Cricket isn’t my game. I much prefer rugby union or football (80 or 90 minutes and it’s done while they also both appeal to my inner gladiator, very much inner though), but on the other hand the idea of the pub cricket tour is a bit of a stunner. You don whites, feel handsome, stand in the sun for a while, get out for a golden duck (I speak from experience) and then it’s pub time in the middle of the countryside — which is why I took this photo of a framed letter that hangs in the loo of the London Inn, an ancient hostelry in the centre of the edge-of-Exmoor village of Molland. The pub has had several changes of hand since the game recorded (I know one of the players who has now decamped to Dulverton), but the survival of the memento of a long ago summer’s day (and evening) speaks volumes for the continuity and eternal sense of values that the pub has.
Good stuff. You should look at cricket again though ... there's nothing more gladiatorial than a fast bowler steaming in to bowl one bouncer after another at an opening batsman!
ReplyDeleteChunk.
I’ve no choice this evening, it’s my son’s cricket practice, maybe the bar will be open. Take your point though, 20/20 is about my limit.
ReplyDeleteThe sort of thing that makes a pub a place of people. And fucking pissheads. Brilliant stuff.
ReplyDeleteI was on that famous tour by the MCC to Hadlow Down and yes I walked away. The landlord was a legend. In fact I instigated the whole thing having moved to Molland from Hadlow Down in 1979.
ReplyDeleteVery happy days!