Having captained the Mariners for well over a decade, I thought this was a good opportunity to pass on some of that accumulated experience and wisdom to those who will come after me. Here are a few tips on what to do if you ever find yourself in the ghastly position of having to lead this rabble.
Before the game
The week before a game, take your phone off the hook and keep it like that. Your team will be trying to contact you with all kinds of weird and wonderful reasons why they can’t play. Remember that just because someone has written their name down on the availability list, underlined it, ticked it and phoned you to check the directions to the ground, doesn’t mean they are actually going to turn up.
By the middle of July most of your team will be carrying injuries -— mostly of a bizarre psychosomatic nature. The rest will be getting married, having babies or off for three weeks in Ibiza. Your chances of victory depend entirely on the quality of the beer in the pub before the game. If your team limbers up with a nasty warm cloudy pint of Watneys, they will be keen and raring to get onto the field. If the pub serves King & Barnes, Gales or Shepherd Neame, resign yourself to crushing defeat (if you can get them onto the field in the first place!).
The performance of the team bears no relation to the talent available. If you have a strong side, you’ll lose. If you have a weak side, you’ll lose. If you have a reasonable side, you’ve got a chance, but probably you’ll lose.
The Toss
A simple formula for what to do if you win the toss. If more than eight Mariners have turned up by the time the game starts, field. If less than eight have turned up, you’ll have to bat anyway.
Always bowl first at Toys Hill and Ebernoe. The tea is far too good to try running around after it. Never ask your team what to do if you win the toss. Three people will want to field, three people will want to bat and the other five won’t have turned up yet.
In the field
If you have a particularly weak fielder in your team, it doesn’t matter where you put him. The ball will follow him unerringly throughout the afternoon.
If Tony Nixon says he doesn’t want to open the batting, make him open the batting. If he says he doesn’t want to keep wicket, make him keep wicket. If he says he doesn’t want to bowl, believe him! Telling a Mariner to field “just behind square on the leg side saving one” is pointless — they haven’t a clue what you are talking about. “Stand there” is about as technical as you should get.
Half an hour into the game, most of your team will start doing limbering up exercises and imploring you to let them bowl. Ignore them. There‘s no point in taking someone who can’t catch away from slip and into the outfield. He almost certainly can’t throw either.
Batting
Try opening the batting with Tony Nixon and Jim O’Meara. Ninety—nine times out of a hundred it won’t work, but it’s worth it for the sheer mayhem on the one time when it does.
If you recruit a new batsman with true class, pristine kit and all the shots in the MCC coaching book make the most of him for a few games. Within a season or so he’ll be playing ungainly swipes to cow corner and dropping catches like the rest of us.
Ask for volunteers to umpire and four people will suddenly decide it’s time for a long walk around the ground. The other seven will rush to put their pads on.
After the game
If Messrs Spratt, Holmes, Francis, Harvey and Pollock have turned up at the game to watch, it doesn’t matter what decisions you have made. They will certainly be the wrong ones. Never sympathise with Mike Powell about his l.b.w. decision, never accept a lift from Chris Mitten, and never ask Mumford or Dudman about their love lives unless you’ve got a lot of time to kill.
Try to get to the pub at about the same time as the President. Whether he‘s congratulating you or commiserating with you, the chances are he’ll buy you a pint.
J.S.H. December 1997