Cricket – the Wynberg Staff Way

Barry Jessop invited me to the Members’ Stand at Newlands on the first day of the recent cricket test against the Australians.  At the lunch break, we were studying honours boards sporting the names of prominent club, provincial and national players of yesteryear. 

‘Do you think,’ I said to him, ‘that the players of today enjoy the game as much as we did in those days?’

It was one of those unanswerable questions which engross  cricketing spectators during test matches.  Until an app is invented which can measure enjoyment levels over the ages, we will just have to throw these enigmatic questions to the winds.

Without doubt, the cricket which I enjoyed the most in all my playing days was playing for our Staff cricket team.  When I first appeared on the WBHS scene as a fresh- faced raw recruit, I was informed that I was responsible for organising cricket fixtures for the staff.  What a pleasure.  I threw myself with gusto into this duty and for a number of years, the Wynberg staff played a fixture every second Sunday afternoon.  Cricketing ability was never a criteria for selection, but availability to attend  the braai with the opposition afterwards was essential to ensure that your name appeared on the team sheet.

Democracy, Richardson style….

Graham Barlow

The match against the Plumstead staff was a regular fixture – Terry Eksteen being a recurring thorn in our side.  Terry still holds a world record for the fastest double century, which he scored in a second division club game for Almar against WPCC.  During one innings down at the old school (now the Junior School) he hit our cricket pro, Graham Barlow (of Middlesex and England) over the pine trees and through the upstairs window of Peter Breetzke’s classroom.  Headmaster, Neville Blackbeard, was most unhappy with me on Monday morning.  ‘If you can’t control your cricketers,’ he said to me, ‘you must play somewhere else.’

Thanks Terry.

For the next match against Plumstead, we moved to Cape Town Cricket Club and Graham Barlow moved back to England for the more serene pastures of county cricket. The Georgian Gents (the staff of St George’s Grammar School) , were also a regular fixture.  Their manager / organiser / scorer was Jenny Mallett, the sister of rugby coach Nick. I never seemed to score runs against them, resulting in Des de la Mare once asking no one in particular at the braai after one match whether I shouldn’t follow Jenny’s example and just concentrate on scoring duties in future games.

His name did not appear on the team sheet much after that – and I continued my scoreless mode against the Georgian Gents.

The UCT academic staff took their cricket very seriously.  They all turned out immaculately dressed with colourful caps and sweaters adorned with a variety of swords, lions and dragons.  I usually tried  - in vain -  to persuade our lot at least to look the part by foregoing their cricket shorts when we had a match against the UCT Staff.  When we played on the UCT Oval, the Vice Chancellor, Sir Richard Luyt, often came up from his residence on the hill below the ground to watch the game - which gave our opponents a distinctly unfair advantage as all those UCT professors seemed to play with straighter bats while he was watching.

Ray Connellan

We used to appoint a different captain for every game and Ray Connellan took charge of one of the UCT games on their Oval.  It was late in the match and I was looking forward to the braai when Ray Connellan brought himself on to bowl his gentle off-spinners.  ‘That will give them the match,’ I remarked  - presciently as it proved -  but admittedly somewhat imprudently as Ray was, after all, the school’s vice principal and I was just a humble musket bearer.

Ray’s response was to send me down to deep fine leg.  At the end of the over he dispatched me to fine leg on the other side of the field in front of the club house.  This continued for about half an hour to the intense amusement of all and sundry until he, presumably, thought that the affront to his dignity and honour had been restored.  I thought it expedient not to inform him that no off spinner worth his salt should be bowling to a deep fine leg.

Fritz Bing
In schoolboy rugger kit

I managed to secure modicum of vengeance some years later when I was captain against an Old Boys’ team, which included Fritz Bing, in our annual Staff Cricket Day.  Fritz was in full cry when I brought Ray on to bowl those famous loopy numbers.  All six balls were dispatched for six with three going into the old swimming pool alongside the field.  ‘Have another over, Ray,’ I said cheerfully. ‘You now have him in two minds. He doesn’t know whether to hit you into the swimming pool or into the tennis court.’

Surprisingly Ray, who had a very fine sense of humour when he sent me from fine leg to fine leg, seemed to have lost it on this occasion.  In my opinion, he very unfairly pulled rank.  ‘I am afraid not, Old Man.  I have done something to my finger and can’t grip the ball properly.’

Disappointing really.  For years I kept asking him what he would have said to one of his U15A team players if he had come  up with that pitiful excuse.

We always enjoyed the away match against the Navy officers in Simonstown.  Their ground above the beach at Seaforth was amazingly picturesque and we, who had recently been doing national service, enjoyed lounging around being served by unfortunate Able Seamen press-ganged into tea duty.  The down-side was that they were also roped into umpiring duty so not many of the officers were adjudged LBW in those away matches.

"Not out, Admiral .."

Our annual Staff Cricket Day was a real highlight of our cricketing calendar.  We invited three teams – Olympic Sports Club, ‘Young’ Old Boys and ‘Old’ Old Boys – to play in a round-robin format.  The winners of the morning games played one another in the afternoon final with the losers contesting the Plate final.  I remember going out to open the batting for the Staff team one year in the morning game against Olympics.  Bruce Probyn, a future headmaster of Wynberg, was wicket-keeper and had donned the pads and gloves while Kees Verburg was busy setting the field.

‘Bruce, how do we set a field for you as wicketkeeper?’ enquired Kees - a question not often asked by a captain.  However,   it was well known that Bruce did not see the need to use gloves while standing behind the stumps.  As far as Bruce was concerned, pads were all that was needed to prevent byes.  Taking catches was not expected of him.

‘Three long stops, please Kees,’ was the immediate retort of Bruce,’ but only when you are bowling!’

That set the standard for the day.

We used to play two all day matches in the country every year – Groot Drakenstein and Elgin.  I remember one year where we had decided to make a weekend of it and a number of us went to Elgin on a Saturday afternoon to spend the evening playing squash against the local farmers.  We were thoroughly thumped by them on the courts but they made amends by entertaining us royally afterwards.  It was a very weary group of squash players who retired to their billets that night on the local farms.

The next day, we were playing a cricket fixture at their ground next to the national road. It has now been converted back to an orchard.  I had taken the precaution of telling everyone that the match would start at 11.00am – when in fact it would be a 12:00 start.  Too many of them had let me down in the past with their timing – so I was taking no chances.  The Cape Town contingent of the Wynberg staff team sped out to make the  (11.00am) start of the game with Jim Goodacre, Deputy Headmaster of the Junior School, going through the speed trap outside Grabouw  well over the speed limit which cost him (then) the exhorbitant sum of R350.  At 11.00am (while he was going through the speed trap), I was still enjoying a slap-up breakfast, courtesy of Clive (Apple) Heward’s parents, while the remainder of the team was at the ground wondering where everyone was.  Unsurprisingly, I received a distinctly frosty reception when I walked in at 11.45.

Jim Goodacre was slightly mollified when I offered him the captaincy for the day.  His first action as captain (revenge perhaps?) was to win the toss and put Elgin in to bat.  A more heinous offence than to insist that we field in the Elgin heat after our activities of the night before, cannot be imagined!

ACS Pigott

Our opening bowler that day was Tony Pigott, on loan from the Plumstead staff where he was the cricket professional.  You can look him up in Wisden:  ACS Pigott (Sussex and England).  Clearly the Elgin opening batsman, John Findlay, had not read Wisden because he came out to bat without gloves.  Tony decided to play in the spirit of the game and trundled in for the first ball off a three pace run-up.

Gloveless John Findlay had not read that script and promptly dispatched him into the blue gums alongside the national road.  Outraged birds flying out squawking from the trees was matched only by the steam flying out of the ears of the future England opening bowler.  He bent his back for the remaining balls of that over, before our wily captain came on at the other end with his leg spinners and soon dispatched John Findlay.

The next batsmen came in dressed as if he were from the best English public school.  We were informed that he was the local nursery man who supplied the farmers with their apple trees.  The problem was that his cap was encircled by large round rings and for some reason this triggered off an unfavourable reaction from the Harrow educated ACS Pigott.  Maybe the Eton batsmen had worn similar caps when they took on Harrow at Lords.

In any event, Tony took one look at the cap and immediately moved his marker back a number of paces.  He came roaring in and, as he was in his delivery stride, the new batsmen stepped back and glaring at me accusingly, saying, ‘I say, Mr Umpire, these two chaps are talking.’  It did so happen that Jannie de Waal was keeping wicket and I was at slip and we were having an earnest debate about the results in the English Premiership the day before.  We didn’t see the need to stop the discussion just because a new batsmen had come in.

The batsman may have had a valid point but whether or not he chose the correct timing to make it, it was, in the end, his undoing.  ACS Pigott of Harrow, Sussex and England was still kneeling on the ground holding his back -  having had to pull out of his delivery at the last moment - and was looking in a bad way.

He eventually recovered and his immediate response was to move his marker back to his full run-up.

It was a predictable ball - short of length and rising for the cap.  The cap flew one way, the bat another and the nurseryman collapsed in a heap.

‘I say,’ he said plaintively,’ this is only a Sunday social game.’

The next ball was a yorker and with spread-eagled stumps, the nurseryman was on his way.  I had the distinct feeling that, if we had wanted to buy apple trees for the Wynberg campus, we would not have been granted a discount.

The only other memorable incident of that game was the episode regarding Neil Wilkinson.  He was a friend of one of our players and he had brought his new girlfriend out to the countryside for a day’s outing.  He had played for many years for Stoke City and was then on the books of Cape Town City. The two lovebirds were sitting on a blanket under an apple tree on the square leg boundary when a ferocious hook soared into the sky and headed in their direction.

We never found out the reason he did it.  Opinion afterwards was divided between whether he was protecting his new girlfriend or whether he was trying to impress her.  In any event, he shouted ‘Mine!’ and jumped up to do the necessary.

Unfortunately, his cricket skills were not up to the standard of his soccer skills. The ball crashed through his hands and hit him squarely on that part of the anatomy which, if he had been batting, would have been guarded by a cricket protector.  With northern England oaths on his lips, the air was forced from his body. He collapsed, inert, on the ground.  It didn’t help that ten Wynberg staff members, in time-honoured male fashion, were uncharitably bent over double, laughing hysterically.  It would have been eleven, except that Jim Goodacre, as captain, felt that it was only right and proper for him to come over and express sympathy.

The girlfriend, still sitting under the apple tree, had been shielded from the full gory details.  She was innocently asking Neil what had happened and what could she do to help.  She then received the full brunt of those northern England oaths which he would, no doubt, have had to explain in the car home.  One wonders whether relationships survive that type of bruising.

In spite of all these setbacks, the braai afterwards was exceptionally  convivial and hospitable.  At some point, Jannie de Waal came up to me and said that a few of the chaps had been talking and it was felt that it would be entirely appropriate for the Wynberg staff to go on a cricket tour some time.

And so it happened.  Later that year, the Wynberg Wanderers, resplendent in bright yellow tour ties, took themselves off to explore the quality of cricket (and social life) of the Karoo with matches in Beaufort West, Aberdeen and Graaff Reinet.

But that is the subject of a separate blog.