2008 Season Review

The Club's seventy-fifth season cannot be summarised easily. For some of the mature members there were reminders of the fiftieth anniversary celebrations, described in Seventy Five Years of the SOA, when 150 members and guests attended the supper at the end of the Festival at Christ Church ground; over 120 (the numbers not swelled by any ladies) were at the black tie Dinner at Eynsham Hall, and heard a memorable speech from Brian Johnson.

The President in 1983 was Pat Florey, and nothing could have been more fitting than Robert taking the presidency a quarter of a century later. While it is sad that that Pat did not live to see the 2008 season, he understood that Robert had succeeded him, and knew about some of the plans for the season. It was a hard summer for Robert, who was so hampered by a bad hip that he was able to play only one token game, for his President's XI in the Festival; the rest of the Florey family was well in evidence (four of them in the President's XI), and Mary Ann did a huge amount of work both behind and in front of the scenes to ensure the smooth running of many aspects of the season.

The Festival, held at Standlake, provided some of the best cricket of the whole season: all four of the matches went to the last possible over, two of them to the last possible ball. Although we could not emulate the cloudless skies of 1983, the fact that it rained only once during the week was, in the context of 2008 weather, remarkably good fortune. We can rarely have had a season when so many matches were rained off ; most of these were called off a day or two in advance, because the weather was so unrelievedly bad.

What should have been the highlight of the Festival Year, the Dinner at Standlake with David Shepherd as guest speaker, was enjoyed by those who attended, but was in reality a huge disappointment, with so few players present that we could not even have raised a side without calling on several over 65s. Nineteen out of twenty-eight match managers did not show up, and only one of those nine was under fifty. Even with many guests, and lady partners, we were so short of numbers that the Club lost a lot of money. The committee is, as a result, looking at the future, and considering whether some other format would prove more attractive to playing members.

The cricket during the rest of the season only occasionally reached the heights attained at the Festival. It was one of those seasons which make the Scribe grateful for the fact that the Club does not maintain records or statistics. The melancholy results for 2008 read as follows: Won 4, Lost 17, Drawn 9, Abandoned 2, Not Played 14. Several of the defeats were comprehensive and humiliating, and we found most of the school sides too strong for us. There can be no one cause for these results. The preponderance of elderly players in SOA sides certainly contributed - or failed to contribute - on occasion, but that is the nature of the Club, and not peculiar to 2008. A few managers have hinted at exasperation with the poor performance of the assembled players on the day. If this is a tendency it is an unfortunate one, since it implies that players could be failing to play with proper commitment in games which they consider 'non-competitive'. It must always be stressed that although we do not we play cricket too solemnly, we always play it seriously.

The Club acquitted itself respectably in most of the games against other 'county' sides, although three were rained off. The exception was the Devon Dumplings; it is sad to see such a club completely setting aside the mantra that 'cricket is a game for eleven a side' to provide a day at Exeter that gave pleasure to so few (notably to nine of their batsmen.)

Apart from the first day, cricket was played on every day of the tour, once only briefly, yet there was not a day which could be termed fine. As Byron once put it, 'the English summer has set in with its usual severity.' The President worked tirelessly to recruit tourists, but some of these evaporated at the last moment, and for most games we only just managed to get eleven together. We spent the first week as usual at The Globe at Topsham, and in several locations around Instow for the second week, notably the Wayfarers Inn.

The 2008 President Reflects

Looking ahead to my Presidential year, I wrote I hoped to have plenty of sunshine and a good summer. I obviously didn’t say my prayers loudly enough.

In 2008 the club’s performance on the field left a lot to be desired, with only four victories. With 14 games not played, it just shows how much the weather played a part in the season. We did not have any overseas touring teams, but this is being addressed for the 2009 season. While on the subject of touring, the club are, as I write, in South Africa flying the flag and enjoying the hospitality of their hosts. Thanks go to Colin Bedford for the huge amount of work that he put in to save the tour, and subsequently end up with the tour party that has travelled. One day I hope to enjoy one of these tours.... Dream on!

Back to the season. The seventy-fifth anniversary celebrations were hugely enjoyed, with the Festival at Standlake in early July. A huge thank you to the Oxford Downs for the hospitality we enjoyed along with the good cricket during the four days. Thanks must also go to Tony Lurcock and Ralph Cobham for all their hard work in producing the excellent booklet celebrating the Club's seventy-five years. I still have many copies, if you have not obtained yours.

This was the one year when I was hoping for an early harvest, which would have enabled me to enjoy some of the western tour. However, this was not to be, and the only reason I dropped in as a surprise at The Globe on the first night was because it had rained! (I also went to look at a bull in Devon!) A good evening was enjoyed at The Bridge as well as The Globe. It was great to see three Floreys playing on the tour, and I am delighted that James has agreed to help with the tour and encourage some younger blood to go down and enjoy the cricket and hospitality of the West Country.

The final celebrations for the season were at the dinner in October, when David Shepherd was due to speak. Sadly David had to pull out of the dinner due to ill health. However Paul Prichard stepped in and entertained us with some very amusing stories of his career. Richard Pineo gave a short tribute to some of the members who we have lost over recent years; it seems to be the end of an era in the history of the SOA. Those few members who did attend the Dinner enjoyed superb food in a wonderful marquee - thank you to Simon and Peter Florey for their generosity. I have been involved with the organising of the Club's annual dinner for nearly twenty years and I have now sadly decided that it is time somebody with fresh ideas took it on; it is just a shame that I have had to bow out after a dinner when the Club made such a loss financially.

While I am thanking people I must not forget Simon and Sheena Florey for their work with the tour accommodation and Paddy Daniel and Tony Lurcock for their help on the cricketing front.  The clubs finances have been expertly marshalled by Miles and Margaret Hedges and they try to keep us on the straight and narrow. Thank you.

As I am sure you are aware that most of the work goes on behind the scenes, and this year has been an exceptional year with the celebrations. For that I am hugely indebted to Steve Wilson for all the work he has put in. He has had to put up with my not very good computer skills, which are improving, but he has worked wonders.

Finally, Jerry Senior has asked Howard Wood to be the SOA President in 2009; I wish him all the best for the coming season, and I ask all members to support him in any way they can. The Committee has agreed a change in the way the Club's President is elected. We will have a President-elect and this will give the future President a chance to work his way into his role and to help his predecessor in his Presidential year, especially with the tour. I was highly delighted that Den Harvey has agreed to take on this role and be the Club's President in 2010.

The new President Prognosticates

As I write there is snow on the ground, the banks are going bust, and people are losing their jobs left, right and centre. Altogether a far cry from the halcyon days of Summer - should we ever be blessed with one. However, the arrival of this report, assiduously put together by our esteemed Scribe, will hopefully prompt our members to bend their minds to the season to come and try and remember where they had dumped their kit and attempt to revivify that aged jockstrap. Such is my commitment this season that I realise I will have to buy another pair of boots after my last pair disintegrated on the sodden field of Bledlow - just before the game was abandoned.

Of course my renewed commitment is engendered by the fact that this season I have been given the singular (and surprising) honour of being appointed President. It is slightly ironic that while a somewhat more famous President has come to power this year on a campaign of change, should there ever be an SOA presidential election it would probably be won by the candidate who least wanted to effect change. We want to maintain a good and extensive fixture list and ensure that the game of cricket is played competitively and enjoyed in the right spirit - unlike the examples shown by many of our supposed betters in this game. The game should then be consummated with several beers.

This is not to say that the Club will remain ossified - fixtures always vary from year to year and we should always remain on the look-out for new (especially younger) members. To this end I hope that we will all support Ralph Cobham`s initiative in setting up a charitable bursary to enable younger members to go on tours. However, our fundamental raison d`etre is that everybody should enjoy himself, and I will try my utmost to assist in this.

We have a lot of cricket to play this year - tours to South Africa and the West Country as usual as well as visits from our friends of Melbourne XXIX club and the Amsterdam CC. May I ask all members to try and make their availability known early to the long-suffering match managers.

The annual Dinner will take place on the 2nd October at Standlake. We have the good fortune to have John Inverdale to come and speak to us. More details to follow but again please reserve your places as soon as possible.

Lastly many thanks to Rob Florey for his sterling efforts in 2008 and I look forward to seeing many of you during the course of the season and will be on my bended knees in supplication for sunshine from April to September.

Obituaries

This has been a bad year for matches, but also for dispatches. We have lost a number of valued and loved players, including no fewer than four former presidents, since the last report. Pat Florey's death was reported briefly in the 'stop press' of last year's Report; the church at Northmoor was overflowing for his memorial service. John Edwards died in early June, after a long illness. We had seen him in Devon the previous summer, and what was surely his last speech was made at lunch at Chulmleigh, on the fiftieth anniversary of our first fixture there. With Sylvia beside him, his last words were, memorably, 'I've been told to sit down.' Leslie Plummer was in his nineties, and known as a player only to the most senior members, Malcolm Robinson, though many years younger, had not played SOA cricket for some thirty years, while Michael Wingfield Digby was known mainly by tourists, but once met was never forgotten. (He came late for one match because his horse had been bitten by a snake.) Finally Derek Primett, who died in a care home in Standlake was known by cricketers far and wide. His funeral was an Oxfordshire cricket reunion.

Pat Florey

Pat's cricket started at New College School, where he was presented with a new bat by the headmaster for scoring 81* against Cothill. He progressed to Bloxham where he had a very successful school career.

After leaving school, he probably played in every Old Bloxhamist cricket festival until he retired from cricket at the age of sixty. In the early festivals he usually played against the SOA. In 1948 he scored 88* against SOA and the following day scored 138 against Fred Crawshay's XI. As has been pointed out in John Edwards's obituary, he was one of those batsmen who was either caught or stumped Money bowled Edwards on more than one occasion.

He was a hard-hitting left-handed batsman, who ‘liked to get on with it.’ Usually out of choice he would opt for the aerial route, which on many occasions was very successful, but would often lead to his downfall. In his early days of SOA cricket, he was prepared to carry his cricket bag on the handlebars of his bike and cycle to Oxford to play via the ferry at Bablockhythe.

Some of his early cricket was played for Oxford City, but after the war he played regularly for the Oxford Downs and the SOA. He was invited to play for the county but was unable to do so because of harvest commitments. For many years he ran the Witney Mills game for the SOA. He actually played in the first match between the two clubs in 1951, but only after he was fetched from the farm, having thought the game was the following day!

The Mills game became one of the highlights of the season and was usually oversubscribed. I think this may have been due to the party held back at the farm after the game, first at Aston, and then later at Northmoor. He managed quite a number of matches over the years, and as a captain was a very good reader of a game and always tried to make sure that everyone played their part. At the Royal Agricultural College he called out 'Thanks very much, Tony!', as the substitute opening bowler was in his delivery stride; Andrew Hichens had appeared on the field. Pat was never afraid to lose, and always tried to keep the game alive, even if it meant bowling his own occasional military medium offerings. Coming on to bowl on a particularly cold day, he surprised everyone by taking off his trousers and handing them to the umpire (he had a second pair underneath.)

He was a good slip fielder, and it wasn’t until he decided that he couldn’t see the ball in the slips that he decided to call it a day before he got hurt – he was also keen to see the younger players taking his place before he became a liability.

He served on the SOA committee for many years and was club President in 1977 and also in the Golden Jubilee Year of 1983. The celebrations for that year ran very smoothly with a wonderful festival at Christ Church in August where we were blessed with cloudless skies. The photograph from the festival, reproduced in Seventy-five Years of the SOA shows him at his happiest.

In his presidential years he managed a small amount of the tour but the farming calendar didn’t allow for much touring, which I am sure he would have loved. One of his favourite memories of Instow was being present when Malcolm Elwin's daughter presented the portrait of Malcolm, which hung in the pavilion there for a number of years. For quite a while it was hung in his bedroom at Rectory Farm to protect it from the damp. Imagine waking up every morning with Malcolm watching you!

One of his claims to fame was to have encouraged Bob Hawke, the future Australian Prime Minister, to play SOA cricket, which he did with great gusto. Throughout his cricketing life, Pat always went out of his way to make new members feel welcome, and to help people to enjoy the game he loved.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Robert Florey

Leslie Plummer

Leslie Plummer, who has died aged 93, was known to generations of Dragons. After a distinguished war record with the RNVR where he attained the rank of Lieutenant-Commander and was awarded the DSC for his part in the first sinking of a German U Boat at night in the Mediterranean, he went to teach at The Dragon School. He was a very keen sportsman and for several years organized the Oxfordshire Colts rugger and cricket teams. He was a life-long lover of traditional cricket but did not much care for limited overs or pyjama cricket.

He became a member of the SOA in the 1950s and for a number of years he managed the Pangbourne Nautical College and Abingdon matches. He was primarily a medium fast opening or first change bowler who delivered the ball with rather a 'slingy' action. He participated in the SOA Tour on a number of occasions in the 1960s without ever capturing a haul of wickets. In the later part of his career he used to say that he did not play cricket before the end of May as the weather was invariably too cold! He was President in 1976.

Mike Lewis

John Edwards

From the SOA Annual Report for 1996: John Edwards (then aged 76) managed the match against the Wiltshire Queries, and brought their innings to an abrupt conclusion with five wickets in twenty-five balls, including a hat-trick, on the ground where he had first played as a schoolboy for Tetbury against Chippenham in 1936.

John, who died in June, was a South Oxfordshire Amateur through and through. To him being an amateur was synonymous with declaration cricket, with working unstintingly for the club off the field, and showing fair play and courtesy on the field. This approach was in keeping with the deeply-held tenets of his life and one which was very evident to everyone who played cricket with him. He was a man of principle; the SOA was dear to his heart and he, in turn, was at the heart of SOA for nearly sixty years. For some forty of those years he was an highly efficient and mildly idiosyncratic match manager.

Elected to the Club in 1950 when a schoolmaster at All Saints, Bloxham, he continued his involvement when he went north first to Macclesfield and then to Hipperholme in Yorkshire, as headmaster of the grammar school there, as well as cricket master. When Her Majesty's Inspector visited the school John is said to have taken this official straight out to the cricket square to show him how the wrong type of loam (with gravel in it) had been applied. He took a keen interest in his pupils and great pride in persuading a number of the most talented to become regular members of the SOA’s western tour. Indeed, in his later years at Hipperholme, SOA Yorks, had they played as a team, would have been formidable opposition for SOA Oxon. It was while in Yorkshire that, in his unconventional dress (creaseless baggy trousers and gor blimey cap), he acquired the name 'Docker'.

Throughout his SOA days, he was a deceptively effective purveyor of away drift – so much so that the legendary Harold Gimblett, having played inside four successive balls from John, handed his bat in despair to the wicket-keeper David Money. As the years went by the loop became more marked and the pace slowed, but the wickets kept coming to such an extent that he took a hat-trick for North Devon in his mid-80’s. Indeed to be out 'stumped (or caught) Money, bowled Edwards' when both veterans were well past pensionable age was considered a roving cricketer’s worst nightmare. By comparison John’s approach to batting was reluctant and unconventional, with his bat and pads appearing only in times of crisis. In the final overs of such occasions, he could be sighted backing up with the cry on the last ball of each over 'run 1, 3 or 5'!

John, with his notebook and clipboard, was the embodiment of the western tour. From early in his Hipperholme days, he took up summer residence in Devon and it was from there that he recruited players, organised matches and dealt with last-minute crises. Only with his passing is the Club finding out how demanding the organisation of the tour is. Throughout SOA’s seventy-five years, its spiritual home has been in Instow, and all those who have visited its scenic ground will understand how much playing there, annually for SOA and almost daily for North Devon, meant to John in his retirement. And tourists who were fortunate enough to visit Sylvia and John in their house overlooking the Torridge estuary were always greeted with the warmest of welcomes, generous hospitality, and a fund of cricketing anecdotes.

In keeping with his schoolmaster background, John was not above delivering admonitions when standards slipped – woe betide a fielder who dropped a catch ('43', said with feeling), or a match manager who was on the receiving end of one of his 'red ink' postcards. His cricketing vocabulary was equally colourful and, in the field, players were accustomed to receiving an instruction from him to field 'in the umpire’s pocket' or “in the slashing position'. But the standards he set were unquestionably the standards he lived by, and he was as generous with his praise as he was direct with his admonitions. There was no 'side' to John; he gave cricket his all, and he was wonderfully supported throughout by Sylvia. We, the surviving generation, have many treasured memories and are immensely grateful for all that he did to enrich our club.

                                                                                                                Richard Allan

Malcolm Robinson

 Malcolm Robinson, who died in June, was a former Secretary of SOA who retired to Brixham after a career as a school master, including a spell as Headmaster of Queen’s School, Taunton. To many SOA members Malcolm was just another cricket enthusiast who played regularly on the SOA circuit between 1968 and 1974, who was always impeccably turned out, and whose wicket-keeping and batting talents were much in demand. We knew he was a history master at Radley who was a tough competitor with a jaw to match. And we knew he was the son of Robbie, well known to Western tourists as a raconteur and bare-foot doctor.  

What we did not know was that Malcolm was the first Drapers’ Company scholar sent from the UK to America, where he studied at the historic William and Mary College in Virginia. And that whilst there in the late 1950s,  he took a first class honours degree, founded the college’s FM radio station and set a number of national cross-country running records, as well as re-founding cricket on the Green at Williamburg after a lapse of 170 years. Even more incredibly, during his time at William and Mary College, he disappeared on a secret mission to check out Castro’s regime in Cuba. In fact, he had been recruited to counter-intelligence at the height of the Cold War, and remained a member of the elite Anglo-American intelligence unit for the next 40 years. 

No wonder his memorial service, for which the service sheet was graced with Malcolm’s portrait in his SOA sweater, was such a spirited celebration. By all accounts, he was a hard but fair task master who thrived on fitness, commitment and achievement. He was single-minded in his pursuit of excellence, and generous in his praise of those who could keep up. It was typical of the man we all knew that his competitive nature and love of cricket should have been encapsulated in his own words 'I don’t hit the ball, I punch it'!     

Richard Allan

Michael Wingfield Digby

Michael was only my second cousin (close enough you might think) but cricket brought us together in a way that blood never could. Even in a club well endowed with unusual cricketers Michael would stand out as an eccentric. Rarely would a game pass without an 'incident' of some kind. Several occasions stick in my memory: his reaction to a clergy umpire adjudging him LBW at Taunton was a V sign and 'back to school padre'; his deliberate running out of an opening batting partner first ball of the game, and his parting comment 'That'll teach you Tom, Dick, Harry or whatever your name is'; he was 'out arrested' on at least one occasion; he was disciplined by the Free Foresters for playing in long-johns having forgotten his flannels; the stories go on and on and most of them are true.

Mike belonged to a huge number of cricket clubs, including SOA, for whom he played on the Western tour for some years. His greatest love was the club he founded, the Cavaliers, with whom he toured Gambia (the tour on which Wilf Slack died while batting for Mike's team), St Vincent and Uganda. He was very proud of hosting the first Uganda national team to tour England .

Mike could drive you totally mad, whether you were playing with him or against him, but his enthusiasm for the game was legendary, and he could be tremendous company both on and off the field. Cricket was a passion alongside his love for horses and whippets. The latter usually accompanied him to matches and his proudest boast was that they crapped at the feet of Colin Cowdrey at Arundel and Mike Atherton at Fenners in the same week; 'got a past England captain and and a future one in the same week', he would say. Michael Wingfield Digby - 'Wingers' - died in August 2008 and is missed by us all.

                                                                                                Andrew Wingfield Digby

Derek Primmett

When John Arlott first met Bill Frindall, he is reported to have said “I understand that you like driving – well, I like drinking so I think we should get on well”. How Prim would have loved to have been in Arlott’s shoes that day, and how apt it would have been. There are many Oxfordshire cricketers who played chauffeur to Derek and endured his appalling directions to distant away matches. Any destination in the country was deemed to be in a straight line via Wolvercote or Eynsham, quite regardless of the starting point and it was considered a matter of honour to be the last in the bar afterwards.

To say that 'Prim' was a stalwart of Oxfordshire cricket is akin to calling Viv Richards a batsman, Malcolm Marshall a bowler or Colin Bland a fielder.  He was a dedicated clubman, a tireless administrator, a determined all round player and County Over Fifties Manager for twenty years. Most SOA readers will also know that his enduring dream to see Oxfordshire over 50s win the Championship was fulfilled a few months after his death last summer when they beat Lancashire at Lords.

There are many anecdotes that have been resurrected  recently, not least at the celebration dinner for the victorious 50+ side, but perhaps the one that sticks most clearly in the memory was about fifteen years ago at the Oxford Downs v SOA fixture at Standlake.  Prim bowled a half volley from the ‘lane’ end which was dispatched straight back, hitting him a horrendous blow in the middle of his forehead.  He went to ground with apparently terminal groans and twitches before being taken to hospital but, as he was helped from the field, a distinguished SOA member was heard to suggest that he was fielding a little too close to his own bowling.  Needless to say, he returned, bandaged, from hospital before the bar closed, for a few pints and a game of spoof.

Above all Derek was a sportsman, a friend and a gentleman.  He will be sorely missed but the memories will endure. The enormous turn-out of cricketers at his funeral bore testimony to that.

Chris Wakefield