The 2023 Veterans tour of the northern outposts of England has begun. I could stop there as everyone will realise that in this era of “spirit of the game” controversy involving someone else from Yorkshire, what may have transpired in the opening match of the tour.
Local skullduggery was definitely afoot. Coming from down south, we are accustomed to July temperatures in the mid to high 20’s Centigrade, instead the locals summoned up the Devils of the Dales, and plunged the temperatures down to a level that may have seemed like summer to an eskimo, but to our Southern softies, was just downright freezing.
The start was delayed to allow the pitch to dry!!! Why, you may ask as after about 16 overs it tipped it down again and everyone ran for the warmth and shelter of the clubhouse, apparently the Ladies are hardier souls and they remained covered by umbrellas by the retaining wall. At this point we were holding our own with the hosts, Embsay Veterans, on 59-2. The break did us no good whatsoever, the hosts could regroup and come up with a new battle plan. A very simple plan too, just whack the red ball to all parts. Messrs Waddington, 44, Robertson, 69, and Bateman, 30 not out, effected this plan perfectly. Suddenly, without warning, we were having to chase down 215-6 if we wanted to win this opening 40 over match.
The challenge started brightly enough, thanks to John Gallant and Pat Patel, an opening stand of 80 giving us hope. Sadly hope died pretty quickly, and we stumbled our way to 149-7 by the close. John Gallant’s 62 being far and away our top scorer.
Onwards and upwards to Steeton Cricket Club for Tuesday’s match. At least the sun is shining at the moment.

In complete contrast to Embsay, the weather for our visit was much more clement. Though not entirely at tropical levels, by Yorkshire standards it was half decent. Eagle-eyed readers of this column may have noticed that if there is a lot of chatter about the weather, and, of course, Steeton’s amazing capacity to provide the best teas on planet earth, then there is not much to write about when it comes to the cricket. Which means that we were defeated again, if not quite so soundly this time. The fielding again was to let us down in the early stages, and we were made to pay a heavy price for the indiscreations. On the converse side there was a few highlights, Paul Wakefield’s caught and bowled from his first ball to dismiss Steeton’s top scorer, Freemanis for 66. John Morgan becoming the first bowler to record a three for on this tour, and three stumpings for Mark Paget, not all involving his hands. All this allowed our hosts to amass 222-7 off their 40 overs.
Our reply did not go according to plan, but did go according to form. There were a couple of highlights, John Stuck, promoted from umpire to number three, scoring 64, and Pat Patel, relegating himself from number two to number six, adding a very handy 53 to atone for earlier mishaps. Not too much to be said about the rest, so I won’t. All this amounted to a reply of 184-7.
We learn from the experience and move on to Skipton for today’s attempt to break the tour duck.

So Wednesday arrived on schedule at midnight, and when the daylight hours arrived there was a sighting of the sun through the windows of the hotel. Unfortunately, meteorogically the sun did not really make a lasting visit, so everyone set off for Skipton under fluffy clouds of colours various. Our opponents the strangely titled Skipton Church Institute. Any connection with the Women’s Institute remained hidden from view.
After a fairly long wait, until around 2pm, the match finally began with the Skipton Church Institure only having nine men we lent them one and also supply an additional fielder when required. On a pitch where the average bounce was about five inches off the ground the hosts batted first. The tempo wasn’t great but they did managed to avoid losing a wicket until the 20th over when the score had reached 69. In the interests of uniformity the second twenty overs saw the scoring rate increased only marginally. Hence a final total of 150-7 was recorded in the book. However, that does not tell the full story as three batsmen pulled strange muscles and struggled to continue without limping from one end to the other. One even found it impossible to continue and he retired hurt. There is a rumour that Ken Greenaway was trying to claim his demise as a wicket as his tally for the tour still stands on 0.
As for the Two Counties reply, should it be recorded as an eight wicket win, or a seven wicket win, as Paul Wakefield retired having reached 51. John Gallant batted throughout for 47 not out, and Nick Meakin eventually managed to score more than six, reaching 25 before departing. His downfall brought Andy Gallant to the middle. He got off the mark with a two, and then departed to his second delivery, also bowled by a delivery that skimmed the top of the grass!
Victory was attained with eight overs to spare. The long wait for another win in Yorkshire had been ended.
Now we are off to Sutton-in-Craven, and hopefully the arrival of the ice cream van.

It is fairly hard quite to know where to begin with the account of Thursday’s activities, but for me, personally, it would be the fact that one of our number parked in such a reckless manner that the ice-cream van driver could not get his chariot of lovely goodies into the Sutton-in-Craven ground. A good reason for a hefty fine if there ever was one.

Anyway, on to the action itself, and yet again the hosts were given the opportunity to ran riot with the bat, and true to our form this week, they did. Adjmal Chowdry, and Stuart Tillotson, and then Justin Early, just in too late as far as we were concerned, all plundered runs, the first two both “retiring” with 80 and 50 respectively. Justin Therightplaceattherighttime added 43 as Sutton-in-Craven rattled up 225-9. Paul Wakefield took 3-17 and John Morgan 2-40, which meant they ended the tour as joint leading wicket takers with seven each. Sadly, Chuckle Brother Ken failed to register a single wicket, all tour, from his berth as opening bowler!

Our reply began with good intentions, but somehow never quite built enough momentum to challenge for victory. Paul Wakefield and John Gallant added 113 for the first wicket before Wakefield was caught and bowled for 49. Nick Meakin came and went in a flash, before Gallant and Pat Patel gave us a slight chance with a partnership of 73. It was ended with John’s demise for 78. However, his tally of 203 runs for the week was our best. Pat struck some lusty fours in his 40, but by the time he departed our goose was cooked, and we ended the tour on 207-5.

Once again we thank all of our hosts for their hospitality. Then as sure as night follows day, on Friday the temperatures soared, but we were on our way home, left to listen to the action from the nearby Headingley ground.

Fixtures 2023b

Click on the link above for the Veterans 2023 fixtures.

Full details of the Over 50s Annual Dinner on April 1st are included in the document attached.

TC Dinner Letter23

After a successful period as captain of the Over 70s Bruce has decided that the time has come to hand over to a younger person. Accordingly, we are delighted to advise that Stuart Carpenter has accepted this position. Bruce will continue to be involved by assisting in the new position of Over 70s team manager. Bruce will also assist with social events such as the annual dinner and organising the food after the President’s Day game.

Another successful season for The Two Counties Seniors Family. 53 games were arranged, a record, with just a few cancelled because of the weather; the results summary is as follows:

Over 50s P24, W9, L11, D2, T1, A1, with 1 cancelled – includes the tour games,

Over 60s P12, W6, L6, with 5 cancelled,

Over 70s P8, W6, L2, with 3 cancelled.

Availability was very good again both with existing players and new ones. There were some excellent team performances, with centuries for John Stuck, Karl Storey, Rob Collett and Jim Keys and six wickets in an innings for Derrick Messent with five for Trevor Money, Martin Southwell and John Stonehouse, together with many other fine individual performances.

There were a number of highlights this year. The Over 50s won the T20 Tournament at Ipswich, The President’s Day game at Elmstead finished in a tie with the last wicket falling off the last ball of the 40 overs, The Tour was a great success after a gap of two years and we now have two Golf Days, by popular request.

We owe special thanks to the Captains, Pat Patel, Nick Meakin and Bruce Tompkins for all their hard work with team selection and arrangements for the games and for introducing several new players, this is especially important for the future of The Seniors. We also thank Eric, Kevin and Richard who were always willing to stand in for them when required. We also thank Charles Revell who organised the umpires and scorers and those umpires and scorers who stood in our games. We also thank Stuart Carpenter for his work as Social Manager, John Stuck for organising the Golf Days, and Rick Jones and Steve Isaac for the match reports and other information about the Seniors on the league web site.

We received a great welcome from the clubs who host our games, Bayford and Nondescripts, Billericay, Chadacre Hall, Chippenham Park, Copdock & Old Ipswichians, Copford, Eight Ash Green, Elmstead, Frinton, Halstead, Hockerill, Ipswich, Kelvedon, Melton St Audreys, Mistley, Nacton, Old Buckenham, Sprowston, Stock, Twinstead, Witham, Wivenhoe, and Worlingworth. We hope to be able to return to all of these in 2023.

We are grateful for the press coverage this year although we did not produce reports for all our games.

We did lose John McNally, Mark Sergeant, Alan Burt and Badger Ball this year, all great supporters of the Seniors over many years. One of the comments that we receive frequently is that everybody enjoys our games. They are played very competitively but at the same time it is important that the enjoyment aspect is to the forefront as well. Since the very first game in 1987, The Seniors have played 960 games; it is expected that the 1,000th game will be played towards the end of next season.

Everybody connected with the Seniors, be it as player, official or supporter, is a volunteer but if we all continue to join in with the same spirit and all participate and make our contribution, the playing and volunteering becomes even more enjoyable and rewarding. So, another successful season for The Two Counties Seniors Family, looking forward to more of the same next year.

John Gallant

For the full results, click here

EAST ANGLIAN VETERANS 173-4 (Mingel 103 no, Cardy 22, Tompkins 2-25) 40 overs
TWO COUNTIES OVER-70s 174-4 (Isaac 50, Martin 43 no, Highfield 29 no, Scammel 2-50) 31.1 overs

TWO COUNTIES OVER-70 won by 5 wickets

Yes, you did read that correctly, rain, the wet stuff that has not fallen from the sky over Essex for what seems like months, actually did fall over Elmstead’s cricket ground during this contest. This phenomena occured just after the start of the 27th over of the East Anglian Veterans innings when they were on 102-2. An interlude of an hour and three-quarters followed before play in this 40 over contest resumed.
When it did Stephanie Mingel went on to bat throughout the innings for an impressive 103 not out, and for the Two Counties team the highlight came when Bruce Tompkins took two in two to reduce the visitors from 150-2 to 150-4. They finally closed with 173-4 on the board. Both teams had started with only 10 players, and the Two Counties were soon to be handicapped further by an injury to Glyn Webster, though he would have batted if required, and John Stonehouse having to depart early as the match was over running it’s originally planned schedule.
Our reply started briskly, but in the sixth over John Stuck was almost, inexplicably bowled by a delivery which moved from outside his leg side to hit his off stump, 31-1. At 57, Willie Mugleston was caught behind for 12. Chris Martin came in to join Steve Isaac, and Steve immediately took it upon himself to release some of the shackles, but hitting Kelland for 17 in one over. This took the score from 62 to 80 off 15 overs, and put us back in control. Having just reach his second consecutive half-century Steve gave himself way too much room and missed the ball. 100-3 from 21 overs.
Chris Martin, 43 not out, held the remainder of the innings together, and despite the loss of Tony Keeble for 9 at 128, he, with a brisk 29 not out from Alan Highfield, took us through to 174-4 with the best part of nine overs to spare.
As usual, our thanks are extended to Elmstead CC for hosting the match, and to Angela Tuff and Ray Digweed for officiating.

The funeral service for BADGER will be at Colchester Crematorium on Friday 2nd September at 11.45am.  This will be followed by a celebration of his life at Abberton Cricket Club.

The Over 60s XI match against Billericay Veterans, scheduled to have taken place on Thursday, 4th August, had to be cancelled when both teams arrived, as no wicket had been prepared on the square. No match had been played on the square last weekend either.