Honours Even on Tour to Waldron - May 2026

MADNESS: I LIKE DRIVING IN MY CAR PARK

By Auto Trader’s Car Park Correspondent, Huw Dunnit

It’s a little-known fact that legendary American funk rock band Rage Against the Machine’s seminal song ‘killing in the name of’ addresses themes around institutional racism and police brutality. Quite what this has to do with Fonthill Park Cricket Club’s first ever tour to East Sussex, where we played back-to-back fixtures against the eminently welcoming and like-minded Waldron CC, is anyone’s guess. But a cursory google search for ‘songs including incidents of the police being called for drunken buffoons playing cricket in a town centre car park’ bore surprisingly little fruit.

Certainly less fruit than Tim ‘the human apple’ Mockridge consumed on what can only be described as a pome heavy tour for the self-appointed ‘Mr Weights and Measures’, who would be well advised to spend more time brushing up on his umpiring skills on future tours and less time consuming England’s favourite orchard-grown fruit.

I digress. And if that all this sounds a little cryptic, then sorry, but you’d better get used to it. For this tour report was always likely to be a delicate tight rope to tread. Give too much, and risk breaking the decree from on high that ‘what goes on tour, stays on tour’. Say too little, and risk exposing the whole club to more match reports “written” by the AI loving Akela Dan ‘show us your woggle’ Brickell.

The top line – as we call it in the journo trade – was that this tour was a triumph. There is nuance of course. But I’ll try to avoid that. Some distance was travelled, some alcohol consumed, some cricket played. Some of which was even conducted on the Waldron pitch, rather than the car park adjacent to the Lewes Premier Inn at 3am on Sunday morning, incurring as it did a stern ticking off from Sussex’s finest constabulary.

But above all, much fun was had. And the tourists returned home on Sunday afternoon mildly pickled through a combination of epic quantities of beer, tequila, baby Guinness and other noxious potions but entirely content that 12 good men and true had been forth and conquered. Well, played two, won one, lost one to be precise.

So much happened. So many great stories. So many fun japes. It would be impossible to include everything into one tour report. So I have taken the unilateral editorial decision (Mr Weights and Measures – IT IS NOT A DEMOCRACY!) to make this lengthy tour report almost as consumable as a pint of Harvey’s at the close of play. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I’m going to enjoy writing it. Which cannot possibly be as much as I enjoyed the tour itself. It was, in simple terms, magnificent.

Tour diary

Pre-tour prep - Weds May 6

“Well whoopdee-bloody-do!!” cried no-one as yet another whatsapp group was added to everyone’s favourite and in no way increasingly tiresome social media app. ‘Read the tour itinerary’, stated self-appointed chief Akela Brickell. Which no-one did. But Brickell, learly salivating at the prospect of finally achieving his lifetime ambition of getting the keys to a Peugeot Boxer 14-seater minibus, pressed on.

Leigh Godfrey, he of the ‘ladies toilet safeguarding three’ fame, whose eyes seem to burn into your very soul if you dare use Fonthill’s clubhouse’s ‘other’ toilet these days, had already made the cardinal sin of forgetting to tell Akela the club had a private booking on Sunday so we couldn’t leave our cars there. The first parking fine of the tour, before we’d even left.

Fri May 8 - The Journey into the Heart of Darkness (Lewes)

Early signs were promising with the bespectacled Akela’s Peugeot Boxer minibus proving relatively comfortable, just sadly not when Akela was at the wheel, when sitting in the back proved about as comfortable as having your nose sanded down with a brick with bits of glass in.  

Mercifully Akela handed over the wheel at the Esso Garage on the A36 near Lower Itchen Fishery – a God forsaken place if ever there was one - to the evergreen John Grinstead; a man with 30 plus years experience making sandwiches in the Royal Logistic Corp and frankly born to drive a Peugeot Boxer minibus with a gentle elan Brickell could only dream of.

Club jumper pulled over polo shirt, sunglasses perched on nose with his lightly tanned, hairless but muscular short sleeved forearm on the window ledge, and with ‘George Michael’s campest hits’ blaring from the radio, Grinstead was more Partridge than Partridge as he took the wheel of the Fonthill fun bus.  But my god he took the M27 in his long, lolloping stride. And boy did that old lady who attempted to cross the road at a roundabout on the outskirts of Chichester without first signalling know about it. You bloody showed her, John. You bloody showed her.

There was some frankly very unfair but relentless mockery of both drivers from the passenger seats, although notably not from former Cavalry officer Jonny Belk, who decided to go ‘off tour’ before he’d even joined it by plugging in his airpods somewhere near Fonthill Bishop and declining to speak for the duration of what proved an unnecessarily long journey.

Fortunately, some tourists chose to do that most old-fashioned of things: talk to each other. Although details around this correspondent’s tour unfinished diary story from Edinburgh University Rugby Club’s 1998 Freshers Tour to Amsterdam have been redacted from this report for fear of the club’s website being closed down. Speaking of the Dark Web, FPCC’s very own Ewen Moore was among the first tourists to see the sea as we passed Portsmouth. Which was nice.  (Please note – this is an intentionally cryptic message, also referred to an “in joke” – more to follow).

Friday night match report - Comyn flops spectacularly and Wizard Waldron triumph

Upon arrival at Waldron CC – club motto “Nives Ludum Impedire Solum Possunt” which translates as “Only Snow Stops Play” - we dumped our kit, some of it our own, and headed straight to the nearest pub, upon the advice of the village’s grand wizard. For the first, but certainly not the last time, we headed to The Star in Waldron, where pre-match refreshments were taken before Akela got the hump and threatened to remove our woggles should we not get to the ground ASAP!

We did, and duly lost, as a decent Waldron side who, much to Ewen’s endless fascination, were packed full of talented youngsters, posted a challenging total of 148 from 20 overs on a decidedly up and down pitch.

In reply, Fonthill’s very own king of pyrotechnics Henry Comyn batted as if he’d recently had his hands blown off, badly amputated and then replaced with tins of Spam, playing very poorly for eight runs before spaffing a half tracker to mid on, much to everyone’s relief.

Even the normally polite Grand Wizard, who Grinstead was set to insult the next day, appeared relieved to see the back of the misfiring Comyn. “I’ve seen some poor innings at this club, but that is right up there with the worst,” uttered Mr Willie Izzard, aka Gandalf, aka the Grand Wizard, while working his magic in the scorebook. As so often, Moore was the best of Fonthill’s batsman, taking a particular fancy to Waldron’s quickest bowler, but it was all to no avail as the home side got the better of us. For now.  

Friday night’s alright for…not a lot in Lewes

More refreshments in the Star where the predictably named ‘Wazza’, a rare Antipodean in these parts, took his seat at the bar. It is entirely possible he is still there.

Spirits were high, despite the loss, and the return to Lewes, where earlier another British Army stalwart Colonel Richard Green had shown his Officer credentials by identifying a car park (Ed – No not THAT one) which cost £10 more than the Premier Inn’s actual car park (Ed – No not THAT one either), and was located absolutely nowhere near Sir Lenny Henry’s final resting place (Ed – he’s not actually dead is he? Or are you thinking of Richard III?).

They say the British Army marches on its stomach but in our case we were marching on the last remaining fumes of roughly a gallon of Harveys most tourists had consumed on an empty stomach. So we headed straight for the Lewes only kebab house on the high street where we proceeded to buy enough doners to keep them in business until our next tour. Sated, we found the only pub in Lewes still open at 11am “The Volunteer”, where we drank ourselves even more stupid and played darts, badly. Apart from Mockford, who appeared to mistake our favourite national pub game for Javelin throwing.  

The more professional members of the tour party, of which there were very few, chose to ‘call time’ around 1.30am while others grabbed some warm lager from Akela’s Peugeot Boxer and drank more in the car park (YES THAT ONE) until 3am. It was to prove a foretaste of what was to come. And not in a good way.

Saturday match – Revenge is a dish best served with Harveys

We awoke and, for a change, rather than heading for the pub we headed for every hungover middle-class cricketer’s favourite dining spot; Bill’s in Lewes. Moore, who along with his roommate Ed Hobbs had been among the shamateur late night car park boozers, emerged a little gingerly before regaling us with some amazing tales including the fact the Bill – of Bill’s fame no less – actually originated from Lewes. With tour guiding of this calibre (Ewen had the previous evening forecasted the location of Arundel’s only Beefeater with extraordinary accuracy) it was becoming clear precisely why Moore found his calling as a travel agent.   

Roughly 3,500 calories per man later we headed back to the scene of last night’s crime (ed – no not THAT one) and were relieved to find Waldron’s ranks significantly depleted. The Grand Wizard would be playing in place of the young quick, and their skipper, the raffish Quentin appeared resigned to the fact he would be required to do much of the batting himself. And so it proved.

Fortunately Akela – having again driven quite badly to the ground - won the toss and chose to bad in gloriously sunny weather. Sadly the pitch was by now bearing an increasing resemblance to Sabina Park, Jamaica, circ 1994. Safe, it wasn’t.

An excellent team display, which began with a solid 40 plus run opening partnership between the two minibus drivers Grinstead and Akela Brickell, to which the latter claimed he had contributed more than the handful of runs he’d been awarded by scorer Hobbs in the book.

“Suck it up, Akela.” Muttered the clearly irked Grand Wizard, who had earlier innocently and quite helpfully asked us before play “do you have names?” to assist filling in the scorebook. “Yes, we all have names,” replied the surprisingly droll Grinstead in a rare moment of being fully clothed.

Fonthill’s imposing total of 230ish for six from 35 overs, marked by a return to form by Comyn who had untinned his spam hands to find his touch again, and a lovely middle order contribution from Will “only one of you is invited to my upcoming wedding” Griffin, whose mum and dad watched proudly from the boundary, was always going to be too much. The immaculately presented Griffin, who really should bat in a pith helmet and carry a sharp piece of guava to discipline unruly locals, would no doubt have proudly told mum and dad about his latest business venture ‘Vintage Griffin’, a clothing range set to hit our high streets no time soon.

While Griffin and Comyn may have shared the partnership of the day, unquestionably the shot of the match came from Ben “Chinese” Allen, who made a mockery of his relative lack of cricketing experience by smashing an enormous six into the pavilion roof off his back foot. Godfrey also put some of the more lauded batsmen in their place by producing a wristy on drive through midwicket which had more than a touch of the Mark Waugh’s about it. Belk, bowling with rare pace, hostility and control was ably assisted by Hobbs in a brutal opening spell which made us all grateful to be in the field.

The game was effectively over as a contest once the opening pair had reduced Waldron to 33 for four from (12 overs) including Belk taking 3-11 from seven. It pains me to include this – especially as Grinstead shamelessly requested I do – but it probably is worth recounting for the record that the RLC’s 66-year-old former Officer Commanding of Marmite also took an outstanding slip catch to compliment Belk’s pace.

Quentin did his best to make a game of it, falling four short of his hundred when Moore trapped him with a slower ball and revenge was served luke warm, like the night before’s lager, as the game was wrapped up around 6.15pm. Just in time for another visit to the Star, where Wazza remained.

Predictably, the wheels started to come off as several pints were sunk in the Star before we waved goodbye to our welcoming but increasingly pickled hosts to return to the Volunteer via a fines session in the excellent local curry house. That evening drink, was taken again. Lots of it. But the nameless buffoons who decided that kicking out time of 1.30am was the perfect time to begin the third game of cricket of the tour in THAT car park really could and indeed should have spent the night in the local nick. It was a rare blip on an otherwise magnificent trip which, let us all hope, is the first of many for our wonderful club.

Thank fully we all got home to tell the tale. Or not.

Ends

-            Disclaimer – some names and incidents were changed or altered for dramatic and or legal reasons.

-            No animals were harmed in the making of this tour report

-            Special thanks to Akela and John G for driving the funbus

 Additional thanks to Sam Peters, who - according to the scorecards - contributed 6 runs in each innings.