Wealdstone Corinthians v Ley Hill 3rds on Saturday 28 July 2007 

Well this is interesting; I find myself writing a match report for a game that took place whilst I was trampling over Tarn Hows in the Lake District, and I have little more to go on than that which is already in the public domain (ie scorebook, websites etc). 

Which brings me immediately to www.wealdstonecorinthians.co.uk. I logged on (as they say) on the Tuesday evening to ascertain the whereabouts of their ground only to find on the ‘home’ page a squad of 14 players already selected for the coming Saturday’s fixture against the might of Ley Hill 3rds. And it’s only Tuesday?!? 

Not only that, but a review of their own season and match reports revealed our defeat to the same opponents on 9 June at Bellingdon to be their club record victory ….ever….by the small matter of 155 runs! How interesting to compare their match report of that one with mine! About the only thing in common was the general agreement that Holly Barrett is a cricketing talent to watch out for! 

Anyway, before we left for the north on the Thursday morning, I posted through acting skipper Dave Peterson’s door (vice captain Mortimer was even further afield than me) the selected (and confirmed) Ley Hill 11 for Saturday, with a list of another 486 phone numbers should there be a last minute panic. 

A text from DP received on Friday confirmed that all was well, and we were still 11, but two minutes later another text from Iain Stewart said he only had 9 in the seconds. By Saturday morning apparently we were down to 8!! Here we go again. As usual it’s the 3rds that suffer when others pull out, but DP was able to use his persuasive powers to such an extent that eventually 12 players set off for Wealdstone (well Eastcote actually)! These included juniors David Falconer, Anthony Turberville and Ben Woodbridge, the latter two making their first senior appearances.   

This surprise allowed the opposition to utilise another of their Tuesday ‘squad’ who was summarily press-ganged from the pub and a 12 a side match ensued! DP lost the toss and Wealdstone opted to bat first. With an attack including DP, Hitesh, Umar Tanveer, Steve Bell and the redoubtable Terry Rothwell this time they did not have it all their own way and their innings eventually closed at tea with the score on 168 for 9. The bowling honours primarily went to Steve and Dave with three wickets apiece and Ben Woodbridge claiming one. Well done Ben! 

In reply, after a customary collapse the innings was rebuilt by Ian Peplow (46) and DP (23) with good contributions from both David and Anthony. With two balls of the match remaining Hill were 146 for 9; Umar decided to go for a heave and was inevitably stumped leaving the legendary Jim Rainey to face one ball to claim a hard fought draw, a vast improvement on our earlier meeting! 

Thank goodness for 12 a side! It allowed us to close on the unusual score of 146 for 10…undefeated! I must log on to that website again to see what the other side thought…..