The ‘League of Nations’ and the Battle of the Shilling Ticket

County Championship. Somerset v Kent. 20th, 22nd and 23rd June 1959. Taunton. First Day.

My father was a musician and a good one by the account of those who knew about such things. The consequence was that his entire sense of timing was applied to his music. He had none left for anything else. As a result we were late everywhere we went and for everything we did. Cricket was not spared. Not even Somerset cricket.

20th June 1959 dawned full of expectation and my heart beat fast. It was the day of my second visit to the County Ground in Taunton. I was eight and Somerset cricket was already burned into my soul. A fact that drove the emotion, the elation and the anguish, of all that followed. My grandfather and father had come armed with Somerset membership cards. The only flaw in the plan was that getting to the ground depended on my father driving us. His sense of time absent, as always, we arrived 35 minutes late. Details like that stuck in the mind when it was only your second Somerset match.Read More »

Cider and hops ~ 1967-83

Somerset v Kent in one-day cricket – from the 1967 Gillette Cup Final to the 1983 NatWest Trophy Final

From 1967 to 1983 Kent were one of Somerset’s main one-day rivals. It was a decade and a half marked by periodic set-piece matches between two great one-day sides. The Somerset teams of the time contained such great Somerset names as Viv Richards, Ian Botham, Tom Cartwright, Peter Denning, Vic Marks, Joel Garner, Hallam Moseley, Derek Taylor, Roy Virgin, Mervyn Kitchen, Peter Roebuck, Graham Burgess, Colin Dredge, Brian Close, Brian Rose and in the very first match Bill Alley and Ken Palmer. For Kent there were Colin Cowdrey, Mike Denness, Asif Iqbal, Alan Knott, Derek Underwood, Alan Ealham, Bob Woolmer and John Shepherd; and for both sides, as they say, many others.Read More »

Somerset rampant

RLODC (50 overs) South Group. Somerset v Surrey. 18th May 2018. The Oval.

In 2018 Somerset made their best start to a County Championship season for a quarter of a century. This was the first match of the Royal London One-Day Cup campaign.

Toss. Somerset. Elected to field.

My coach from Somerset carefully times its journey to ensure I miss the first 15 minutes of any match starting at eleven o’ clock at The Oval. I arrived at the ground in a slightly disoriented state after changing tube trains at Kennington. I had hopped on the next clearly indicated ‘southbound’ train only for an equally clear announcement to inform me the train was going northbound to Ealing Broadway and the next stop was Elephant and Castle. As the overs slipped by I jumped off at ‘Elephant and Castle’ with the intention of running to the southbound platform only to discover I was already on it and at Oval station. The next announcement said a normal service was running on all lines.

I took off for the sanctuary of The Oval only to find the authorities there had pitched in with a bit more disorientation. No bag search. A white ball match without a bag search. What is the world coming to? I really began to wonder when I reached the top of the steps into the Peter May Stand. The scoreboard said 13 for 3.Read More »

A hint to the England cricket selectors

As England continue to struggle in the West Indies I have decided to follow up my acrostic poem, ‘Hildreth for England’, hint to the selectors of a week ago with a more direct nudge in the form of a six verse song penned two years ago. For those old enough to remember try this to the tune of ‘The British Grenadiers’.

                                                   HILDY

Some talk of Vivian Richards and some speak of Gimblett,
Of Botham and Bill Alley and many others yet.
But of Somerset’s great heroes, there’s none finessed and played
With the glorious art and poetry that Hildy’s bat arrays. Read More »

Memories. Two cricketing colossi

County Championship. Somerset v Worcestershire. 23rd, 25th and 26th July 1977. Taunton. 

The prospect of Marcus Trescothick opening the Championship batting for Somerset at the age of 43 in 2019 brought back memories of two other emeritus England batsmen playing in a Championship match at Taunton. It was in a different age and the nature of Championship cricket was as different as the age. Matches were played over three days instead of four, there was no promotion or relegation and so no external pressure on most matches. Declarations to set targets where hard cricket could not force a result were part of the cricketing landscape. Fitness regimes were an undreamt-of thing of the future and players playing into their forties was not an uncommon occurrence.

Read More »

Two Somerset Jacks

Another poem with a message. This one involves two great Somerset slow left arm spinners, J.C. ‘Farmer’ White and Jack Leach. Four verses, each with a word of the message. The message is decipherable without reference to Bletchley Park. Just in case there is any doubt, start at the beginning and keep left.

Originally written for the 2019 Ashes series, after Headingley 2022 v New Zealand it still has relevance for the 2023 Ashes. Keep the faith England.

TWO SOMERSET JACKS              

Just suppose our spinning Jacks could meet awhile

And swap their tales of batsmen put to flight.

Confer about the dip and drift and the secrets of their style.

Keeping the faith of the art of spin, keeping it shining bright.

Read More »

A New Year wish

A poem for the New Year. A poem with a riddle contained within it. The answer to the riddle is contained within the poem. The answer should be easy for any Somerset supporter to arrive at. But where is it in the poem? In the interests of New Year goodwill that is not too difficult either. At least it isn’t if you know where to start looking…Read More »

Memories. When the heavens wept.

Gillette Cup Semi-Final. Middlesex v Somerset. 17th, 18th, 19th, 24th, 25th and 26th August 1977. Lord’s.

Forty or so years ago a one-day match at Lord’s was rained off. Nothing exceptional about that you might think. Except in this case there was. Not least that the match was effectively rescheduled five times before it could be played, involved the movement of a Championship fixture to another date and to another ground in another county, and may even have affected the outcome of that year’s County Championship. Even Elvis put in an appearance, of sorts at least. Read More »

April’s coming

As we move from one year into the next here is a short five stanza poem to take us from one to the other … again

 

APRIL’S COMING

 

Six months moping,

Six months hoping,

Six months dreaming,

Six months awaiting

April’s coming.

 

October’s heart is exhausted.

November’s heart tormented.Read More »

Christmas Day at the County Ground

As Somerset have floodlights installed at the heart of this festive season a vision of the future comes to visit…

 

FLOODLIGHTS AT THE COUNTY GROUND

THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS FUTURE

48886033-stock-vector-illustration-of-cute-christmas-elf-swinging-on-a-garland

  It’s Christmas Day at the County Ground and the lights are shining bright

But some elves were in and hatched a plan in the middle of the night.

 They smirked their knowing smiles around as they scaled the pylons’ heights.

Then removed the leds and replaced them all with sparkling fairy lights.Read More »

Memories. Greg Chappell and the elders.

John Player’s County League. Somerset v Yorkshire. 10th August 1969. Taunton.

Some memories of the format of the iconic John Player League in its first season and of the first match attended by the author. An Australian teenager by the name of Greg Chappell had been signed as Somerset’s overseas player.

Toss. Somerset. Elected to field.

2019 will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the John Player League, or as it was formally called in 1969, the John Player’s County League. Like T20 three and a half decades later the new competition was designed to attract a new audience.Read More »

Somerset Legends. Hallam Moseley.

A view from beyond the boundary…

Around Christmas 2016 some memories of Hallam Moseley were posted on the grockles.com website after some footage of the John Player League appeared on one of the discussion threads. It brought back my own memories of Moseley and his time with Somerset. In response, I wrote the following, now expanded, article as a tribute to a player who gave his all to Somerset and touched the hearts of a generation of Somerset supporters. 

Read More »

Memories. A Close run thing.

Gillette Cup Semi-Final. Kent v Somerset. 14th August 1974. Canterbury.

As the ECB confirm arrangements for the ‘100’ competiton in 2020 a return to a different world in my ‘Memories’ series. Return to 1974 for images imprinted on my memory of a gripping match which was played in a 60 overs a side competition at less than three runs an over.

Toss. Kent. Elected to field.

The 1974 Gillette Cup semi-final at Canterbury is burned into my memory and vivid images abound there. I re-run them often. The impact it made perhaps reflects the importance of Semi-Finals, and for that matter Quarter-Finals, in the two one day cups of the time. They were major set piece events which bestrode the domestic cricketing landscape like Glastonbury Tor, Dunkery Beacon or the Wellington Monument bestride the landscape of Somerset.

Read More »

Memories. Maurice Tremlett imagined.

Maurice Tremlett was one of Somerset’s greatest captains. In the late 1950s he wrought a renaissance in Somerset cricket comparable with that wrought in the 1970s by Brian Close and in the 2000s by Justin Langer. In each of the three cases the renaissance continued into the following decade under different captains.

Here the author recalls some imaginings of his young self about a player he had at that time never seen.

Somerset v Derbyshire. County Championship. Bath 1958

Read More »

Lament on Hallowe’en

The first poem on this site and the first of an occasional series I posted on grockles.com. Appropriately the first poem to appear here is about the great man himself, JC White, or at least about the original gates bearing his name at the St James Street entrance to the Taunton ground and plans to remove them.Read More »

Return from exile

I returned to live in Somerset in 2016 after 30 years living in the “Eastern Marches” of England. A time I refer to as my exile. I started to post pieces on grockles.com at the end of that season. It led to other posters on the site asking from whence I had suddenly emerged. This article, posted about three weeks after I first started to post was my reply. In it I tried to capture my love for Somerset and its cricket.

Return from exile. The author’s describes his love of Somerset and Somerset cricket.

All these years, or at least for most of the last three decades until this year, I lived in exile in the Eastern Marches of Southern England. There my white Somerset hat and maroon and white umbrella walked the streets in splendid isolation to the bemused curiosity of the local inhabitants.

With the exception of one woman, that is, who stopped me to ask the meaning of the design on the front of my hat.Read More »

“Winter well”

County Championship Division 1. Nottinghamshire v Somerset. 24th, 25th and 26th September 2018. Trent Bridge. Third Day.

Somerset entered what would almost certainly be the final day of this match and of their season with second place in the Championship guaranteed and needing seven wickets to conclude with a victory. With the now customary overrun completing my post for the previous day I was a little tardy in arriving at the ground…

Overnight: Somerset 463. Nottinghamshire 133 and 115 for 3 (f/o). Nottinghamshire trail by 215 runs with 7 second innings wickets standing.

The thought that has most often occurred to me over the years when I know I am going to be late for the cricket is, “I hope I don’t miss a hat trick…”Read More »

Business end

County Championship Division 1. Nottinghamshire v Somerset. 24th, 25th and 26th September 2018. Trent Bridge. Second Day.

Somerset started the second day 47 short of a fifth batting point with three wickets standing and needing two more points to secure second place in the County Championship if Essex took maximum points against Surrey. Nottinghamshire were still not safe from relegation as Lancashire, on 123 for 4 after a shortened first day, needed to reach 300 to overtake them and take sixth place. Essex had bowled Surrey out for 67 at the Oval and ended their first day on 197 for 2.

Overnight: Somerset 353 for 7.Read More »

Of genius and the sublime

County Championship Division 1. Nottinghamshire v Somerset. 24th, 25th and 26th September 2018. Trent Bridge. First Day.

Somerset travelled to Trent Bridge for what had looked, in the early weeks of the season, like it could have been a County Championship decider. When Nottinghamshire came to Taunton in June they were top of the table. Somerset won that match and replaced Nottinghamshire as leaders. 

Later that month Somerset travelled to Guildford where they lost to Surrey who replaced them at the top of the table. Now Somerset, with the Championship already won by Surrey, needed six points to ensure second place and Nottinghamshire needed six points to ensure safety from relegation.Read More »