40 Overs

New Ash Green 196-8
Gordano Valley 120 all out
New Ash Green won by 76 runs.

Having not been present for this game I can only report from the scorebook. New Ash Green won the toss and batted, and Micky Sumner was out in the first over after hitting a 4 from the third ball. Kevin Ginn started quickly, but Andy Stuart contributed just 7 to a partnership of 43 before he was out in the 11th over. Gary Browning also started slowly, eventually hitting a six before getting out for 11, which triggered something of a collapse as Jasper Holliday, Ginn (for 58) and Andy Payne all got out in quick succession to leave New Ash Green perilously poised on 92-6 after 25 overs. Andy Cox and Kieran Hoddinott recovered well, putting on 74 for the 7th wicket. Cox made 56 and Hoddinott 32 before both were out near the end, and the total was taken to 192-8.

In response Gordano Valley's batting seems to have been rather less effective than their bowling. 8 bowlers were used, though the scorer seems to have missed certain bowling changes. Kieran Hoddinott and Jasper Holliday may not be too worried to know that they couldn't be told apart, but Gary Browning might be more worried that he is apparently indistinguishable from Micky Sumner, though at least that might be taken to be a compliment to his bowling. In any event all the bowlers took at least one wicket, with Burke getting 2-10 and Sumner 2-5, and only Jasper Holliday getting hit for a significant number of runs, though I believe this was his maiden bowl for the club. There does not really seem to have been any point when it looked as if Gordano Valley might threaten to win the game, and so very little tension in the game. Perhaps the main point of interest is whether the Gould in the scorebook was Bobby Gould, who played for Gordano Valley a few years ago, and if so whether Andy Stuart once again got terribly excited and fell over himself in his eagerness to ingratiate himself….

Coalpit Heath v New Ash Green
Monday 28th July 2003

40 Overs

New Ash Green 142-9
Coalpit Heath 56-4
Match abandoned.

James Hewitt took advantage of his position as captain for the day to open the batting with himself and his brother-in-law Simon Scollar, and in fairness they performed competently in putting on 61 for the 1st wicket before both getting out in quick succession, with Hewitt top scoring on 36. After that things fell away rather painfully. Kevin Ginn scored a long, slow 7, John Howland 2 and Alex Payne, pushed up the order by popular demand made 10. Matthew Quantrill made a (literally) painful 10, struggling with a pulled muscle and Paul Sumner a rather more forceful 12. Jasper Holliday was out second ball for the first duck of tour, but the star of the lower half of the innings was Simon Duke who was really struggling with the bat. Kieran Hoddinott made a fairly quick 10 before being caught and Duke was joined by Alan Cottrell for his first game of the season, having retired from serious cricket last year. The pair added an unbeaten 21 for the last wicket, but sadly for Duke it was Cottrell who looked the more likely run scorer as he made 8*. Duke did manage 2 fours off successive balls when the wicket-keeper came on to bowl at the end, which helped him to 12* but clearly found the whole innings a chastening experience!

Duke had been so low in the order because he had persuaded James Hewitt to let him play as a bowler, and he opened the bowling with reasonable success, though Dean May, a first team batsman, looked very comfortable against him. He did pick up the wickets of two younger batsmen, and aside from his 6th over which went for 15 runs his figures of 7-2-27-2 were very respectable. Paul Sumner also bowled soundly at the other end, and initially it looked as if the game could still be a reasonable contest. However the first rain interruption ended that spell, and when the game resumed after about 15 minutes the atmosphere was changed as it was really just a case of how long would the game last before the rain returned. Kevin Ginn bowled one over in which he accounted for May, uncharacteristically trying to pull a ball only a little short which didn't bounce much and bowled him, and as the rain began to fall again, harder this time, the game only continued because Kieran Hoddinott was desperate to have a bowl. When he duly picked up a wicket with his second ball no other batsman was silly enough to come out and bat and the match was abandoned.

The second innings did contain one incident which lightened the day for many. At one stage the ball was hit with some force to the far side of the field and disappeared into a thick brambly hedge. Jasper Holliday and Simon Scollar spent some time searching for it, and a spare ball was thrown out from the pavilion at almost the same time as they found it. The game resumed, and the fielding side were slightly mystified a few moment later to see Pete Burke and Andy Cox, non-players for the day, setting off across the field to the spot where the ball went missing. Realising that they had not spotted the ball being retrieved but only seen the spare one being thrown out the fielders naturally took advantage of their helpfulness by directing them to the thickest part of the hedge to search. After a few minutes of hard effort they gave up, only to be urged back to the bushes with entreaties not to be so lazy and to try going right through the hedge. Much to their credit (and to the amusement of the fielders) they did indeed return to the damp bushes and try for another few minutes to find the ball that was the whole time being played with on the field behind them! Full marks to both Andy and Pete for making the effort to find the ball and for taking it well when they were both fined after the game for providing entertainment to the damp fielding side - it was only when the fines were announced that they realised that their search had been completely futile!

Failand & Portbury v New Ash Green
Tuesday 29th July 2003

 Heavy overnight rain and further light rain at lunchtime resulted in this game being called off before the start and a trip instead taking place to the ten pin bowling alley at Avon Meads for the NAGCC Bowling Championship. After John Howland's legendary negotiating skills had resulted in the reduced price of 3 games for £5 (normal price £5.20 for 2 games!) a complex formula was devised for arriving at a winner. The first game was played in 3 lanes of random teams, with the top 5 scores moving into the 'Champions League', the next 5 into the 'UEFA Cup' and the last 4 being in the 'Intertoto Cup', alternatively and less politically correctly known as the spastics league. The results from the first round were as follows:

Points of note in the first round were the remarkable comeback of John Howland who notched up a 'turkey' (3 successive strikes for the uninitiated) in the second half of his game to come from well behind to snatch top place. Also impressive in his comeback was Jasper Holliday who had scored 30 in his first 5 frames, including a strike but recovered to finish in the top half. Paul Sumner and Pete Burke both fell away in the second half having been top 5 for the first few frames. Thus the places for the first round of 'league' matches were decided, with promotion and relegation of two players from each league setting up the final 'leagues'. The results of the first round of leagues were as follows:

As can be seen this round was notable for the utter collapse of James Hewitt and the huge comeback of Micky Sumner, which purely on their scores in this round would have seen them respectively fall and rise two divisions. The system that had been devised, however, meant that Micky had ruled himself out of the top prize with his poor first round performance, as now had James Hewitt and more surprisingly the first round leader John Howland. The final five in contention for the title in the final Champions League were Matthew Quantrill, Gary Browning, Andy Cox, Pete Burke and Paul Sumner. In fact the title challenge became something of a side issue as Matthew Quantrill rolled back the years in a way entirely un-reminiscent of his batting this season and swept to victory with a turkey in the middle of his game to recover from a slightly shaky start. Much more excitement was generated by a side bet between Pete Burke and Gary Browning. Following their pool match the previous night when both had proved to be rubbish under pressure, but Gary slightly less so, the bet on this game was supposed to give Pete an easy chance to recover some of his losses as Gary had to beat him by more than 20 points to win £5. Looking at their scores in previous games this should have made for tight and exciting game, and indeed it was, but the excitement was generated by the low quality as both players got worse and worse as the game went on. Once more though it was Browning who cracked less under pressure - needing 5 from his final frame he scored 4 with his first ball then cleared the rest with his last to comfortably win the bet, leaving Pete to contemplate his worst ever score and live with the fact that every previous game of ten pin bowling he had ever played would have won him his bet!

The final league positions were as follows:

The overall scores from the three games and overall totals were as follows:

In addition to the main championship the following prizes are awarded:

Biggest improver: Honourable mentions to Matthew Quantrill, Andy Cox and Kevin Ginn who all improved each game, but the clear winner in this category is Simon Scollar who started off looking like he would finish comfortably last but improved by 61 points to post the 4th highest score in the final round.

Biggest Fall from Grace: Kieran Hoddinott and Jasper Holliday actually made worse scores in each successive round (though with some mitigation in Kieran's case) but the clear winner was James Hewitt - in third place and a contender for the title after one round he posted two successive scores of 93 to slump to 9th place overall.

Most Consistent Performers: Both Paul Sumner and Simon Duke had all three rounds within 4 points of each other, but Paul Sumner takes the award for having the smallest percentage difference.

The Leaving It Too Late Award: Three contenders for this - honourable mentions go to John Howland for slipping up in the 2nd round to miss out on the final Champions League, so in theory finishing 6th in the club championship despite being 2nd highest overall scorer, and to Micky Sumner for making 136 in the second round after his 81 in the first had left him in the Intertoto Cup and so out of the running for the overall title. However the winner is Andy Stuart for making 132 in the final round after two sub-100 scores had left him stranded at the bottom throughout.

The Folding Under Pressure Award: Honourable mention again to John Howland for missing the final spare that would have allowed him to complete another comeback and relegate Andy Cox from the Champions League for the final round, but again a clear winner in Pete Burke for making his first ever score under 100 to allow Gary Browning to beat him by more than 20 points and win their bet.

The Big Spinner Award: An award to recognise that Simon Duke was the only person to bowl with a proper technique and curl the ball back in to the pins…unfortunately he still got the lowest score!

The Trick Shots Award: Yet another honourable mention for John Howland, who seems to have had a day of runners up spots, for clearing a split by edging one pin across into the other, but another clear winner in Kieran Hoddinott who produced a series of outrageous shots culminating in his extraordinary run up and bowl the ball under one raised leg to knock down the one remaining pin and make a spare!

The Art Imitating Life Award: An award for Andy Payne who arrived very late, joined in the final game in the Intertoto Cup and started by driving his first ball magnificently for 4 before immediately being caught in the covers…or alternatively got a strike first ball and was rubbish thereafter.

 Temple Cloud v New Ash Green
Wednesday 30th July 2003

Another day, more rain, another game called off. Today's entertainment was Pitch & Putt at Victoria Park in Bath. Some 10 players and one player's wife eventually set off round the hilly 18 hole course, enjoying magnificent views from the top of the course when for about one hour the weather was the best of the whole week. All scores were not counted, but Pete Burke seems to have been losing more money and Paul Sumner may well have beaten all the 'pros' and made the best score of the day, something in the low 60's. In a lower quality, but still tense, match up ahead John Howland and Micky Sumner enjoyed a tight duel, though both struggled so much under pressure that they almost let Matthew Quantrill come back from 5 shots behind with 3 to play. They both ended up on 74, but Micky won on the 2nd hole of a sudden death play off by chipping in from 20 feet off the green to consign Mr. Howland to yet another runner's up spot.

Barrow Gurney v New Ash Green
Thursday 31st July 2003

Already the worst tour in New Ash Green history from a weather point of view the final day extended that record with a third consecutive washout. Slightly more progress was made in that the team (or some of them) did reach the ground - but this was only because no mobile phone numbers for the touring party had been passed on to Barrow Gurney - the game had been cancelled early in the morning. This deprived the team of the opportunity for a visit to the Pizza Hut all you can eat lunch time buffet following the morning's ten pin bowling, much to Andy Stuart's chagrin. The bowling featured two new entrants in Alan Cottrell and Sarah Stuart. Alan proved that he would have been a contender for the Champions League had he taken part in the championship, while Sarah performed well and would probably have escaped the Intertoto Cup with her final performance. Matthew Quantrill could not maintain the consistency of his Tuesday performance, but was again overall top scorer with John Howland very close behind making the biggest single game score. Andy Payne and Gary Browning both showed flashes of inspiration but collapsed under pressure when they had the chance of high scores, and both had one very poor game.

After the bowling the convoy broke into many parts as they attempted various different routes to Barrow Gurney, and following phone messages from the first arrivals many did not make it at all. Most had been prepared to return to Kent after the game and so simply headed for the motorway, so the dampest of NAGCC tours ended in a very desultory manner with no final drinks, fond farewells or tour meals. Even sadder is the news that a heatwave is forecast for next week when we are all back at work!