Sun shines on rainy day as Broad departure heralds brave new world for Fonthill
Fonthill shares honours with Old Pauline CC
By Sam Peters, cricket correspondent, Whizzer & Chips monthly.
Cricket. Don’t you just love it? On the same day Stuart Broad announced his international retirement, cricket demonstrated once again, not only its gladiatorial beauty, but also its capacity for regeneration as youth stepped forward at the hallowed Fonthill Park ground and cried; “I’m Spartacus”.
Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder but, frankly, anyone who could not rejoice in the cricketing purity on display in this corner of a Wiltshire field which is forever England, was not watching closely enough.
As tourists OPCC, who had swatted away Dinton CC on Friday night with the sort of disdain Broad usually reserves for David Warner on a gloomy morning at Trent Bridge, readily agreed to split the sides to ensure competition, literally a few supporters watched on with bated breath. And indeed, oncve again cricket was the ultimate winner.
Too confusing to report the detail (and let’s be honest an absence of scorebook and far too much Cidre Breton have already made it history) let’s just say the great yeoman of English Cricket Broad, or Malfoy to his friends, would have approved of the magic which played out at the ground formerly, and indeed currently, managed by Mark.
Two 12-year-old leg spinners, including our very own Teddy Green, stole the show. With the tourists' young wrist spinner Poulet demonstrating both control and an appetite for the fight reminiscent of a young Shane Warne in his earliest Ashes conflicts. “Are you watching Gatt?” no one cried. Green, less overtly aggressive but possessing both the flight and guile to make the local swallows encircling this beautiful ground blush, made his Guardsman father Rich stand to attention with a wonderful spell of wrist spin which deservedly earned a wicket, courtesy of smart work behind the stumps by the aforementioned groundsman, whose win bonus was claimed after the match in, would believe, bbq’d sausages. Young Green’s appetite for wickets will be well worth nurturing in coming seasons.
Who won the game? Who cares? But there was much to celebrate. Bertie Aspinall bowled fast and occasionally nasty, we’ll remember that, and Green promised much for the future. But otherwise the fiery haze and summer joy which only a game of this intensity and quality can produce will forever trump detail. Did every single person who attended this precious little field yesterday depart with their lives, if not livers, enhanced by the rejuvenating qualities of mother cricket? I’ll leave you, dear reader, to answer that.
But the spirit of Broady lives on at Fonthill Park CC, no doubt, and this writer for one could not be prouder of his association with it.
(With special thanks to Tim Jones and Mark Mikurenda for enabling this production) .
Ends.
(Thanks to Sam Peters for organisung the game and umpiring, and to Old Pauline CC for the post-match barbecue. Sam's foot hopes to be able to return to the field as part of an actual player again very soon. Pictures by Sam Peters and Nicola Jones).