onionbagblog

Wivenhoe Town lost to Copdock [ACE name] by… oh, whatever.

To Rectory Road on Saturday afternoon for what has become something of a recurring theme around these parts of late. Cricket Week at Wivenhoe Town is there for the taking - and so was the grand prize of yet another victory for the first XI with all the pomp and pageantry of President’s Day.

Opposition sides have historically had something of a rough ride on such a grand day in the calendar of the cricket club. That’s what half a bottle of red around the boundary does for the enthusiasm of the home support.

Visiting Rectory Road on Saturday afternoon was fourth placed Copdock from over the Suffolk border. I’m not sure what was more off putting - the ‘enthusiasm’ from the marquee following the President’s luncheon, or the dress code for the afternoon, described to me by one wag as “Pulp Fiction come to North Essex.”

I scrubbed up for the occasion (sort of) being held up with boots ‘n braces and my best linen jacket. There is fighting talk of taking to the crease next season with the Wivenhoe Social XI. I wasn’t quite all boxed up down below, but I do intend to source a codpiece for future visits.

A morning of rowing to Rowhedge (seriously) meant that we missed the Wivenhoe innings. No worries - the modern interweb ‘n all that reliably informed us back at base that Wivenhoe were all out for 150.

Not the most commanding of run chases to set for Copdock, but never underestimate the power of the enthusiastic support following a President’s luncheon.

A nervy chat with the esteemed Wivenhoe Director of Cricket greeted our arrival. “I’m not a very good watcher of the game,” explained the coaching genius that has overseen the table topping performance of Wivenhoe so far this summer.

I hold my hands up to being something of a pavilion bar room bore, but running out your County Championship ringer probably wasn’t the wisest of moves.

Whoops.

The marquee and pavilion settled down for what promised to be an entertaining afternoon of cricket. Mr Mayor took up the best seat in the house, and with half an eye on the Test, and one ear following events with @surreycricket, I was all set for a hat trick of favourable cricketing outcomes.

Wivenhoe showed patience with their bowling attack, turning to spin and slowly, slowly working away at the Copdock batsmen. Some energetic appealing to match the enthusiasm from the boundary let to some stern words from the umps.

A huge cheer went up from the pavilion shortly after the drinks break. A quick check elsewhere around the grounds, and nope - Wivenhoe wasn’t celebrating a fourth day victory for @surreycricket, but a hat trick from Stuart Broad in the Test.

Oh well.

The boundary bat ‘n ball game became increasingly engrossing, and then just as the fag end of the Copdock team strolled out to the crease, an improbable victory for the home team seemed likely.

It wasn’t to be however. The occasion of President’s Day raised the game of the opposition. It also raised considerable funds for the club behind the bar.

Chin chin.

Consulting my splendid The Story of Wivenhoe Cricket, and what I believe is needed is a return to more traditional types of leg spin attack. What is needed is some underarm bowling, resurrecting the proud Wivenhoe tradition first started by Digby Jephson.

We need a Lobster for the 21st Century.

I’m lobbing that tennis ball down from end of the garden to the other as I type.

Full flickr stream over here.

Team NMB 171 beat Wivenhoe Town by… I’m not really sure ‘cos I had had three pints on the boundary by the time the players shook hands.

It’s a fickle world out there on the boundary of village cricket life. One day you are the VIP guest, rightfully basking in the light of the success of a stupendous book launch in the marquee; less than twenty-four hours later and you are called on for the lonely world of umpire duties.

Ah, but you do it so well, Sir, you do it so well.

To Rectory Road then on Friday evening to kick start the weekend with the Wivenhoe Town Cricket Club Twenty20 evening. Cricket Week has covered many themes over the past few days. As well as the formal launch of The Story of Wivenhoe Cricket, the old linked up to the past with the T20 tournament.

Four teams contested the trophy, of sorts, throughout Friday. The two semis led to the evening finale of Wivenhoe Town Vs Team NMB, the first team sponsors for the club. Umpiring in the middle of course was all rounder Jon Wiseman.

Arriving fashionably late (and causing a little bit of a rumpus behind the bowler’s arm - apologies) and NMB were stuck on 111 and Nelson. A couple of slogs out towards the BBQ, and blimey - the score had jumped to an impressive T20 run chase of 171.

One of the themes in The Story of Wivenhoe Cricket is how the club has managed to adapt to the wider changes within cricket. T20 was served up to perfection at Rectory Road on Friday evening.

Music greeted the rise and fall of each batsman back and forth to the pavilion, the bar was doing a booming trade and we even had local celebrities loitering around the outfield. It wasn’t quite the Sugar Babes or Girls Aloud, but the appearance of a former Mr Mayor was most welcome.

Sent into bat just as the brighter skies were starting to emerge from the direction of Sunny Colch, and the home team were enthusiastic, but fell twenty runs short of the chase. My mole inside the home dressing room tells me that the T20 tournament was an opportunity to experiment, and most importantly, to enjoy.

The more sombre cricketing occasion returns to Rectory Road on Saturday afternoon with the key first team match against Copdock & OI (CRACKING cricket name) following the President’s Day Lunch.

I’ll be back on boundary duty, third man positioned just in front of the bar.

Chin chin.

Published as part of the Keep Colchester Cycling project.

Another weekend, another early morning roll out with the wonderful @VC_Revolution Cycling Club. When it becomes routine to wake up on a Saturday morning and to physically feel that your legs are ready for the roll out, then yep - you know that your return to the would-be King of the Colchester Mountains is well and truly complete.

The only category Stage 1 climb was the approach to the meet up - climbing (yeah, right) the junction of St Johns Road and Parson Heath. I thought it a bit much to be wearing the colours of my polka dot jersey, but I took the points, all the same. Shame I was cycling alone at this stage…

With the club’s very own criterium road race taking place over in Woodbridge, this was always going to be something of a relaxed, and reduced in numbers ride. Six cyclists set off shortly after 9am, with the pelaton creeping up to just under twenty as some club members from Clacton picked up the route with us.

My pre-ride preparation of curry and five pints of lager didn’t appear to be holding me back; in fact I was even holding my own as I took on the early workload at the front of the pack, and somehow holding the chicken tikka masala down as well.

Also being held were some charming conversations. This is the central point of any decent cycling club - you join to meet like-minded cycling freaks, and to have a regular social catch up at the weekend. For all the individual glamour of road racing and time trials, at the centre of any worthy cycle club has to be the Saturday social ride.

@VC_Revolution has got this spot on. It is great that a chainring rotation of riders informally takes place, giving everyone the chance to catch up (and lead the way / hide in the pack) as the morning takes hold and the miles are put in.

By 10am I had spoken with a fellow ex-Dulwich Paragon rider (those hills! THOSE HILLS!) a visiting cyclist down from Warwickshire down for the weekend and a lovely army bloke, who very kindly answered my delicate questions about seeing service in every major world conflict from the Falklands through to Iraq.

Beaumont-Cum-Moze brought us back down to earth (well, Tendring) with simply the BEST village name in which to ride through on a Saturday morning. The golden rape fields gave it all a continental feel, and for one glorious moment, the Essex Riviera could genuinely compete with its Mediterranean companion.

I predictably got dropped on the bunch sprint into Mistley. No worries - time alone and time in the saddle to appreciate the natural splendour of the estuary as you ride into the village.

I shared a cappuccino with a sheep at the Nature Reserve - that’s not something that I bet Bradley Wiggins can boast as he climbs Alp d’Huez in few months.

And then soon we were back in Sunny Colch, two and a half hours after first rolling out. These club rides are the perfect introduction to anyone considering a gentle stretch this summer. New faces are always welcome - we even had a fixie freak out this week.

Chapeau!

I’m starting to sound like Margaret Thatcher after being turfed out of No. 10, but yep - we’re leaving the place we have called home for the past fifteen years, probably for the final time.

I arrived in Brixton back in the summer of 1995, full of hope, high on optimism and with a huge appetite for ambition. None of these have been played out to their full potential, but I feel that I am leaving London as an all round better person.

I’ve been enlightened, enriched and inspired by London. But it comes at a high price, both financially and physically. London demands everything of you. There’s no hiding away if you want to experience the benefits that this city has to offer - you’re either in or you’re out.

I want out.

After fifteen years of running around town, it’s time to come up for some air. We both need a break, and one that allows us to put our feet up, laze around in the garden with a bottle of bolly and just generally live a slower pace of life.

Plus if truth be told, the tipping point came last summer when South London Yoof decided to camp out on my newly varnished front garden fence. It wasn’t particularly anti-social behaviour, but then neither was my response of blasting out some Billy Bragg from my front bedroom to shift South London Yoof along.

I just want a bit of peace, space and respect, bruv. I can’t find that in Sunny Stockwell any more. I live in fear of becoming what I despise - a right wing bigot, albeit with some sense of justification, given the actions of those around me in my current surroundings.

We have lived in the city for fifteen years because we wanted to. We wanted the convenience of being close to the cultural capital of the world; we wanted the opportunities that living in such a densely populated environment presented, and most of all, we wanted to be part of something that was much greater than we as individuals could ever be. London allowed us to live this lifestyle.

But that period in our lives is now in the past. We’re both ready for the next phase, searching for more solitude and a less frantic lifestyle - and yeah, one which probably involves keeping a well stocked wine cellar and not feeling guilty about procrastinating and enjoying life for itself, rather than with a specific reason to achieve or obtain career fulfillment.

I’m failing to find the love that I once had for this great city. Weekends of hunting down specific events or meetings are long gone. The enthusiasm for anything outside of my micro #hyperlocal patch of South London is non-existent. I’m even struggling to see anything of interest for me around here locally. A man who is bored of London is bored of life. I need to therefore try and find a new life out in the wilds.

I’m giving up pretty much everything that has been my social existence for a third of my life: the korfball club, watching cricket, the cycling community at Herne Hill and of course the lovely lido (although if truth be told, it’s not been a great season down in SE24.)

I feel that I’ve run my course with each activity. With no physical or geographical work restrictions keeping me in place, it’s time to move on. I am a nomad of technology: have broadband (just) will travel.

And so where to next? Well, we’re going back to the future to find a familiar lifestyle of old. Almost twenty years ago to the day, @AnnaJCowen and I first met as undergraduates at the University of Essex in Colchester. We’re now heading back to North Essex / Suffolk border, just up the road from the campus to the quayside town of Wivenhoe.

When we lived in North Essex, we couldn’t wait to leave for London. Weekends were spent going back and forth to Liverpool Street. It now seems that we have come full circle, and we can’t get wait to get back to the Wivenhoe rural way of life.

The city has served me well, but I can no longer keep up. I need an environment that hopefully will begin a new period of discovery. Yep - I’m becoming a hippy.

There’s a cycling club, estuary swimming, county cricket in nearby Castle Park, a sailing club and a jazz club. I think I’ll be busy, in a more laid back, middle-aged sort of way. Plus Wivenhoe is Constable country. I don’t think I’m going to take up landscape painting, but think of all those wonderful wildlife photographic opportunities.

That purveyor of objectivity and truth, um, the urban dictionary, rather helpfully adds:

“[Wivenhoe ] Small town in North East Essex. The town is home to an abnormally high percentage of musicians, artists, actors, and assorted TV and media people. The University of Essex at the top of the town is famous as a Communist stronghold in the 1960′s - the town also was home to The Angry Brigade at that time.

The Wivenhoe Folk Club is recognised as one of the best in the country, and regularly attracts big name acts. Other Essex villages consider Wivenhoe to be full of drunks, layabouts, hippies, arty-farty types, Pot-Heads, gays, and prozac-dependants. Small wonder then, that it was recently rated as the second most popular place to live in the whole of the UK.”

Blimey.

We’ve bought an old Victorian cottage with views out across the North Essex estuary. We’re keeping our properties down here in South London, still doing the landlord and tenant nonsense. Needs must. Plus you never know when you might miss the mean streets of Sunny Stockwell and long for a return.

Or maybe not.

As for m’blog? Well, it never really was about South London per se - more about my life in South London. The Wivenhoe lifestyle will undoubtedly present many new opportunities, and I’ll probably end up blogging all about these.

The countdown to the North Essex coastal adventure started in earnest some eighteen months ago when the plan was first hatched. We’re now approaching the Sunny Stockwell end game, with all the final arrangements being put in place.

Many, many thanks to everyone who has helped to make our London life so special. The memories will remain (um, online…) as we reach out to create new ones.

London loves, the misery of a speeding heart.

Time for the Great Escape.

One by one, and the Golden Days of my South London summer are starting to slip away from me.

I lost le velo last week. Herne Hill and the fine folk of Velo Club Londre will no doubt be rolling out each weekend until the Ride of the Falling Leaves. My velo days came to a close early September with the sad selling of my track bike.

Swimming @BrockwellLido is being stretched out until the end of September this summer. I have so far resisted the urge to slip into my wetsuit. An early morning water temperature of seventeen degrees is proving to be the perfect kick-start for the day.

And so having lost track cycling, and the days drifting for outdoor swimming, Friday saw Old Father Time ringing the final bell around The Oval. Time has been called on my South London cricketing fun - and I don’t mean in the bar at the Long Room, either.

@AnnaJCowen and I first started watching cricket at The Oval back in the heady days of the summer of ’95. We gatecrashed the @surreycricket Glory Years, and have been dining out (and drinking) on the experience ever since.

Drunken staggers down the Clap’ham Road back to Sunny Stockwell soon became a thing of the past. We loved our Oval experiences so much, we bought a house within earshot of the umpire’s bell.

Blimey.

Much like the weather, the memories over the past fifteen summers of South London bat and ball are somewhat hazy. Cricket is a sport that wasn’t invented to watch stone cold sober. Stats and figures are all well and good, but that’s what the annual Surrey Member’s Year Book is for in years to come as we sit back and reflect.

As for the final, final Oval trip - it wasn’t exactly over and out on a high. A solitary one run from the @surreycricket, um, legend that is Kevin Pietersen, and a second innings collapse on par with my Long Room slumbers. It should see us through the long winter months.

As for the future?

C’mon Notts the ‘rrey, um, the ‘Sex.

Oh Lordy.

County Championship Division Two, The Oval: Surrey 430-5 v Northants.

A break in the working day. Off to catch the final session of play at The Oval. C’mon the ‘rrey!

Splendid bare chest action around The Oval. Mr Ramps on 75, looking strong for century.

Not quite cricket tweet of doom, but Walters pulls, catches thick edge and caught for fine 31. 284-5 @surreycricket.

Mr Ramps looking relaxed on 88. The Master key to holding @surreycricket innings together. 298-5. Observing that blokes have strange toes.

300 up for @surreycricket and third batting point of the day. Decent crowd at The Oval. Can’t beat the drama of County Championship. 300-5.

The good @surreycricket informs me that the ‘rrey have highest number of batting points in Division. Which suggests we can’t take wickets.

Watching tea interval pitch invaders at The Oval. Remembering the time when @FreeSouthLondon buried a Sth Ldn time capsule at centre wicket.

Oval bell ringing. Umps strolling back out into the middle. Key final session. Keep Mr Ramps at the crease until morning & @sureycricket ftw.

Righto. Work beckons. Back to SW8 base. 316-5 @surreycricket. A decent first day of play.

Friends Provident t20, The Oval [cripes]: Essex 174-6 (19.4 overs) beat Kent 171-6 (20 overs) by four wickets.

Off to The Oval for some t20 twaddle (and confusion.) My *shhh* new home team of um, Essex, are playing Kent. Cripes.

At a rather empty Oval. Essex Vs Kent t20 experiment in South London seems to have backfired. Hopeful of a good game. 20-0 Kent in the 3rd.

Nice of the Surrey fox to turn up. Oh, and @AnnaJCowen. 25-0 Kent.

@darryl1974 thinking behind Oval game was to get Essex and Kent City boys in. Seems more like @ surreycricket Members on freebies.

Major, major drop from Bopara. Essex team mates console, no doubt cursing under breath. 69-2 Kent in the 10th. Need to get a move on.

Rockin’ that cricket look, ladeees.

My cricket mistress is a tease. She has just informed me that the Oval bar has run dry. 4-0 Essex, chasing 168.

Cripes. I am actually shouting out “Esse-xxx Esse-xxx Esse-xxx” under my drunken breath. 53-1 in the 6th, chasing down 171.

@martyj21 ah, v kind, thank you. Something of #cricket sabbatical at The Oval this evening. Weird game. 86-1 Essex in the 10th. “Refreshed”

Discussing South London skyline with @AnnaJCowen from the OCS vantage point. Amazing how churches are still defining feature. 114-2 Essex.

Discussing South London skyline with @AnnaJCowen from the OCS vantage point. Amazing how churches are still defining feature. 114-2 Essex.

Classic finish lined up at The Oval. Essex need 23 off 2 overs to win. Cripes. C’mon, um, the ‘Sex.

Decent win for Essex. I think @AnnaJCowen and I will be happy as we head out East.

Ample tired and emotional folk leaving The Oval.