverton Heathcoat; and all the others. Since college grounds became largely unavailable a generation ago (see Seventy Five Years of the SOA, p. 25) we have found a welcome at club grounds all over the county, and are duly grateful for their hospitality.

Annual Dinner

Most of those assembled at Eynsham Hall in October had not been present thirty-one years earlier at the Club's previous dinner there, when the guest speaker was Brian Johnston. This was a memorable occasion, with nearly a hundred (male) members and guest at table to mark the club's golden anniversary. This year the occasion was less formal: no black ties, but ladies. The guest speaker was former England test cricketer, Hampshire and Middlesex off spinner Shaun Udal, who had played first-class cricket into his forty-first year. His after-dinner speech took the now informal form, or formal informality, of a question-and-answer session; sadly, no-one asked his thoughts of Cricketers of the Third Age.

Archive Corner

David Money wrote of the club's founder, Malcolm Elwin, that his opinions, on cricket and on numerous other matters literary and political, were 'fluently expressed in his lengthy letters.' Some of these letters are now in the SOA deposits in the Oxfordshire County Archives, but a huge correspondence to and from SOA members, which had been organised and arranged chronologically by David Money, were not to be found among David's papers after his death. Malcolm's literary archive is now at Exeter University, and a little while back a fat envelope arrived from Exeter containing letters about SOA cricket before and just after the war. It has seemed worth a trawl through these papers before they too disappear into an archive.

Something which would strike any current SOA match manager with astonishment is that before the war Malcolm arranged all the teams, including the tour, single-handed, and that players usually confirmed – and dropped out – by post, a means of communication probably completely unknown to some younger SOA members. The 'Admiral' wrote in July 1947 'I am not merely trying to get out of the tour for any other reasons than good ones', and Reggie Alton wrote that his bags were ready packed when he 'received an imperious professorial summons' to meet 'a French palaeographer of enormous importance.'  As it turned out he 'couldn't really understand what the b------ said'. Clubs who called off fixtures got short shrift: to the Oxford City Secretary Malcolm wrote 'I should be very much obliged if you would reconsider your decision' while in response to being 'let down rather badly' by Sonning he 'scratched the return match with them.'

There is of course, no record of telephone calls, but there are cryptic telegrams: 

THAME DINNER 19TH TOLD STRANG PLUM MOTHER ILL TICKET FOR BOO PLEASE WHEN DO YOU RETURN SAW BOOMER HIS WIFE ILL SEE YOU 26TH WEATHER FOUL LOVE STUART.

The correspondence, mainly with Stuart Pether, continues through the war, as – surprisingly – did cricket. Stuart played 36 games in 1940! There is also a little mystery: Irene Clephane wrote in November 1938 about a publishing matter – it looks as if she had arranged the lay-out for the SOA printed Report. Another letter, the following March 1940, says simply 'If Stuart is with you, give him the enclosed letter from me. If he isn't, burn it.' An empty envelope is attached inscribed From Irene Clephane, who loved Stuart Edmonds, and tried to help M get evidence for a divorce from Dorothy in 1940. Something was clearly going on there.

Obituaries

David Boss, who died in November 2012, was an Old Bloxhamist and great supporter of the OB Cricket Festival. Indeed, I don't think he missed an OB v SOA cricket match - if he was not to be found on the boundary, in the pavilion or in the dining hall then he was certain to be found in the Elephant and Castle! In extremis, he could even be found behind the score book. He was also a long-standing member of SOA and, in the 1950s and 1960s, a sometime attendee on the Western Tour - this was a time when the Tour headquarters were the Black Horse in Exeter, and whilst there may have been some different fixtures from now the core of the fixture list, Sidmouth, Devon Dumplings and North Devon were the same.

David was one of many OB members of SOA and, as one of the organisers of the OB Cricket Festival, was as keen as John Edwards (himself an OB, having taught at Bloxham for a few years early in his career) to maximise the amount of cricket played irrespective of how much rain had fallen recently. There is indelibly imprinted on the minds of the various witnesses the picture of John and David taking used hessian sacks onto a sodden wicket, stamping them onto the ground, picking them up and wringing them out like oversized dishcloths over the outfield in order to re-start a match a few minutes sooner than would otherwise have been the case.

David was also a regular at SOA Annual Dinners, particularly at a time when the usual venue was the Eastgate Hotel in the High Street.

Miles Hedges

Sylvia Edwards was known to several generations of SOA members as the indefatigable wife of one of the Club’s most distinguished and long-serving members, John Edwards. Sylvia was a graduate of St Hilda’s College, and had met John in their University days in Oxford. Once married, and with their family of three daughters, she acted in a very visible support role throughout his subsequent long teaching career and his even longer cricket career. Hers was a life of service – both in the schools where John taught and in the communities where they lived.

Sylvia will best be remembered by SOA members for her frequent appearances on the Western Tour, particularly once she and John had retired to Instow. It was in their house in Chichester Close, with its magnificent picture window overlooking the Torridge estuary, that over a period of nearly twenty years she and John hosted the legendary coffee morning on the Monday of the North Devon match. Even then, she was often to be found making a new brew in the kitchen while John was entertaining the Tour party in the sitting room.

In her unassuming way, Sylvia was one of the Club’s greatest supporters and, after John’s death, she became an honorary SOA member and generously made a large donation to the SOA Trust in his memory. Ralph Cobham, Michael Knox and I have the happiest of memories of a splendid lunch with her and her daughter Beatrice held in recognition of this act of generosity. Even at this late stage in her life, she was fully ‘with it’, interested to hear news of the Club, and behaving as a model cricketing spouse - John would have been proud of her, and we salute Sylvia for all the support she gave to SOA over so many years.

Richard Allan