Song titles……
We took our inspiration from 1998 England World Cup Squad, who when being interviewed decided to drop in song titles into their answers, Alan Shearer, Tony Adams, Gareth Southgate were people who managed to get With a Little Help from my Friends, Dancing on the ceiling and even Club Tropicana into their interviews! We decided that we could have a bit of fun with this and turn our Saturday afternoons in the field into something of Song-fest when "chirping" to the batsman (For Non Cricketing folk, Chirping is basically trying to put the batsman off with the power of words!).
This often ended with several people losing concentration from laughing too much when somebody came up with something new from the week before, however it was something that kept those hours in the sun chasing a small red ball that little bit more entertaining!! A few years after this I decided to take to this idea to another level, by this point I was submitting match reports to the local newspaper which we subsequently published both in print and online, below is a report written in 2007, I believe that there are 14 Song Titles included, there are probably more than that inadvertently….
See if you can spot them and yes this did get published!
On the second sunny afternoon in a row, a young Old Stacians team travelled to league high fliers Holmesdale. Stacians captain Howard Wooding got the afternoon off to a good start by winning only his second toss of this league campaign and elected to bat first. The Holmesdale bowlers took the attack to the “Old Boys” top order and with a mixture of good, tight seam bowling and good work in the field restricted Stacians scoring options but after the first fifteen overs the “Old Boys” would have been happy with only losing one wicket and not falling for Holmesdale’s masterplan. Then the home team showed why they are pushing for promotion this season, Australian Chris Cann and Young Kent prospect Harry Galpin bowled well getting the ball to jump around all over the place to reduced Stacians from 37-1 to 81-7, it was a batting collapse that has been all too regular for Stacians over the past three or four seasons, Luke Reeves the only batsmen in the top six to get into double figures. Things could only get better from this moment on, young guns James Rand and Daniel Coulson come together at the crease and showed great fight and commitment and put on an excellent 61 runs for the 8th wicket, both showed arrange of shots around the ground using both touch and power to give Stacians a target to bowl at! With this weekend being the opening of the new Harry Potter film it proved a good omen for Harry Potter look-alike Jimmy Rand, he ended the innings as top scorer just missing out on what would have been a well deserved fifty and was unfortunately run out for 48 as he and the tail looked to put on vital runs in the end of their innings. Daniel Coulson made a good 29 and brother David finished with 14 as the tail well and truly wagged with the final three wickets putting on 85, Stacians were finally bowled out for 166 in 50th and final over.
Stacians chose to attack Holmesdale from the start and opened the bowling with Australian leg spinner Paul Johnstone, who bowled well with the new ball, he showed good spin and drift to have the openers in some trouble, however the Holmesdale team again showed why they are pushing for promotion by digging in and showing a lot of patience when under pressure from the Stacians bowlers and used good combination of defence and attack and most importantly did not lose wickets during this spell of the match. Paul “PJ” Johnstone finally broke the opening stand at 47 with a well deserved wicket, the Holmesdale opener falling for a trap that was only set the ball before! This brought Aussie Cann to the crease and after showing his class with the ball began to show it with the bat to. The Home team batted well and kept ticking the score board over and always stayed ahead of the run rate and controlling the game, chasing down the score in partnerships, the Stacians bowlers although bowling as well as they have done all season were just unable to pick up wickets regularly enough and in the setting sun Holmesdale reached the victory target with the loss of just four wickets. Cann finishing 65 not out to cap off a fine game for him personally even managing to hit the ball into the busy road next to the ground, the Stacians fielders were left chasing cars to retrieve the ball back! Sam Kennett finished with figures of 24-2 to be the pick of the bowlers for Stacians. It was a good return to form from the 21 year old seam bowler who bowled with a good rhythm and consistency and looked to use the conditions to move the ball either way.
There are plenty of positives to take out of this game and as Stacians look to do a double over next weeks visitors to Goat Lea Park, bottom of the table BOCA Sports.
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