October 2016

Indoor Cricket

 After winning the Winchester & District Indoor league last Winter Longparish travelled to the Ageas Bowl along with SPL sides Hook, Havant, Sarisbury, Waterlooville and Basingstoke to determine which side would represent the county in the ECB national competition.

In the knock out game with Waterlooville, Longparish bowled first and restricted the SPL side to 113 for 4 with Ben Gardner, Scott Sturt, Callum Giles and Matt Jackman all bowling superbly. Taplin struck 16 Matt Jackman 26 and Scott Sturt 21 as Longparish cruised to a 4 wicket win and a three-way final with Hook and Sarisbury.

Against Sarisbury, who won the national competition a few seasons ago, Longparish were indebted to Matt Jackman who struck 62 as Longparish closed on an under par 91 a target that tournament favourites Sarisbury passed for the loss of 3 wickets.

In the must win finale against Hook Longparish batted brilliantly to close on 144 for 5 with Matt Jackman unbeaten on 38, Michael Taplin striking 26, Scott Sturt 12 and William Samways 19. Hook lost early wickets and with 5 overs remaining and Hook 5 wickets down, Longparish  were favourites, but a brilliant 61 from Hook last man Shane Brewer saw his side to a 1 run win off the final ball of the match.

Hook then lost heavily to Sarisbury who will once again be Hampshire's representative in the ECB National competition.

Presentation Evening

Hosted by The Cricketers Inn and thanks very much for that, the food is best glossed over (to my palate  gloss may well have featured in the marinade)  and thank goodness for stygian gloom because on a night given over to presentation, presentation at this point wasn't the best. Keith Floyd doesn't come close and if anyone did receive the gift of the tip of a blue rubber glove I apologise, but these are old eyes to be wielding sharp knives in fading light. Anyway, everyone is ok now so let's just remember the evening for the annual giving of gongs and one of the club's most successful seasons in recent memory.

Mr Chairman gave a memorable speech much of which was quickly forgotten (he can email you a copy if you are interested)  before Richard Gibbins of sponsors Floatron stepped up to dish out the gongs.

Rachel de Cani collected the 1st XI batting award on behalf of William de Cani for his 569 runs at an average of 71 and Matt Jackman took the 1st team bowling colours for his 27 wickets.

Gary Taplin was the recipient of the 2nd XI batting cup after scoring 219 runs at an average of 22 and Chris Clarke was named 2nd XI bowler of the year.

Martin Bearpark was the 3rd XI's leading bat with 473 runs at 63, and James Young was the pick of the Longparish III bowlers.

Scott Sturt picked up the midweek 20/20 player of the year, Michael Taplin is Longparish CC's fielder of the year and Nathan Smith is young player of the year.

Matthew Jackman claimed the indoor cricketer of the year award, Dan Bearpark was awarded the young indoor player of the year award and William Samways is LCC colt of the year.

John Dawson was presented with the Sprague trophy for services to LCC cricket during the last twelve months and the champagne moment award went to Scott Sturt for a brilliant and nerveless caught and bowled in the tight 1st XI tie away at Easton.

Nathan Smith was the deserving winner of the players' player award.

Thank you to everyone who attended on the night.

The Ground

 The usual faces turned out to put the ground to bed, and thanks for that Rod, Ronnie, Kenny and Ronnie. Roy's  green panjandrum  with its associated whizz bangs and loam rockets has visited the square to play merry hell with the top surface. Several trailer loads of gunk (technical term) have been removed. It's  a professional service, worth every penny  and essential annual work to provide a true surface for batting and bowling the following summer, yes folks the preparations for the next outdoor campaign are already underway.

Football - the beautiful game,

Space - the Final Frontier,

A Mars a Day helps you work rest and play

Vignettes  accepted as cornerstones of the age.

But are they?

Well the sugar police are on to the third one and the combined forces of the washing machine that bumped into some comet and the Hubble telescope now suggest that there may well be space beyond space and more space beyond that which to my mind opens up the opportunity of further frontiers

And the goons who continually beat seven bells out of the pavilion, thatch and score box via the medium of football (and I'm a life-long fan of the game who was once told that if Thierry Henry had possessed my left foot he would have been complete) confirm that football is not always a beautiful game.

Stop it please footballers, it is costing the club money.

With an eye to the goings on at West Ham. Plans for Longparish to play all their home games at the Olympic stadium in Rio have been shelved and the club are on the cusp of signing a new 25 year lease with ground owners Middleton Estate, thank you El Presidente.

An enquiry from a Mr Campbell over naming rights of the ground and the offer of substantial bunce if the ground is renamed the Longparish Soup Bowl has been given little credence.

Cake Sale

Longparish Cricket Club will once again be forcing baked products on the good people of Stockbridge to raise money for club funds.  Robinsons butchers have once again kindly provided the pitch, and hey if you've a fancy for a sausage or chop get on down to Robinsons butchers.  The brainchild of Julie Taplin and Katrina Samways there will once again be a call for cakes. The day assigned  is Saturday 17th December but if you have already made plans for the few days before that date, you can bake a cake many months in advance and employ one of the many methods of preservation freely available on the internet.

Mrs Beeton speaks fondly of aspic, or if this is not available, wrapping the item up and burying it in the garden. CJ Berry the self styled King of the home made wine world(Mary's cousin I think) promotes asbestos finings as a means of giving his home made produce a little pep. and Heston champions the use of Nivea as both a preservative and icing in his award winning recipe for a "half moon".

Whatever, just get baking. As long as it looks good. Once it's sold, it's sold. Nobody is giving out marks or going home after week one, and we're not doing refunds. Just keep the filling in the mince pies meat free and fruit based as we don't want to tread on the toes of our kind host.

All money raised will be spent on Longparish Cricket Club.

Disclaimer: Kids, don't use asbestos as an ingredient in any form of cooking, bury cakes in the garden and eat them a few months later, decorate cakes with any brand of face cream (coconut flavours excepted) or make mince pies with beef mince

Hundred Club Draw - July

Thanks again to everyone who wrote in for the "fonts with a tale" feature. with their font of first choice to herald the winners of this month's hundred club draw.

This month's winner of font of first choice is a Mr A Haimovich who writes:

"David is one of my favourite fonts as it always reminds me of my time at the Gan Shmuel kibbutz in the sixties and the happy time my wife and I had living collectively with the other kibbutzniks."

Shalom my friend and with a nod to the impending Yom Kippur, here's the winners in Hebrew in the font of David

Enjoy

£35 ג'ון דוסון    £15 ינו קאציו   £15 הרברט קלי  ליש ט

If anyone out there has a font that they are fond of with an accompanying tale, that they would like to see used to display the Hundred Club winners, please send a postcard to:  Fonts I am fond of, Stable Cottage, Bransbury, Winchester SO21 2QJ.