The ultimate 'TFC!' . . .

The match was in Brighton, the seedy beating heart of our glorious home county of Sussex.

The new signing, who proved his worth to HCC on tour by having Mr 'I Was Offered £400 A Week To Play For Hungerford' caught for just three at Brading, lived in Cambridge.

Quite a journey for a 40-over match. Good job the weather was fine and no chance of being rained off.

Shame about the virus that decimated the oppo in midweek and so were unable to fulfil the fixture.

Probably a bigger shame nobody rang our man* from the Cambridge to tell him.

But Thanks For Coming, eh!

Edit: *Mr Phil Chaplin. (Not that he whinged about not be being named earlier or anything!)

That's what friends are for . . .

My mate was having a rough time. Needed distraction from a few things that were dragging him down. Needed his mates around. Needed a sympathetic ear.

Jacko is nothing if not a good mate. Of course you can come round. I'll get the beers in. Of course it's not inconvenient, your my mate. What? Tomorrow? Sunday?

Shit. It's the one day of the season the Sunday thirds get to use the main square. Proper dressing rooms and showers. Electronic scoreboard. A real rope boundary. Benches on the pavilion verandah. Club umpires in black slacks, straw hats and their own white coats.

Sorry, mate. No can do. Hang on, tell you what, come down the club. See me rattle the furniture of a few poor saps and then we'll head off down The George for a livener.

Next day. The electronic scoreboard isn't seeing much use. I'm keeping these boys pinned to the crease. Taken two cheap wickets earlier on, but this pair is stubborn. They're not in any rush. I'm probing for the opening, they're blocking out.

Glancing up to the pav from my post at fine leg, I see my mate has turned up. He looks glum. World weighs heavy on his shoulders. Cheer up - it's a fine day, the cricket is good and the tennis courts way, way over square leg boundary are full of happy people.

Jacko is up again. Think I'll give this one a bit of extra oomph. Give this rabbit something to think about. CRAACK!! Bollocks, that'll be four then.

Lucky shot, more of the same will do. CRAACK!! Four more chalks. "Round the wicket, ump."

CRAAAAAACCKKKK!!! Holy moly - it's a six into the tennis courts!! Drop the pace. Two dot balls, then CRAACCCKKKKK!!!! another six scatters the tennis players. They're miles away!

Look up to the pav. My mate doesn't look so glum. From here it looks like the git is grinning! Spend the over nursing injured pride. Skipper offers me a way out. No chance, of course I'm up for another over.

Getting into my stride, I'm forced to abandon my run-up by a loud cry from the tennis courts: "Don't serve yet, Tabitha! It's that blond chap bowling who was hit over here last time!" I stare. The batsmen snigger. My supposedly depressed mate is pissing himself!

Take a moment. Here we go. Feels good leaving the hand, it's swinging . . . CRAAAAACK!! Ump raises both arms. OH FOR F*CKS SAKE . . .

Four. Dot. Dot. Dot. SIX. Arse biscuits. Skip tells me take a blow, another chap warms up. I've got the hump. Fume for the rest of the innings. Got a draw. Back to the meadow we play on next week . .

My mate comes over. Not a shred of gloom hangs over him. "That was f*cking brilliant!" he brays. "I was in a foul mood earlier, but I doesn't seem so bad now! Did you see those people in the tennis courts stop playing when you came on again?! Classic!"

"Don't worry," he says. "Let's go down The George. I'll get the beers in and you can tell me all about it."

WINTER? It must be time for a bit of sledging...

The following examples of good sportsmanship and gentle banter were shamelessly ripped off a number of other (ie: better!) cricket blogs. I make no apology as I'm a rock-hard keyboard warrior. Come and have a go etc . . .

As Ian Botham took guard in an Ashes match, Rod Marsh welcomed him to the wicket: "So how's your wife and my kids?"


Daryll Cullinan showed an astonishing lack of respect to the legend that is Shane Warne. As Cullinan was on his way to the wicket, Warne told him he had been waiting two years for another chance to humiliate him. "Looks like you spent it eating," replied Cullinan.

This one appears to have been said by every cricketer to every opponent, but the earliest example I've found is Glenn McGrath's splendid exchange with Zimbabwean batsman Eddo Brandes: "Hey Eddo, why are you so fucking fat?" Eddo Brandes: "Because everytime I f*ck your mother, she throws me a biscuit."

Javed Miandad called Merv Hughes a fat bus conductor at Adelaide in 1991. A few balls later Merv dismissed Javed."Tickets please," Merv called out as he ran past the departing batsman.

No querying the veracity of this one, it was picked up by a stump mic. Ian Healy's verdict on Arjuna Ranatunga's request for a runner: "You don't get a runner for being an overweight, unfit, fat c*nt!"

James Ormond had just come out to bat on an ashes tour and was greeted by Mark Waugh: "F*ck me, look who it is. Mate, what are you doing out here, there's no way you're good enough to play for England." James replied: "Maybe not, but at least I'm the best player in my family."

Another quality Aussie put-down of the unfortunate Ranatunga. Shane Warne, trying to tempt the batsman out of his crease mused what it took to get the fat man to get out of his crease and drive. Wicketkeeper Ian Healy piped up with "Put a Mars Bar on a good length. That should do it."

Ravi Shastri v the Aussie's 12th man. Shastri hits it to the sub and looks for a single. 12th man gets the ball in and roars "If you leave the crease I'll break your f*cking head." Shastri, unbowed fires back: "If you could bat as well as you can talk you wouldn't be the f*cking 12th man."

Malcolm Marshall was bowling to David Boon who had played and missed a couple of times. Marshall : "Now David, are you going to get out now or am I going to have to bowl around the wicket and kill you?"

Fred Trueman bowling. The batsman edges and the ball goes to first slip and right between Raman Subba Row's legs. Fred doesn't say a word. At the end of the over, Row ambles past Trueman and apologises sheepishly. "I should've kept my legs together, Fred". "Not you, son, but your mother should have," he replied.

6 for 54!? Damn, make that 5 for 60!

Bomb disposal squads, double agents and Michelin-starred chefs endure a certain amount of pressure and stress in their professions. Maybe the relentless need for excellence to preserve their livelihoods keeps them sharp.

But a Sunday cricketer is an unlikely chap to need counselling for post-traumatic stress or a "keep your chin-up" from the Samaritans.

There are, of course, exceptions.

Given the choice of A) being under a steepling 300ft high catch nine inches inside the boundary or B) feeling the sweat bead on your forehead as you sit in a ditch on some rusting Luftwaffe ordnance with a pair pliers thinking "B*ll*cks! Do I cut the red wire or the blue one?" - I'll take the unexploded bomb every time.

And after a particularly testing day in the field at Bolney, I'd go so far as to say bomb disposal is a piece of p*ss!

Lack of concentration (a recurring theme of my cricket career) had already caused me pain and the derision of my team-mates earlier in the innings. Nodding off at square-leg of all places, I was brought rudely to my senses by an agricultural slog that caught me right on the breast bone and I'm sure temporarily interrupted my normal heart rhythm.

Banished to the farthest boundary, I was soon more interested in the surrounding flora and fauna than the contest unfolding in the distance. But a monumental, ululating scream of "CAAAAAAAATCH!!" ended my reverie.

"This'll be good," I thought. "I know that voice, and it means some poor old sap is going to have pouch a real corker or the owner of That Voice is going to tear them a new one with some very loud and inventive invective."

So why was everyone looking at me?

Peripheral vision leaps into action, adrenalin starts to flow, soft buttery fingers begin to twitch. But I can't see anything remotely looking like a cricket ball heading my way.

I begin to relax.

But a sixth sense makes me glance skywards. Nothing. Well, except for that speck on the stratosphere. Probably just a mote in my baby blues. Well, except for the fact it is getting a bit bigger. Is that a seam?

The deep-seated, alligator part of my brain has recognised the missile and the danger it poses. But the reasoning section insists "don't be absurd. No one can hit a ball that high."

Too late, reason flees the building. It's just me and the alligator left with a few drops of spent adrenalin to fuel us. It isn't enough.

Hands cupped hopefully, the five-and-half-ounce pill slams into my collar bone at terminal velocity with a nauseating crack. For a split second I wonder if it will count as a catch if the ball is irremoveably fused with my bone structure.

No need to check with Wisden - the ball is disappearing over my shoulder. It's a six. Had I run away as I wanted to, it would have hit the floor and dinked over the line for just four.

Through my pain a hear The Voice. I'm informed my pain is just a precursor to longer-lasting pain. Pain my children will inherit until Judgment Day.

He had a point, though. 5 for 60 is still a good return. How was I to know 6 for 54 would have been a personal and club record?

"It's only game," I offer. The Voice is silenced. But the owner is on the move in my direction. I do one. Sharpish

First Change Bowler - the first innings

I doubt I am alone in having a passion for sports that, by a considerable margin, outstrips any natural athletic prowess.

At school, I was on the fringes of the starting line-ups for the football and cricket teams. Only injury to the established players would see the coaches reluctantly elevate me to the First XI, but I could expect to make a late substitute appearance if we were already in a commanding lead and my inclusion would not jeopardise the expected victory.

But every now and then I would demonstrate an unexpected moment of brilliance that meant I could never be completely excluded from the selectors' minds.

For examples, natural cowardice and aversion to pain made me extremely fast and light on my feet and therefore difficult for hulking opponents to pummel into the mud of the rugby field. And twice in one football match I scored directly from corners by waiting for a favourable shift in the wind. And on humid summer afternoons I could occasionally get a cricket ball to swing at least a yard from my ungainly left-arm round-the-wicket lob.

Into adulthood, these rare champagne moments did not abandon me. I was still 85 per cent duffer and 15 per cent capable. That, plus a willingness to remain always available for selection, meant I stayed on the fringes of various under-achieving teams for years to come.

So this is just the introduction to what I hope will be an entertaining journey that retells a score of incidents, both the heroic and far more numerous catastrophic!