Another long week battling with the boy for the remote control and the bottle opener.
Letters Section
I received this email the other day from Keith Thompson.
“…I found your missive from last December about Bradford PA & the efforts of one Dan Musson from the ECB.
As one trying to help our village club, whose pavilion is a wooden shack that’s falling down, by building a community hub that they & others can use as part of the development, I approached the ECB through YCC for a grant or help to get one.
I had little hope of it being realised…I have to say I was not disappointed. The reality of a village club on the North Yorks Moors & many more I know, have little in common with senior leagues & virtually no chance of getting a grant.”
The point I made in my piece criticising the English Cricket Board’s attempt at social engineering in Bradford was simply that this was iniquitous and discriminates against the vast majority of existing cricket clubs in the city.
Reverse discrimination of this kind would provoke howls of protests from all corners; so why is it acceptable this way around?
I must also make the point that the ECB do do some very good work at ground level but it seems they cannot resist this kind of futile vanity project. For their part, Yorkshire CCC may end up with simply another overhead to cover.
I suspect that, for a small fraction of the amount they will blow on Bradford Park Avenue, many clubs like Keith’s would obtain invaluable long-term assistance. Sadly, they don’t tick enough boxes.
Dear Mrs Bayne
More from the Letters section with a lovely note from our “Pro’s” mum, happy to know her boy is being well looked after.
Sadly, Mrs Bayne, I have to report a meltdown this week, albeit of stodgy cheese than anything else.
On Saturday night we had a team trip down to the Badlands; it was time to introduce David to our city centre which is a sort of downmarket Soweto.
The occasion was the Stiff’s captain Marsy’s birthday and, in a show of solidarity, three of the team turned up.
Still, it was good to show David a multitude of reasons why marrying a local girl would only cost a fortune in excess baggage charges home.
There were indeed some hefty heffers out displaying a range of tattoos that the Tate Gallery must send someone to see; abstract art this most certainly was.
As a responsible coach I had to leave early but, as I had endured our lovable if eccentric Stiffs wicket-keeper bemoaning his current batting slot of number 11 (we don’t have a 12), it was tempting to down a few more beers.
Cricket is a great game for madmen and, freed from his secure facility for one night only, our keeper was in full flow but, trust me, you do not want to look after BVCC Under 15s with a hangover. Home it was.
David seemed keen to assist me the following morning but that was before the local homeless tramp – 1st team captain Joe – convinced him to stay out, most likely as David would be paying for the beers and Mrs Lawrence had changed the locks again.
I did my best to make as much noise as possible to rouse your boy from his pit the following morning – please tell him the sheets will not make their own way unassisted to the washing machine – but to no avail.
In the kitchen was more evidence of a very bad night following the Captain’s Diet Plan, with a cardboard box from Real Pizza Innit, a cosy little joint run by the Khan brothers in the village, not noted for it’s Michelin starred food outlets.
My plughole was blocked with cheese that would have capped Mount Etna.
This week I have placed the boy in rehab. We consumed a cauliflower courtesy of my gardening guru Uncle Ken, father of Chair of Selectors, Chiz. That was a warm-up for the big boy you see in the picture…if the slugs don’t get it first.
I offered him the first cherry tomato of the summer, freshly picked. He looked at it suspiciously, fingering it as if it might explode before asking.
“Is it safe to eat?”
This from a boy that had entrusted his bowels to the Khans.
We had a surreal morning post a gym session. I had decided that – as much as I need some new sheets – taking David to help choose them may look odd even if the store was nearby. We grunted in macho agreement that this would look very weird.
I offered a cooking demonstration as I surprisingly found myself with time on my hands and a glut of basil. His hand remained steadfastly stuck to the TV remote, feet up and so I abandoned all hope.
When he surfaced for another cuppa he seemed hardly awestruck by my creation of basil ice-cubes for the dark winter months.
Half-apologetically I informed him that the iPod was playing Genesis, a group his Dad may like; the conversation died on the spot.
Basil farmed and cooked – very nice pasta sauce if I may add so I may approach the Khan brothers for a contract – I ventured out of the kitchen only to find the lad had caught on to another of my good habits and vanished for a siesta,
I believe the captain’s girlfriend is back this weekend so there is time for the boy’s arteries to clear.
Meanwhile, the garden overflows so I shall do my best to keep him well fed though I am sad to say there have been no batting lessons yet.
That’s all for now!
How To Ruin A School
What have they done to my old school Hanson? From 1976 – the summer of my insane and ultimately doomed crush on Chris Evert – to 1981, I enjoyed five great years at a school with acceptable, if not flash, facilities and solid, respected teachers.
In recent years they have rebuilt it, clearly using a blind architect on a Labour Government blow-it-all budget and stuffed some 1,700 kids into what could better be described as a jungle.
Headteachers come and go whilst local and national politicians pass the buck for its colossal failure. Meanwhile, parents try as hard as they can to avoid the booby prize of a secondary education at Hanson.
Coaching at a nearby primary school it is not hard to see what the core problems are, even if our hapless, politically correct Council cannot.
The kids I see, often hanging from the windows of this ugly building, lack discipline, dress like drop-outs and clearly have little fear nor much respect.
As for Ofsted’s special measures, as one wag put it on the local paper’s message boards, it is the Council that wants putting in special measures.
A sad betrayal of generations of young kids.
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