Dorset Tour 2000 - An Old Git Remembers

Since there has recently been some reminiscence of the club's 50th anniversary tour to the South, I have dusted off a few grainy old photos which I didn't even realise I had.  There follows a short photo-journal documenting three of the four games as well as some of the 'recreations' and 'characters' to be found on tour.  It should be remembered that there is no such thing as a bad cricket tour - they are all hilarious in their own way.  This one was a doozey.

Hambledon, Hampshire:  The Cradle of Cricket.  Two of the club's elder statesmen absorb the atmosphere of the mythical Broadhalfpenny Down.  The Bat and Ball supplied the opposition.  Oddly their opening bowlers didn't have the physique of regulars.

The tour party.  Even at 2.00 we were late starting.

Eeyore and the Duchess of Bradley take the hallowed field - the first time a Scottish Club has ever played at Hambledon.

Meanwhile the rest of us soaked up the ambience.  After some early wickets I splintered the sightscreen on the way to a bloodcurdling half-ton against the second string.  A handy partnership with Euan took us to a respectable score.

Hambledon:  a ground steeped in history...

...beauty...

...and melancholy.

Sadly or luckily, rain spared us the inevitable cuffing, but that meant an early start in the Bat and Ball.  Great mirth - even Broon was seeing the funny side.

Also the brothers Palmer and King Kerr.

Must have been one of Nick Fisher's bons mots.

Chuckie dishes out the fines.  All revenues were used for charitable purposes, i.e. they were put straight over the bar.

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Next day in picturesque West Bay, Bridport

I think this is Calum.  It's certainly not me.  Not his last ducking of the tour.

I send Dr. Astley to walk off my hangover.

A local sea dog scans the horizon for treasure ships.

The joys of the seaside.  I believe this was the day we were due to play Palmer's Brewery, following a tour of the brewery itself at 11.00.  Colin and I couldn't manage the early start so instead had a lie-in before having a plate of cold mussels, followed by a shot on the dodgems and a spin on the centrifuge at the fairground.  What better way to start the day?

North Perrott, Somerset.  "It's nice".  "Yes, too nice,"  "Have you seen the far boundary".  "No.  Pass the binoculars.  Crikey, it's in Dorset"

HCACC XI and Palmer's Brewery XI.

B. Palmer (ours, not theirs) evades a hostile volley.  His remonstrations received short shrift from the oppo, who appeared to be targeting his panama.  I think someone ran a five to that boundary. Not Brian though.

Euan gets his marching orders.

B. Palmer simulates having had an energetic match by taking a very, very hot shower.  The much cooler character in the suit is Mr. Cleeves Palmer of Palmer's Brewery.  I had hit another 50 that day:  44 runs through second slip and a six onto the roof of Mr. Cleeves Palmer's Volvo.  "Sorry to have dented your Volvo," I crowed.  "Not to worry - I'm trading it in this weekend for an Aston Martin."   Bastard.

E. Smith and Nick Fisher model the "Madchester" look popular among the yoof of the period.

Pitch inspection at Powerstock, Dorset.  Astley determines precisely where to locate his landmine.  Lord Admin saunters by.

The quaint village of Powerstock, including the Medieval church visited by one penitent pilgrim that day.  Having opened without troubling the scorers, Calum Smith left the ground in an epic strop for over an hour, during which he paid a visit to inform the angels that there was no f*cking way he was LBW.

The changing facilities at Powerstock.  Not sure who's behind the lens here.  Perhaps he was trying to obscure my identity.  Perhaps he should have noticed the message on the boot of the car.

Astley tries to locate the middle.  Waste of time.

With Broon as skipper we began amassing a solid total.  And continued.  On and on we batted.  And on.  Deaf to the entreaties of his team-mates he withheld our declaration until all hope of  a close game had been completely vaporized.

The fielder in the foreground would soon be hospitalised when Astley activated the landmine he'd planted on a length.  The next ball, to the new batsman who had organised the game and the teas and had missed his wife's birthday to play us, landed in the very crater made by its detonation and literally burrowed its way to the base of middle stump.

Palmer, a study in concentration.  Kerr, a study in relaxation.  It couldn't be any other way.

Yes, that's McGill in a tie, and he wasn't even getting married.

The evening's activities begin.  The smartness was due to our appointment at Arthur's, Bridport's celebrated seafood restaurant, where Colin amused the waitress immensely by ordering one main course, two starters and three bottles of wine.

Dr. Bradley savours the unfamiliar sensation of warm evening sunshine.  Or perhaps he was letting one go - by this stage of the tour the minibus was beginning to take on the miasma of Bombay pokey.

Broon, flushed with the kind of joy that can only be obtained by inflicting a 150-run draw on a friendly village team.  Bless.

Finally a pictorial composition of which Rembrandt would have been proud:  Last Night of the Dorset Tour, 2000.