Golden Moments

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Our brand new feature kicks off with Chris Horton's top Golden Moments...

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Golden Moments

1. Higham Lane II - Stroller's greatest win

Paul Oldham still rates this as one of the best victories achieved under his captaincy and what a good one it was too. They batted first and hit 201 before declaring. In those days a score in excess of 200 was pretty much insurmountable and we were realistically looking at salvaging as good a draw as possible. Yet thanks to a good team batting performance, in particular from Stan Riley and Matt Wood, Atherstone nudged ever closer to the target and incredibly overhauled the mammoth score set by a very demoralised Higham Lane. Ironically, the win was sealed in one of the extra overs Atherstone picked up via the declaration, a rule which effectively buys the dominant side batting first more time in which to bowl out the chasing team. Suffice to say Higham Lane were shell-shocked!

2. Austrey (Sunday) - Cakey's tits stop play

As I remember, the game was over as a contest and Matt "Cakey" Bates was coming into bowl. I think Martin Cooper was keeping wicket and Chris Horton and Adi Williams were in the slips when one of them obviously made some remark about the way in which Bates' breasts were jiggling up and down as he ran in to bowl. This caused the whole slip cordon to fall about in fits of laughter, and the game had to be held up for three or four minutes while the offending parties regained their composure, despite several failed attempts by the oblivious-to-it-all Bates, to get the game started again.

3. Chudleigh (Tour match) - Freak injury

In one of the tours down to Devon from the early 1990's, a Chudleigh player batting first and going well lofted an Atherstone bowler right back over his head. Unfortunately he didn't get quite enough on it as the ball hung temptingly in the air. The race was on as Manny Alcock hurtled round from his position of long-off to try to make the catch. Concentrating hard on the flight of the ball like any good fielder would, Manny forgot to keep an eye out for the great big wooden sight-screen that was parked just inside the boundary, and consequently collided at some speed with the aforementioned object. No one rushed to his aid as they were all on their hands and knees crying with laughter, such was the comic value of the otherwise deeply painful incident.

4. Sheldon Marlborough II (away) - Strict Umpiring

The game ended up as a draw, but both sides were pushing hard for the win. It was a hot day and Sheldon had had the better of the conditions, but with Richard Perry going well on 50 the game was in the balance. Lawrence, the Sheldon Marlborough bowler was called for a couple of wides and as a result started to lose his rag a bit, particularly with the umpires, huffing and puffing and generally making known his disapproval. Step forward umpire Mat Jones, who rather undiplomatically told the bowler to quieten down or else he would shove a stump through his neck - hardly the manner of a Bird or Shepherd, but strangely effective as the aforementioned bowler was all apologies for the remainder of the game and afterwards!

5. The Gate vs The Maid of the Mill (Rosebowl 2000) - Thrilling finish

The game was a high scoring one with both teams anxious to reach the tournament final. The Gate were a player short so as a result The Maid of the Mill had to nominate the player they would most like to bowl the final over. With plenty needed to win, The Gate pushed everyone back on the boundary to save fours and despite hitting a few ones and twos, landlord Karl Housden and non-striking gravedigger David "Dodder" Woodward required six off the last ball. With the standard of bowling wayward to say the least, rather than chase after wides as they had done earlier, Housden gambled and left balls alone on the call of non-striker Woodward. Wides were called and soon the target became three off the last ball. Another wide was sent down as the bowler's frail confidence eroded further and The Gate realised that they could actually lose the game. Rather than encourage the poor bowler, The Gate under the leadership of landlord Justin Hadley castigated him and as a result another wide went down. One needed to win. The field closed right in and with nothing to lose, Housden chased what quite possibly would have been another wide and hit it over the top of the surrounding close field to hit the winning run and secure the most unlikely of wins! The Gate were not happy, but it was a mess of their own making and a bizarre end to a game.

6. Sunday match -opposition unknown - Six and out

I can't remember who we were playing, but this chap came into bat at number three who had played for Middlesex Seconds and as a result could do a bit. First ball he clouted leg-spinner Les Day over the sight-screen for a massive six. Upon finding the ball, Day moved Dave Dennis back onto the boundary where he duly caught the same batsman the very next ball attempting an identical shot. Two balls. Six and out! I've never seen it before or since!

7. Berkeswell (Home) - The most thrilling finish

In 2000, we were playing against Berkswell and wickets were tumbling. A lot of players had got themselves out on the flat Ratcliffe Road wicket, and I was unfortunate in chopping on via my boot at number nine. Paul Oldham was similarly unlucky in his dismissal and this bought last man Steve Healey to the crease to partner number eight Vic Clements. 64 were required for victory and the deflation on the sidelines was stark.

It was a grim uphill task against a side who were quite clearly in the ascendancy. Strangely for some unknown reason, I felt myself not caring about the game at the same time as caring deeply about it. I knew that a defeat would not be too bad as we could get into the bar earlier but obviously our chase for league honours at the time would be seriously hampered. It was only a game and I had enjoyed it in the main, but how great it would be if I could enjoy it more.

It was well-known that both Healey and Clements were no mugs with the bat and often last wicket partnerships could frustrate an opposition so close to victory. I badly wanted us to win but feared the worst even though cricket is a funny game and the possibility of winning the game for Atherstone was something I would not have put past these two.

Slowly runs began to accumulate and the target looked slightly less intimidating but no-one dared to think that we could possibly win this match. Neither man could be dismissed and the pair looked comfortable. Halfway to the win meant only a repeat of what had just happened was required. Likewise, one ball could dash all hopes of what would still be a silly idea of Atherstone winning.

Incredibly the duo saw the target down to single figures and the tension really began to increase as if it wasn't unbearable in the first place. Rectums were on overtime as the pressure heightened on the sidelines and enthralled team-mates looked on, powerless to affect the outcome of the game.

Eventually the winning runs were struck by Clements. The heroic veteran duo had added 64 for the last wicket to snatch the most unlikely of wins. This stand was 10 runs short of their combined ages, at least it was prior to this pulsating finish!

8. Jaguar Daimler (Away) - Unbelievable Farce

Back in the days when Paul Oldham used to skipper the second team, I remember quite vividly a game we were playing against Jaguar Daimler at their place. For no reasons other than through sheer unprofessionalism and the arrogance of youth, the car of myself, Cakey Bates, Richard Boal and Graeme Dawson decided to stop off at the Horse and Jockey pub in Keresley en route to the game. Breaking away journeys down into more manageable chunks was not uncommon in those days. Stopping for no longer than ten minutes, we drank our pints and in Boaly's case a coke and made our way to Jaguar. Only we got lost.

After asking a few people as to where they thought Jaguar was, we ended up at Jaguar's social club which was not, alas, the place where they played cricket. Here we asked for further directions which were convoluted and roundabout to say the least. We thought that if we got fairly close we could at least ask somebody else nearer the ground and get there in time for the start of the match, as time was now beginning to tick away rather rapidly.

A succession of one way streets and traffic lights all conspired to turn this relatively simple journey into a farce and when within half a mile of the ground we decided to stop the next passer by to ask for the final instalment of our directions. Could we find anyone? Not a chance! We toyed with the idea of knocking on someone's door, but decided that there must be someone walking the streets somewhere and that we would find them very shortly. We drove for what must have been ten minutes looking for absolutely anyone on this nice Saturday afternoon in Radford, all the time muttering that we should have knocked on someone's door.

At this stage, bloody-minded determinedness had taken over, and the quest to just find a passer-by had become far more important than anything else in my life had ever been, let alone getting to the game! Such was the wait that we thought that when we eventually would find someone, we would be guided to the ground by some divine heavenly angel, reassuringly offering concise and simple directions, lending us her leather-bound AtoZ and wanting nothing more in return other than for us to provide her with numerous sexual favours at a more convenient moment in the future. Instead, the people we were about to encounter constituted the most ramshackle collection of social inadequates and bumbling brain donors seen outside of Bedworth. In fact, these simpletons had probably been wandering the streets for months trying to remember whereabouts they lived!

We asked this old lady who was unsure as to which way round left and right were. The next person we apprehended was a West Indian gentleman with such a strong accent that he could have been committing verbal assault on us for all we knew, which is something we expected on arrival at the said ground. By now we knew that the proverbial faeces were going to hit the fan in no uncertain terms, as the game must have started and we were just praying that Stroller had won the toss and batted.

We were ignored by somebody, and the next person we consulted didn't even know what Jaguar was. Before we knew it we were back with the mental lady we had met ten minutes earlier. It seemed that everything that could possibly go wrong was and we would simply get blamed for stopping off for a pint when this in effect constituted only a very minor part of the reason behind our lateness.

Upon arrival, some 20-odd minutes after the start, someone in the car made a hilarious wisecrack as we were coming around the corner into the car park. As a result we fell out of the car laughing which was totally the wrong impression we wanted to portray as all along we had all felt pretty bad about letting the others down. It looked so much as though we had been having a laugh down the pub when really the emotion was one of relief at having finally battled through the most ridiculous set of circumstances this side of a Fawlty Towers script.

Fortunately, we were batting, and the Captain was at the crease so our rollicking was to be delayed. Naturally, there was the panic of having just seven players to share the umpiring, scoring and constitute a makeshift batting line-up, so we immediately changed and moved in to help out. Unfortunately, as seemed to befit the day, farce was never far away and somehow one of our number managed to mess up the score-book, robbing Oldham of at least half a dozen runs and ultimately a deserved half-century. Suffice to say when he was out for 49, he headed straight for the changing rooms. Steaming, he emerged and quickly proceeded to undertake a walk around the boundary that took him about an hour to get two-thirds of the way round before going back into the middle to umpire the last fifteen overs. I think we won the game but I honestly cannot remember nor indeed care!