With the arrival of Friday morning & with only 7 names on the beer-mat thoughts of a cancellation were been entertained. With many regulars unavailable the trusty lieutenants of RL & Ives were set a recruitment mission. The information super highway between Barnsley, Horsforth, Leeds & Pool was red hot with emails with the gung –ho spirit of Kelly’s Heroes; all parties (except Dobby) entering into the theme with quotes from that memorable film (why the negative vibes?). Both came up trumps & we were up to 11 players.
All was fine until I was awakened Sunday morning with a phone call from a father of one player saying his son had won the league title the day before & after some heavy celebrations would not be “fit to play” today. A call to Ives also revealed one of his recruits had also withdrawn at the 11^th hour – oh dear.
So 7/9 of the team assembled at the Harvester on the Leeds ring road to take advantage of their £5.00 early bird offer. Scottie just managed to turn up again as we were leaving, he was late this time as he thought we were playing at Blubberhouses (next weeks fixture) & had set off there!!!!   After lunch the convoy to the ground was entertained when we all got in the wrong lane to turn right at the busy Tommy Wass crossroads, other commuters were not amused as we all had to cut across lanes.
2 players ended up making their Jesters debut; Grieg Batty, the very talented Barnsley player & his Aussie mate Rory Grieves who when asked what hid did (bat or bowl) replied that he worked behind a bar! He did however turn out to be a deadly boundary bowls player, hammering “veterans” Scott & Hill on the Hunslet long course.  Also making a welcome return to the Jesters ranks was Steve “Sid” Gower, the veteran tourist making an appearance at one of his former clubs.
With the home club also 1 man down we decided on a 35 over a side match. After winning the toss our innings was soon in disarray as wickets tumbled, the home teams outfielders catching anything hit in the air. We only reached 3 figures because of Grieg’s 49 & things could have been worse if the keeper had not dropped him while he was still in single figures.
Some players should have joined Grieg in his warm up routine ( Dobby smoked a café-crème ) to at least mentally switch on as the early stages were littered with 7, 5 & even one 4 ball over from our umpires.
The home club cruised to an easy victory at 5.30pm with a succession of players retiring to let others help themselves to some runs. Things were only made worse by Dobby taking another easy catch as the skipper moved himself around the field (with a broken finger) unsuccessfully trying to close the gap in the catching comp’. The only bright spot was Scottie returning to some form after a recent shoulder injury. With the early finish we had plenty of time to share a beer or two with the friendly home team in their now excellent facilities.