20 – Pay Me My Money Down
As I mentioned earlier, one of the many things we had to adjust to following our admission to the new league was the concept of the overseas player. We’d never had an overseas player in our history, unless that is, you counted Johnny Escoe.
Big Johnny masqueraded as an exiled-African Chief at the Villas, but actually worked for International Harvesters in Eccleshill making tractors that at least had some chance of seeing Africa.
Only Haighy really believed he was African but then Haighy has never been the sharpest tool in the box, his brain addled by all the home made whisky he and the critics slurp up in Critics Corner.
The overseas player remains a contentious issue; had we been able to afford and accommodate one at the outset I am sure we would have done so like every other club.
As Yorkshire found out to their cost in recent times, clinging to the “Made in Yorkshire” principle simply means you are not competing on a level playing field. However, it’s a desperately difficult thing to get just right at club level.
“Can You Play Cricket Lad?”
If you get somebody outstanding they can mask a myriad of ills and often make the team appear much better than it really is and it’s happened to teams we’ve competed against.
Drop lucky and all of a sudden an ordinary team ends up promoted and then, if next year’s import does not measure up, it’s straight back down and in that time serious damage may have been done to the development of the club’s own young talent.
Get it wrong and you spend the summer babysitting some drunken, half-wit and getting deeper out of pocket – as we were to discover.
Our first season in the Aire Wharfe was a real education as we had to get used to various snotty kids generally wearing an earring or two and abusing us verbally in savage terms from week to week in a nasal Aussie drawl.
Of course we had Andy Stoker who, hailing from Zimbabwe, claimed he had fled Robert Mugabe many years ago, chased off his family farm to help the nation’s food effort.
I could only think that by the size of Stoker, Mugabe thought he could solve a few problems by roasting Stoker. Anyway, Stoker could hardly “sledge” anybody bowling as slow as he did.
The Fake Pakistani
In the early years we just about coped without an import, indeed we latched on to the idea of a fake overseas’ player.
A local lad called Atif did the job for a while, generally for about three balls before his middle peg went flying mostly suffering under Captain Stoker’s belief that although a late order slogger he was now an opening batter.
One year Stoker pretended to be our overseas player with severe overuse of the word “yah” and spending hours strolling around the boundary edge with a carving knife terrifying the opposition and critics alike.
He would produce this nauseous, salty meat called biltong from a blood stained hanky, chop a bit off and exclaim “yum, yum I love wild rabbit.”
The following year as cash was still tight, largely due to many of the members still struggling to come to terms with the concept of actually paying for their drinks, we again took the impressionist route.
Chiz grew a moustache and spent a season as a Fat Salim Malik look-alike although he was never accused of match fixing and preferred payment in pints before being dragged off to satisfy wife Lusty Linda once more.
Villas Overseas Players; The Good, The Bad And The Downright Blind
Shortly before the start of season 2004 we finally took the plunge into the unknown. The Villas’ first overseas’ player was recruited and cost us nothing. And as they say – you get what you pay for.
Pankash the Blind
The real, indeed only, attraction for the club of Pankash was that he was free as we had absolutely no money.
Pankash’s agent, Toj Teller of Tall Tales, had assured Molly that this guy was not only a great batter but also the next great Bollywood sensation. We reasoned that even if he was useless at least we might get some decent looking women hanging around all summer.
Pankash actually looked a very stylish batter; everything was so right about his stance, his back lift and his balance, it’s just that Stevie Wonder would have hit the ball more often and on a weekly basis stumps would be splattered.
Indeed, veteran net bowler Lynton Marsden claimed his first wicket since 1987 courtesy of the luckless Pankash and was soon deluding himself that, even at the age of fifty, he could at last make it as a bowler. In fact most of us thought we were good bowlers after a few thrown down at Pankash.
Weekly along came teams came with overseas players who could actually play the game whilst we were stuck with Pankash the Blind.
As his elected chauffeur there were many long, silent journeys home where I contemplated dropping him off in Middlesborough and scarpering knowing he would never make it home.
Pankash could actually bowl decent off spin – not what he came for but a bonus – and yet sadly this was the year we opted for the tactically retarded, Stoker, as leader of the first team.
It was no coincidence that this was the year we finished bottom of the whole pile and, Saturday after Saturday, whilst the opposition racked up scores that would have been far too big on a decent track, we generally had to bat second on one of Stevo’s moon-like surfaces often “chasing” over three hundred.
Whatever the opposition score we always kept two slips and a gully and this never changed for the whole fifty overs. Pankash finally got a spell at Harden, halted the carnage with an economical 4-for not a lot and never bowled again all season.
Blake the Sulk
Undaunted, the next season we upped the ante and stumped up for board and lodgings to assist the visit of a young Aussie leg spinner called Blake.
Now there is a temptation to hear an Aussie accent and think he must be either Ricky Ponting or Shane Warne but believe me there are useless Aussie cricketers and Blake was he.
We did our best to make him welcome even when it became clear that the neighbours’ roofs were in for a peppering most weeks he came on to bowl.
As for relations with the skipper – me – back again to turn the ship around after Captain Stoker had hit just about every iceberg going, it just was not happening.
I dare not bowl him as we never got past four hundred to feel safe enough. Barely good enough for the Stiffs, he ended the season with the nickname of “Blake’s Seven” because that was how many wickets he got us all season.
Jude The Pastry Chef
The following season we simply were not going to bother until we got word of a young South African living and working at a nearby pub who was looking for a club and all for the price of a pair of boots and a bat.
The recommendations were strong so once again we held our breath and then took the plunge.
Now Jude was definitely a massive improvement at least when he played. You see Jude was allegedly a pastry chef; at least that’s what he ended up doing most of the summer rather than playing cricket.
If you paid a fortune for your wedding at the Balloon and Basket way back then let me tell you that the pastry chef had never seen a kitchen till that summer and probably has not been since.
I think he played about eight games but scored more runs and took more wickets than his two predecessors combined. With a full season from Jude we could have done very well.
Kyle And The Pink Handle Scandal
Back to the land of Oz and timely as we had won the Ashes at long, long last so why not haul one over to take the piss out of before they predictably whipped us again.
This was our biggest investment ever: air fare, lodgings plus a league fine at the end of the season for slowest over rate due largely to Kyle’s thirty yard run-up.
Kyle was a great lad despite a strange insistence on wearing sandals throughout that long wet summer and memorably sledging an Addingham batter whose bat had a pink handle.
He roomed at Lynton’s new flat, conveniently going through a divorce as every cricket team needs a marital split or two especially to assist accommodating the overseas player.
Needless to say the flat ended up not so new after fours months of Kyle and he spent the last month at my place ending up addicted to Hollyoaks, Scrubs and Muller Rice Pots.
I was pleased to be able to share the rock and roll lifestyle of a forty-something and when he left us we were all genuinely sad.
Six Hit Shrey
We opted out in season 2007 the year the new clubhouse was finally opened as the coffers had been laid as bare as bare could get.
In truth the following season had we not been offered Shrey Datta (who had arranged his own stay with Uncle Paddy and Auntie Archie Devesher) then we would not have bothered again.
Fair play to young Navjot, who had to give up his bedroom and shared the summer with his older, night clubbing brother Varun.
However, Shrey proved to be a productive, pleasant and hugely popular lad with the highlight of his year hitting six sixes in one over.
Whilst he never scaled those heights again, the Skipper – not me – kept falling for his pleas to “bat me at three Shutty.”
Each and every time Shrey got that promotion he turned from elegant and powerful to dumb and dumber.
He could bowl though and he was magnificent with the kids who loved his enthusiasm. Doubtless we would welcome him back anytime.
Time For a Break
In 2009 we did not go down the road of the overseas’ player as new legislation had made this a very cloudy issue and, ironically, had our most successful season ever.
Footnote
After a season establishing ourselves in Division 2 we were offered and accepted an overseas once again for the following season.
Although he contributed to the team I spent a summer as chauffeur and go-fer; at times it was like looking after a three-year old.
At the end of the seasonhe told us how much he loved Villas and wanted to come back having been tying up the loose ends of a new offer with a rival club simultaneously.
The Overseas is a huge investment for most clubs and there is always an element of risk. The positives are many, especially the impact on the kids.
Last year (2015) we struck gold again with an noodle addict from Durban who was a great guy to have around.
Roll on summer!
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