Muck Raking - The Cricket Season Fails to Begin

Today should have been my first match of the new season, a 20:20 intra club knockabout at our new temporary home of Norwood Park Southwell, owned by Sir John Starkey, a dynasty famous for their fruit production, and preservation of the original Bramley Apple tree.

However, the conditions of the ground  - rather boglike in places after the rain - meant that nice as it would have been to play in what you will see is a quaint and attractive setting, we decided to set to with renovating the pavilion and clearing the large ground of grass cuttings.

I decided immediately that involving myself in the carpentry activities would have resulted in  me either nailing my hands to the decking or sawing my fingers off, I decided that raking and removal of grass would be my task. There was certainly rather a lot of it, and initially my rake was so poor I just ended up  digging up earthworms, rather than moving any of your actual grass around. It was also so short it gave me backache.

I thought of pulling size and age on one of our junior helpers with a better rake, but in the end I was able to get a better tool and together we made a good job of clearing the ground. Around 15 of us worked the outfield while 3 sorted out the pavilion. The chairman himself busied himself with "executive supervision".

We were rewarded with an excellent tea spread halfway through.

I was rather alarmed to see a large pond within what looked like a very hittable distance from the wicket. I figured that my bowling would end up in there at some point, and I'm not sure that the energetic Sir John's information that only the South African and Nottinghamshire cricketing legend Clive Rice had done this reassured me.

I'm a record breaker in all the worst ways.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 29.04.18