9 – Secret Garden – He Who Must Be Obeyed
In order of importance at any cricket club there is probably one character that sits above them all – the groundsman – and at Villas we have been extremely lucky over the years to have had a selection of the best and most dedicated of men in whatever league we have played in. The groundsman is a cult figure; one to be feared, respected, honoured, protected and revered but it takes a certain breed to take on this unforgiving task.
Even if the very best of pitches is produced there will inevitably be somebody grumbling regardless of the hours of unseen effort here in often uncompromising conditions; usually it is the bowlers having flogged themselves all day on the dreaded “flat one” but occasionally us batters can convince ourselves we were not really that bad…it was the pitch that really did for us…even if all three stumps have been uprooted and the wicketkeeper has narrowly avoided being blinded by flying bails.
It is very tough work in the varied weather that the English climate can conjure up, indeed, our first match of the 1981 season was called off on the Friday evening due to three feet of snow. At least the wicket was white and flat – should have been a belter. Our sponsor at the time, Jack Robinson the landlord of the Five Lane Ends pub, spent most of that Friday night walking around the pub holding aloft the flyer promoting our first match as the cream of Villas got totally creamed promoting his dodgy ales. It was a good job the contest between bat and ball was deferred for another week as we staggered home through the snow trying to middle the snowballs.
Our Granville
Now a groundsman naturally takes great pride in his very own “SecretGarden” and over the years the likes of Granville Lawson, Browny, Brent, Donald Smith, Brian Davis and even Martin “The Beast” Binns have all made huge contributions to producing a playing arena envied by many. It takes dedication beyond the call but along the way it often becomes an obsession few can really understand least of all the poor wives waiting for tired husbands to return home many hours after the falling of “Darkness On The Edge Of Town”
Granville, one time captain way back in the last century and one of our staunchest supporters, will tell you that “in my day” all he had for equipment was a rusty scarifier and a lawn mower so useless he had to cut the wicket by hand starting on a Monday night and finishing Saturday morning. If you notice a stoop in his walk these days that’s all down to five days a week on his knees preparing the next week’s wicket. There was no time for any hanky panky with Mrs Lawson in the season and he tells us he used to camp out by the wicket and feed off local hedgehogs just so he could maximise the time he spent creating the batter’s paradises that left him with a career average of eleven and more broken bones than a car crash victim.
Knickers in the Score Hut?
Brent, like many of us, has done most jobs at the club over the years and in his early years he also became groundsman for a while in those peaceful periods that he and Haighy were not falling out. He approached the job with the same total commitment, which meant that when he and Haighy eventually fell out again not only had we lost our best player but the groundsman as well.
His tenure occasioned a couple of disturbing discoveries the first one concerning a local dog. Rather sadly, at least for the mutt concerned, Brent discovered Brett the canine companion of the Johnson family somewhat rigid, legs akimbo and upside down staring at the skies. Poor Brett was stone dead and, given his reputation as a ladies dog we all surmised that it had been one doggy session too many for old Brett but at least he went as he came…sort of. Later, Brent discovered me one Saturday morning in the old score hut, having slept there overnight – presumably to make sure I was at the match on time on the Saturday or more likely hiding out from my parents after another misdemeanour.
Clearly there were no early signs of any future role model / Junior Coach / Child Welfare Officer as I crawled out of the hut hung-over and with a mystery pair of knickers unaccounted for. What a shocker they may have been for dear old Nola Sewell our scorer of many, many years even though she was blind as a bat costing me hundreds of career runs every time I batted with Duck even though I’m left handed and he’s right. “Who scored that one” would often be heard from the box. Nola was an integral part of Saturdays for years until we left the Bradford Central League. And she no longer felt safe enough to ride her moped across Bradford.
The Beast
In recent years, there was arguably no finer sight than that of the outfield mower circling the field, groaning under the strain of carrying the gargantuan, ruddy-faced Beast as he so obsessively sought perfection creating those beautiful circular patterns that adorn most professional outfields. It should have taken about the duration of a football match to achieve this weekly labour of love as our field is not exactly the biggest around – but given the weight handicap, our ageing mower often went well past extra time and retired, steaming like a knackered pit pony into the garage at night. Nevertheless, the results were magnificent and woe betide anybody who walked on that outfield till the game started.
The Beast had learnt from one of the best, his father Gordon, who was to be a great help in later years to our current groundsman, Donald Smith without doubt, the best groundsman we have ever had. Exactly how The Beast learnt anything was beyond me for The Beast and Gordon seemed to exist entirely on sign language with the odd mutual grunt thrown in and yet there’s no doubt that not only did the ground look great after a cut from the Beast it also had the dual effect of the heavy roller on the outfield with our old mower heaving around almost twenty stone of blubber. Gradually, most of the old hollows started to disappear and JB had no more excuses for diving over ball after ball.
The Don
Donald joined the club, I believe, in the late seventies – not his age but the decade – before the great cull of the oldies orchestrated by Brent. Bowling that horrible stuff best known as dibbly-dobbly from left arm over the wicket and about as quick as Wasim Akram’s mum he did make an appearance in the Waddilove Final of 1981 and then went on to coach the kids later on in that decade. However, his transformation of Villas from acceptable to outstanding is his biggest legacy – although there was a very brief period when we lost him as Donald decided to take a sabbatical to go umpiring.
How would we cope? The truth, as it turned out, was not that well. As we searched around desperately for a replacement, it seemed a good idea at the time to entrust the ground’s care to our Second Team captain at the time, Mark “Stevo” Stephenson, who had recently set himself up as a self-employed landscape gardener. It was a bit of regular work, on the doorstep and he had the right qualifications. He knew how to start the mower and where the petrol went. When can you start son?
A Different Landscape
Little did we know that whilst Stevo had begun to perfect the art of creating rockeries and water features, these skills did not transfer well to the search for a batter’s paradise. Soon the wicket area started to look as if preparation time in the run up to the start of the 2004 season had been somewhat limited. Not content with allowing grass to grow unchecked on the wicket, Stevo introduced so many different forms of life we got a protection order from the Royal Horticultural Society against cutting it. It seemed unlikely to be a good year for the batsmen. And so, after another long winter, Stevo rolled up the week before the first game, mowed it, planted some lilies around the edges and there we were ready for the long awaited start of the new season.
Right from ball one I could sense trouble. Fortunately, the newly installed/cajoled/bribed captain at the time, Andy Stoker, won the toss so offering first “hit” to the opposition. Boy did they take some hits despite us fielding one of the worst bowling attacks we had put out in the brave new world of the Airedale & Wharfedale Senior League since we gained admittance. Even old “round arm” Stoker looked frightening and Horsforth were shot out for a paltry 78. Except on that nest of vipers it was going to be a hard second half.
Chiz – The Wise Old Sage
Now we knew that 78 runs were worth about 300 on that deck and as I looked across at my opening partner, Chris “Chiz” Hizzett, I could see the fear in his eyes. It was like one of those nights he feared the most, when Lusty Linda, his wife of many years, would be “up for it” – for Linda can be lively to say the least. A vibrant woman with a zest for life and all things Chiz all she needed was one whiff of the Schreiber wardrobes and Chiz knew it was going to be a long night on the nest. Small wonder Chiz would often sink an ocean of beer before mustering the courage to return home after a match hoping to find Linda snoring contentedly.
Opening the batting with Chiz is a unique experience too. Most cricketers have their own individual quirks and Chiz is no exception. His is that he will simply not speak to you for the first ten overs, reasoning that if you both survive then concentration is established, but it can make for a very lonely first half hour or so as you seek to survive the new ball, feisty opening bowlers and the usual sporting banter. And as for the modern day trend of punching gloves if you cream a boundary well there’s more chance of dinner with Cheryl Cole.
So we walked out to begin our reply to Horsforth’s monumental achievement of reaching 78 onStevo’s track of horrors with more bald patches than the amassed supporters in Critics’ Corner. It was tempting to nip across and try to cadge a wee dram before we started to mask the forthcoming pain about to be inflicted. I reasoned that if we were going to take a few blows, then I may as well get the first one in early by taking first “knock”. In truth, I was hoping that I might snick it honourably to the keeper first ball, free to walk off intact and forget the win bonus. I took strike wondering where not to pat down on the terror strip in front of me.
Ouch That Hurt!
In tore their opening bowler a young lad called Linley – who now plies his trade in first class cricket with Surrey CC – so he was no mug and a nasty, big nosed piece of work as well; I can say this in full knowledge that if he ever comes back to the league I will have safely retired to the Stiffs by then. Facing him, Chiz and I with a combined age of over eighty, were quite frankly bricking it. All I can remember is the ball pitching just on a good length and probably hitting a couple of ornamental pebbles that caused the ball to rear viciously towards my thankfully helmeted head. As it crunched into my glove, it was good to know that all those pre-season nets had been worthwhile as my finger was smashed into pieces. Save me a seat on the edge for a few weeks please – move over Browny – fill my glass up please?
Chiz looked ashen faced, not a vision of the naked Linda again surely? In a true display of comradeship he made sure he stayed at his end – thus avoiding the perpetrator of my agonies for the duration of his snarling, spitting spell of fast bowling. There was simply nowhere to go as try as I might by showing all three stumps they refused to hit them preferring clearly to keep hitting me. Thank heaven for the ECB Bowling Directive that, just as the young bowlers were getting warmed up, meant that they had to come off and rest barely breaking sweat whilst almost breaking Chiz and me in pieces.
The finger was throbbing but it’s pointless coming off, you can never get the glove back, so I stayed there and got an undefeated thirty odd, which was worth about a hundred in real money. We slogged the change bowlers frantically aware that the openers would be back soon and, unbelievably, we won the game. On reflection, this was largely due to the opposition bowlers taking more interest in killing us than bowling us out. However, the portents were not good. In a year that every fortnight we played on a death-trap our opening attack was Stoker and Rick Slater who would not have frightened my mum. It was going to be a long season. Come back Donald…quickly.
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