Sat 5th August 1st Xl v Leeds Police away

The Old Men At Sea

A much changed Tong side made it's way to the best ground in the League at Leeds Police. Missing from the usual eleven were: Woodhall (wedding - not his); Hudson (knackered body); Stockill (gaining bonus points); Hastie (work!????) and Hornby (changing race).

This brought the inclusion of the Tong Old & Knackered Brigade - McCutcheon (pulled Ajax); Hannam (housemaids elbow) and Breakwell (not particularly old but blind!). To aid the movement in the field young Steve Holroyd was also drafted in from the Tongans - though he too was to put himself out of action the following week by dislocating his shoulder!

Herman Shack, as skipper, continued the tradition of the wrong call, and, once again, we found ourselves batting first.

The Police side contained the usual mixture of old and wily and young and fit, though all are obviously detectives for there wasn't a uniform in sight!

The absence of Reg meant a change to the opening partnership and Ruley was volunteered into that position. Some very accurate bowling meant that Fat Boy took some time to get going, and the lack of singles resulted in him facing 7 out of Conboys first 9 overs.

Progress was steady, if slow, with the scoring at just about three runs per over. Lacky was the first to go, being caught spectacularly at mid-off by PC Mahmood. Dazzer and Fat Boy maintained the scoring rate taking the total to 87 before Ruley fell in the same way as Lacky.

Buttocks then went out and smote a quick 23 before being caught out mis-pulling. Young Shack was next out to the oldest combination in the country. Bowled Davis, stumped Dickson - a combined age (apparently) of 124 years.

Whilst Terry Davis continued to bamboozle Piggsy, Heath Gregory managed to run himself out. Beaks showed the odd flash of his old form before Piggsy fell, after a tortuous twenty minutes, trying to emulate the free swinging Beaky. Davis continued his wicket taking with the aid of Holroyd and McCutcheon before Senior Shack and the Basking Whale put together a final undefeated stand of twenty.

Tea was noted for Kirsty trying to avoid the attentions of PC Mahmood, who had obviously taken a shine to her. Kirsty though was not keen even though it was pointed out that he might come from a rich Middle East family. Kirsty eventually escaped muttering something about "harem".

The police batting had obviously decided that they had somewhere else to go that evening as they set off at a rate of knots chasing the 164 runs required. PC Mahmood and Sgt Khan setting about Lacky and Piggsy with some gusto. Piggsy sensibly decided that he would pull a fetlock (yes same old injury) which would preclude him from both bowling and running about in the field. His replacement by Dave (Heath) Gregory quickly brought about a breakthrough with PC Mahmood being returned to the pavilion after a magnificent catch by Piggsy - it must have gone straight to him!

Lacky followed this up with another wicket, but despite some excellent fielding particularly from Holroyd and Hannam (I'm writing this!), defeat loomed ever closer. Sgt Khan finished the game off unbeaten on 77 with 11 overs to spare, but despite yet another defeated everyone agreed they had at least enjoyed themselves and were going to continue to do so.

The evening was concluded with Ruley emptying his entire bag onto the outfield in an attempt to find his car keys. He was even more concerned when he realised that in the move to a new house he didn't know where the spares were! After some in depth thought and a walk back to the changing rooms the missing item was discovered sitting on top of the balustrade outside the pavilion - the obvious place of course!