Way back in a time almost forgotten, when England could play football and we were but pimply young kids trying to begin to master the vagaries of bat and ball, Dandelion & Burdock and girls, there cut a patriarchal figure at the Villas who was universally respected.
Ernest Jackson was the club’s captain so far back Brian Haigh was a pimply youngster.
The picture shows him in the company of dearly departed Villas stalwarts, Tom Brown and Ken Teasdale. In that same team too was Critics’ Corner season ticket holder, Granville Lawson, who still supports us whatever crap we offer up most Saturday afternoons.
They made them tough in those days as Haighy testifies in a story from The Good Old Days (Fifty Not Out – Ch4) as follows.
“I made my first team debut but I had no boots so the Treasurer, Sidney Wilson, bought me a brand new pair of buckskin boots. I got a bollocking from Ernest Jackson, our captain, after getting two quick wickets with the opposition labouring.
Ernest didn’t want the two out as in came Eddie Paynter, ex-England captain, who promptly smashed a hundred; my team mates were livid at me for taking wickets! Nay, how can a young lad understand that one?”
Ernest was a postman and with a Half Holiday League team in the Sixties the club had an influx of postmen. Even the tea lady for these matches – Gladys Betts – was a postwoman.
One of my earliest memories of Ernest was his legendary mantra almost stamped into us as youngsters: “You play good cricket you win, you play bad cricket you lose.”
He commanded respect even though few of us had ever seen him play though one day when he tried to discipline us for assaulting an old wooden bench with the heavy roller – we were inquisitive types – we failed him badly.
We were not being intentionally disrespectful and it was really the fault of the club’s stray dog – Muzz – who was once again mounting his latest target.
Muzz was an old black cross-breed who seemed permanently on heat and was soon giving it what-for whilst Ernest’s attempts to make us see reason amongst the wooden debris were falling on deaf ears; widening grins and stupid looks spread across us like a plague.
As Ernest unstrapped his belt to give us all a good seeing to – they had not banned the birch back then – we could not stop falling about as Muzz howled in agony, stuck end to end to his conquest.
Amidst louder and louder howls – from the dogs and us – Ernest gave up as a lady from an adjoining house marched out with a bucket of cold water to free the canine duo. I am sure it put many of us off the thought of nookie for years to come.
Ernest, as was typical of the man, saw the funny side and left us with a weary shake of his head relieved at least that he did not have to have a “birds & bees” chat with us for another few years yet.
Ernest passed away to be survived by Margaret his wife who opened our current changing rooms, a far cry from the draughty wooden hut that Ernest had spent most of his playing career changing in.
However, the Jackson legacy continues to this day with generous sponsorship from the family in support of the latest crop of young, pimply hopefuls who may one day continue the great traditions of this little cricket club.
Without them and the numerous others who dip into their pockets without need for attention who knows where we would be.
Footnote
Anybody who enjoyed this bit of nostalgia may well also enjoy a piece from a few years ago supplied by Pat Sowden – Old Villas Memories.
Exit!
Where’s Iceland you might ask? Isn’t that the distant frozen place where they went bankrupt thinking way above their station back in the financial crash? Talking about thinking way above your station…
Once again a bunch of pampered, grossly over-paid and over-rated serial non-achievers limp weakly and pathetically out of a major football tournament with millions of un-sold Nike kits winging their way to faraway shores.
Kids in African villages keenly await England’s regular humiliations in expectation of a container load of new kits.
The nation wails as pundits fear for their gilded arses promoting a game we are crap at and which only serves as a money pit for hordes of foreigners to test the pronunciation skills of commentators and the appreciation of diving judges.
We breezed through qualification playing a bunch of nations few had heard of. For years English football has been drugged by television money into a deluded sense of being; put simply, we are crap.
Meanwhile, our rugby union team arrived back having beaten Australia 3-0 in their own backyard to barely a whimper; real sportsmen doing a real job and making history to boot.
Our cricket team have just completed an efficient – if expected – mauling of Sri Lanka, much better at cricket than Iceland are at football. And England’s ladies are battering Pakistan as expected.
Sadly, you will all be tuning in again come the start of the new season, filling Mr Murdoch’s pockets, as a new television deal kicks in to further inflate the bank balances of our mediocre players.
Comfort yourself that the average Premier League salary will zip past £100k a week courtesy of this new deal; all aboard the gravy train!
Midsummer Madness.
There’s only so many drenchings a man can take in the typical English summer and, by now, I’ve had my quota.
So, last Saturday when we were made to stand in the field for well over an hour by two umpires oblivious to anything weaker than a tsunami, I could see the plus side of assisted euthanasia via a cricket stump.
And as grumpiness comes with the territory, pneumonia is unlikely to have one searching for the bright side of life.
Still, as the heavens opened the other day and me and thirty primary school kids got hosed to the skin, I could not resist an impromptu version – bad dancing and all – of “Singing In The Rain”.
Credit to the little mites they all joined in and there we were, madness personified, as English as English can be.
Have a great weekend…and hopefully a dry one.
Cath wilson says
A great read and nice to see a mention of my grandma, the tea lady of the time.
Graham Morgan says
Hi Steve
Great stuff as usual.
I am writing to give Wales a huge plug – and not just on the back of last night’s result or the fact that my name is Morgan and my dad was from Bridgend in the Valleys.
For some years Wales has been showing England how to get things right in the areas of Sport and Education. The reason that it is able to do this is because Wales still values family and community. Check out Stella on TV to get an idea of what I am talking about.
Wales Sport is doing excellent work – something that is not always said about our own sporting quangos – The Youth Sport Trust, Sport England and AfPE (Association for Physical Education).
Wales Sports tries its best to support sport in Wales, elite and grassroots – rather than trying to shoehorn sport in Wales to do what they want for their own organisation’s agendas. Sport is the clear priority – as played by the masses not “strategically planned” by the few blazers in power.
Similarly in Education, Wales puts children’s health and wellbeing firmly on the agenda – because children are more important than academic exam grades. Any parent, or education system, that does not put the health, happiness and personal development of the next generation above the data they produce for a ridiculously misguided examination mantra, needs to consider their position.
Wales spirit of family and community is to be cherished and protected. So many of your postings echo those wonderful days when England still had the same values.
I know with so many society changes we cannot cling on to the past but family and community are surely timeless values? Now, where that leaves Brexit……..?
Cheers
Keep up your excellent work at the club – and online. You always cheer me us – even when you are ranting!
Graham