Fastest game in cricketing history?

 
Competitions like this one in Llanrhian, plus others in venues like Pembroke Dock Cricket Club were very popular and some very good cricketers were persuaded to play and influence results.
That was certainly not the case in this one!

Fraser Watson supplied the details and it’s brought a smile to my face – especially since the under-mentioned Mr Nobby Howells never mentioned his batting performance in our long chats!
 
The Pub Knockout Cricket Cup was a popular competition around St Davids and Solva in the 1980s – although it is fair to say the standard was varied!

 None more so than one game in June 1983 where the Royal George took on Solva AFC in a local derby, with Llanrhian the venue. The hosts supplied a scorer in the accomplished Gareth Davies and the umpire was none other than Tony Walsh, a qualified official who took charge of games in the Pembrokeshire Leagues last season.

Neither had a very long night. The George, captained by Derek Rees on the basis he was courting the landlord’s daughter, started their innings at 6.45pm. They were done and dusted by 7.02pm having been all out for six! To be fair to Rees, he played a captain’s knock of 1, with M. Perkins also getting a run - while extras easily top scored with 4.

Solva’s reply lasted 1.3 overs – not that opener ‘Nobby’ Howells or Islwyn Phillips had a chance to hit a ball as Perkins and Joe Griffin, whose 6’3 frame and fearsome run up rather defied his dodgy bowling technique, managed six wides and a no ball between them. The other run came in the form of a bye that Mr Walsh generously declined to signal wide.

It left the football lads feeling a little short changed, but the boys from the George were able to see the bright side – with Captain Rees and co delighted to be back in the pub in Solva so early!

 

‘Evs’ forgets venue – and important gear

 

If you were asked to nominate a list of real characters in Pembrokeshire Cricket then Barry Evans would certainly be close to the top of most people’s lists during his time at Carew and Pembroke, where he also did lots of work as club chairman for a while. ‘Evs’ always had a smile on his face and something to say on or off the pitch – and laughed when he knew I had been told about this tale, which is just one of many!
 
They say that as you get older you get more forgetful and this certainly seems to be the case with our old friend Barry Evans, who arrived late at the Neyland versus Pembroke match at the Athletic Ground in the Harrison-Allen Bowl clash because he thought the game was being played at Treleet and went there first to cheer on his former team mates.

Not content with that faux pas he also admitted that in a recent match against Herbrandston he batted for over 20 overs without a protective box. Now he was facing two of the best pace bowlers in Division Two in Nathan Banner and Kristan Bennett but through a potent mix of good batting and great fortune he wasn’t struck in any sensitive little parts and managed to score 40 runs.

Now that makes two ‘senior moments’ for our ‘Evs’ in a week – and they say things go in threes so we are waiting with unashamedly bated breath!

 

Patrick shows his razor sharp wit!

 

Patrick Hannon and his twin brother Sean have been great servants of Neyland sport and in cricket he has won a string of trophies – but can also claim that =he once silenced the afore-mentioned Mr Barry Evans, albeit for a short while”
 
Patrick Hannon is known for his being a sharp-witted young fellow and he proved it at the match as Carew’s veteran all-rounder Barry Evans eventually turned up to watch his old team mates Pembroke, after mistakenly going to Pembroke first because he thought the game was being played there!

He was light-heartedly teasing the Neyland players by saying that their Athletic Ground looked lovely and that for once he could actually see where the pitch was because it looked so good.

Quick as a flash came the Paddy Hannon riposte – “Well, it’s a long time since you played in the first division so it has changed a lot since then!”

For once, even Mr Evans was struck dumb!
 
 
 

Pete arrives at the Sports Awards - A week early!

Pete Freeman is a very long-serving and highly influential coach with the Pembrokeshire Harriers, as well as being a brilliant administrator for them.

However, his time clock was a little out when he was due to attend the Sport Pembrokeshire Awards’ evening at Folly Farm.

Peter was so keen to cheer on some of his young charges (he has since been recognised for his work at the evening) that he got his timings totally wrong.
 
Pete Freeman does yeoman work at Pembrokeshire Harriers and has been recognised for that fact at previous Pembrokeshire Sports Awards evenings at Folly Farm, so it was only natural that he should be in attendance for this year’s ceremony, since some of his young charges were being recognised.

But so keen was he to be there with wife Ann that he actually arrived a week early!

His son Matthew, who coincidentally does great work with organisers Sport Pembrokeshire, was at home when he received a Friday evening phone call at around seven o’clock and assumed it was dad asking if he could pop over and watch the European Rugby on Sky.

But it was a perplexed Pete who wanted to know what time Folly Farm was due to open because he, Ann and two friends were waiting outside, in the darkness.

Matthew had to explain that Pete had got the date wrong but all’s well that ends well because the quartet had a nice meal at the nearby pub in Templeton – and were also able to enjoy the Pembrokeshire Sports Awards a week later!

 

No bathers – and no trainers either!

 


Simon Holliday is a terrific player with Haverfordwest Cricket Club and is already to enjoy the lighter moments in the game, as was clear after he read about our two instances below of his slight absent-mindedness!
 
Simon Holliday is known to his cricket pals in Haverfordwest as ‘Doc’ because of medical background but it seems ‘absent-minded professor’ might be more appropriate because on two occasions recently he has shown a single-minded ability to forget things that were certainly required at the time.

Firstly we bumped into our Simon at the Haverfordwest Leisure Centre and our short chat before he went swimming extended into a discussion of almost an hour over a cup of coffee because he had simply forgotten to pack either of his pair of bathers in his kit bag!

Then it was on to the Meads Leisure Centre in Milford Haven, where he was due to play for The Town in two indoor cricket matches, and just prior to going out to bat discovered that he had left his trainers at home.

On this occasion he was helped out by someone from the opposition who showed true sportsmanship by lending him his trainers, although it mattered little because ‘Doc’ Holliday was run out without facing a ball!
They say things go in threes and we will let you know what the third piece of absent-mindedness is for our ace run-maker – because it is sure to happen!
 

‘JJ’ has fun but later suffers despair

 

I think it is sometimes a little sad when local sports people carry their love of a top football team like Liverpool or Manchester United to extremes – but I had to chuckle when a well-known and hugely popular Fishguard rugby player told me this light-hearted story against himself about his long-held love of Tottenham Hotspur.
 
Seen in Haverfordwest’s M & S on the day of the European Cup Final was Fishguard RFC youth team coach and former long-serving player Jonathan ‘JJ’ Jones, sporting a Hamburg AFC football shirt.

It seems that he is a life-long Tottenham Hotspurs fan and was ardently hoping that the German team would beat Spurs’ London rivals Chelsea on two counts, not least the fact that some of his family support Chelsea and he wanted to pull their legs a little.

But it was also a fact that ‘JJ’ was eager that Chelsea would lose because if they won they would go into next season’s Championship League as winners, thus squeezing out Spurs as the fourth-placed English team.

He was his usual cheery self but I suspect that after he had watched the European Final he wasn’t quite so jolly because his beloved Spurs were out of next season’s Champions’ League – and Chelsea had pinched the fourth place from the Premiership!