Covent Garden London
The heart of London's West End
Salmagundi Gardeners Cricket Club
Regular readers of the cricket reports in the Covent Garden Independent News - reports which almost ritualistically ended with an invitation for anyone with enough legs to stand and enough eyes to see to join the club - may have formed the opinion Covent Garden's cricket team (21 years old this summer) is only marginally more healthy than the hot-dogs sold illegally at the top of James Street. In fact, the club is thriving.
Under the shrewd and long-standing organisation of our Treasurer, Rob Mitchener (97), the club has generated so much spare kit that bats and gloves have had to be put away in storage - and it's not as though we're seeking to avoid wearing out such item. For instance, recently, at Finsbury Park, Jason Amesbury (83) smashed the ball in all directions on the way to his first century since schooldays. Incidentally, he was wearing the same flannels he wore at school - highly appropriate in a side which never throws out an item until it's indisputably beyond repair, and which adopts entirely the same approach to its players.
What the club will dispense with quickly is any source of unpleasantness. Sometimes this comes in the form of the venue: the pitch preparation at Wandsworth Common (578) seems now to consist solely of the highly complex art of taking down the goalposts. Sometimes certain teams require to be dropped from our fixtures: those who fail to attend, those who behave in an ungentlemanly manner, those who beat us too often. These are quickly replaced with opponents who understand the nature of a sporting contest: Oak & Beech, Amersham (pub backing onto the pitch and pavilion with steaming tea urn); London Sports Club for the Blind (private bar and chips for tea); French House, Soho (smoked salmon sandwiches and chilled white wine served from a traditional hamper).
Under the ice-cool guidance of our Captain James Tait (77), last year was our most successful season. This year promises to be just as exciting - only last night in the pub our tearaway fast bowler Mike Fox (62) announced that his younger brother might be interested in playing. Whispers of awe accompanied the revelation that Fox Minor is a mere 49.
Our treasurer this year released funds for the purchase of a scoreboard - it now being something the team enjoys looking at. The new Go-Faster Zimmer frames have arrived and both last year's leading batsman Chris Packham (102) and leading bowler Rod Birtles (95-and-a-half) have successfully tested them on the sloping pitch at Parliament Hill. They hope to be untangled by Sunday.
James Tait (Jurassic) picks the team. If you'd like to come along one Sunday and watch, you're very welcome - even more so if you're interested in playing; please contact him on 0171-240 3646. The notion that we achieve a standard in which our beginners might embarrass themselves is something our longest-serving member, Jim Monahan (2002), is committed to dispelling.
Mark Gilkes
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