2017 Season Review

PRESIDENTIAL REFLECTIONS

Well what a fantastic year 2017 was for me personally and the SOA.  When I joined the SOA back in the mid-1980s I would look at the president each year and think to myself what a wonderful honour to be the figurehead of a club like this. Now in 2017 my chance had come. The SOA goes from strength to strength. At the start of my year I was a little concerned as to how much work may be involved but I need not have worried, the year passed smoothly thanks to the people be-hind the scenes who make the club tick. Thanks goes especially to Swiley, AJ, Colin, Andrew and Russell, the rest of the committee and all the match managers who help to run the 50+ fixtures for the club.

A surprise to me was the club used over 180 different players to fulfil their fixtures, which is fantastic. Although I have been a member for so many years I found it amazing how many players I met during the season who I had not played with before.

The playing record for 2017 finished as won 19 drawn 7 lost 15 with 13 cancelled with not-able wins over Abingdon School, St Edward’s School, Gipsies, Dumplings and Stowe Templars.  The first few games were played in cold conditions but by mid-June it was scorching hot and by July the rains had arrived.

One of the Jewels in the Crown of the club is the Western Tour to Devon and for the first time ever I managed to do the complete 2 weeks which made me realise how lucky we are to play on such beautiful grounds.  For anybody who has never been I would recommend that they put it on their bucket list.

My President’s game was another highlight despite conceding a six off the last ball of the game to lose to my old friend’s Tony Lurcock XI. But I was pleased that the Club were able to get their hands on the Paul Collins Trophy with victory over the Oxford Downs. It has been a few years since we had it in our possession. I would just like to say a big thank you to the Oxford Downs for allowing me to host my President’s game at their club and for allowing the SOA to use the evening of the SOA fixture in their cricket week to double up as their mid-season social.

I must thank everyone who donated to the fundraising for the SOA Youth Sports Charity which allowed us to achieve the target that was set 10 years ago when it first started. Now we need to keep increasing the fund as it is so important to help the youth of the SOA to partake in club tours by making bursaries available. 

Finally a thank you to Tony Lurcock for producing the annual report which after this year has made me conclude that it is still a very important part of the club keeping members in touch, especially the older and past players of the club.

I will sign my year off by thanking the club for the opportunity to be your 2017 President and the realisation that the SOA is a very special club along with the brand of cricket it plays.

PADDY DANIEL (SOA PRESIDENT 2017) 

SEASON 2017

In the Scribe’s youth, before league cricket had been devised, a club captain was heard boasting that his club had not lost a game for two seasons. He was told by another cricketer that they clearly needed to get some new fixtures.

SOA has never required to change its fixtures for this reason, but most years see a few deletions and a few additions. The new fixtures this year included Taunton Deane on tour, played at Vivary Park (a familiar venue, since the Somerset Stragglers match was played on this ground for many years), The Frogs, and The Southern Hemisphere Owls. The first of these was played in very wet conditions, and the other two were rained off completely. This is a pity, since their evocative names fit well with the Hogs, Boars Hill and the Standlake Sheep (aka the Downs). The 2000 Festival included The Butterflies, The Flycatchers, and the Grasshoppers.

At first sight there is an inconsistency in match reports, since four games were claimed as being played on the hottest day of the year. The reports were presumably written on the day of the match, and so were true when they were written. That said, there has never been such a year for reports; not only prompt, but detailed and enthusiastic. Several of them will make readers wish that they had been there. Again and again the manager reports a match ‘played in the finest of spirits’, ‘an excellent game played in great spirit’, and so forth. 

Varied and eloquent though these reports are, few match the magisterial conciseness of Pat Florey’s (grandfather of James) account of a match in the 1960s: “Arrived with ten. Lost the toss. Got inserted.  Didn’t bat. Didn’t bowl. Dropped a catch. Declared, and lost.”

A couple of incidents – two sides of the same coin -  show this spirit in action: in the President’s game a batsman ‘walked’ after the umpire had failed to detect the snick, and at Pangbourne the SOA captain withdrew the appeal when a batsman declined to walk even after the fielder confirmed that the ball had carried. Would this have happened at Radley?

The Club’s values were in the very safe hands of Paddy Daniel; a popular choice as President for the year, and almost certainly the player who put in the most appearances, leading by example with the bat, and occasionally with the ball. He ‘blooded’ his son Guy on tour, and they shared a five wicket haul at Chulmleigh.

The results for 2017 were as follows, with the 2016 results in parenthesis.

Won 19 (11) Lost 15 (16) Drawn 7 (13) Cancelled 12 (12)

The only disappointment there for a wandering club is the number of cancellations, nearly all of them because of rain, and three of them, sadly at Univ, the ground where, thirty years ago, SOA played most of their ‘home’ matches.

Since those days the Club has been most fortunate to be able to play home fixtures at some of the finest club grounds in the county: Great and Little Tew, Sandford St Martin, Tiddington, Challow, Shipton-under-Wychwood, and Aston Rowant. The Club owes a great debt to them, and especially to the groundsmen who make play possible. In Oxford, The Queen’s College has hosted matches against tourists for many years, and Martin Cross has always provided everything to make a game a pleasant experience.

There ought to be no debate about limited-overs cricket and the SOA: it should happen only in T20 matches, and in away matches when the host skipper cannot be courteously convinced. Shobrooke Park for years put out such a weak side that even skilful skippering could not make a game of it under an overs format. Their only response was that they did not want to risk ‘a boring draw.’ The 2017 game ended with the home side winning by two runs with one ball remaining. Query: had this been a declaration game, and had the Hon Secretary played out the last ball, would the draw have been considered boring? The acme of declaration cricket, of course, is when all four results are possible when the final bowl is bowled. This happened against ‘the other SOA’, The Stragglers of Asia. The manager’s conclusion catches the spirit of SOA cricket in a way which the Club’s founder would have endorsed: “The South Oxfordshire men repaired to the pub in Bierton for gentle libations and reflections on a terrific game, played in good spirit in amazing conditions on a beautiful ground.” Several games went ’to the wire’: the Nomads’ no 11 held out for the final over, despite confident appeals for LBW;  two matches were lost by small margins – two and ten, and two won by margins of eight.

From its foundation SOA has, in the words of the founder, ‘deprecate[d] the popular failing for emphasising individual performances’, and has never included averages in the records. ‘A dozen runs made in a crisis, with one’s back to the wall,’ wrote Malcolm Elwin ‘are worth fifty off tired bowling when one’s side is on top.’ We still live by these principles, while noting some of the more striking individual performances of the season. With the bat: Launchbury 103 rtd v Radley College; Russell 101 v Nomads; R Eason 109 v Bledlow (an annual event); and Crouch 116 rtd v North Devon. With the ball we have Roberts 5-44 v Buxton Strugglers; Wiskin 6-41 v Leicestershire Gents; Mannering 6-28 v Gloucestershire Gipsies; Muttit 5-40 v Devonshire Dumplings; Du Plessis 5-40 v Chulmleigh. For the second year running a wicket keeper earns a mention: against St Clement’s Strollers Wildman stumped both the opening batsmen.

We have once again been well-served by umpires and scorers, for which we are truly grateful. Unfortunately fewer than half of the matches fill in the names – scorers have only themselves to blame if they go unrecognised. Andrew Smith and Neil Harris both edged into double figures in their respective categories, while Andrew Moss, Bob Belcher, Mike Knox and George Honey and Dave Binnesley each officiated on occasions. Miles and Margaret Hedges, Helen Meardon, and Sue Hayes were among the named scorers. AJ scored in a match on tour, appending note “Once every five years”. He also scored the next day.