Dreaming Of Days Gone By - School Cricket

By Glen Leat
July 19 2006

The summer lull in rugby gives one the opportunity to reminisce and yesterday I was lying in my sweltering garden remembering the always sunny school summer holidays of my youth. As often happens, my mind wandered off at a tangent to playing school cricket as a twelve year-old.

Let me get this out of the way to start with: I love sport, both watching and playing, but I'm a far more proficient spectator than participant. My brain knows what to do with a ball but my head, hands or feet don't have the same level of expertise. In my mind I can score goals or tries or smash a hundred with ease but in reality I'm more likely to scuff a kick, drop a pass and be out first ball.

Playing football on the old West Twerton Girls School playing fields (by the brickfields above Dartmouth Avenue) as an eight year-old with my older brother always saw me picked last but one, just in front of the fat boy who was generally plonked in goal because he filled the space better than anyone else. I always wanted to play up front where my lack of ball skills were highlighted when I should have been hidden away at right back or even in goal, but then where would the fat boy have gone? Going home my brother would shout at me, "Why can't you play better, you're an embarrassment. I'm fed up with you always coming out with me!" To my credit I'd not argue back but would shut him up with the immortal line, "I'll tell Our Mum!".

So when I came to secondary school I shouldn't have been surprised that my skills hadn't improved yet I still put myself forward for all sports. The City of Bath Technical School loved rugby and cricket and my sports master was Tom Martland, at the time skipper of Bath. Tom appeared to also be a handy cricketer and in our first summer he put a note on the school notice board inviting First Formers to try out for the cricket team. About 15 of us turned up to the nets after school had finished for the day and were excited about the prospect of playing with proper pads and gloves. My parents' house had a long narrow garden and my brother and I had spent years using it as a cricket pitch pretending to be Geoff Boycott, John Edrich, John Snow and Derek Underwood. However the closest we got to looking like real cricketers was wearing a school cap like Boycott or rolling our shirt sleeves so loosely they flapped like Underwood as we bowled. Pads and gloves, fantastic!

We were lined up in no particular order to take our turn at batting and I was due to go in about four or five. I strapped on my one pad, as there wasn't enough for us all to wear two, and a pair of spiky gloves. Sadly I wasn't quick enough to grab the padded gloves so had to make do with the old-fashioned type. Looking back now I see that my style was more of Jessop's era than Boycott's, however had I then known who Gilbert Jessop was I'd have been proud to wear the spiky mitts.

There was much excited chattering of boys as we watched the first two have a go at batting. As one would expect everyone thought the object was to smash the cover off the ball so clearly Tom Martland would have a job to do if he was to make a cricket team out of this rabble. Then it was my turn. I swaggered down the pitch and took guard as I'd seen on TV. Unfortunately I didn't have my cap so I couldn't have a final tug of the peak before facing the bowler, not to worry I'd be John Edrich this time.

Then I faced my first ball from Mr Martland. You know how you hear the fizzing of a bullet in those realistic (I assume) war films like Saving Private Ryan, well Tom's opening salvo was just like that. However instead of hearing a "fizz" as the ball passed me by, I heard a "thwack" as the ball hit my stumps. I saw his arm go over and heard the "thwack" but I didn't see or hear anything in-between. I wouldn't have minded but he was just bowling off one pace!

"Ok Leat, try swinging the bat this time", shouted Mr Martland. 

"Fizz", "Thwack". 

"Ok Leat, try swinging the bat at the same time as the ball reaches you!"

"Fizz", "Thwack".

"Next!".

This went on for a few weeks and gradually I put bat on ball and somehow got picked for the team. In the end I think there was only about 12 of us who wanted to play anyway so it wasn't difficult to get in the team. The great thing was we would get out of lessons to play matches against other schools. I remember getting out of maths with (ironically enough) a master called Hammond whose nickname was (wait for it), Wally! Wally and I hated one another almost as much as I hated maths. I know he hated me because he told me so, just as he grabbed me by the hair to draw my face closer to his. Can you imagine that happening today? The simple fact was I hated maths because I couldn't do it: trigonometry - It was all Greek to me!

We were rubbish mind you and I think my top score for the whole season was 3 or 4 and I was batting at 3,4 or 5 so that tells you how bad we were. One time we played against Oldfield Boys School up at Norwood playing fields, now the site of Bath University, and I think we were all out for about 12. Oldfield's secret weapon was a lad with whom I'd gone to Junior School, Graham Grant. Graham was a very fast bowler and unfortunately also very accurate. He aimed at the stumps and bowled fast, simple really. He got me first ball after I'd jumped out of the way of his Exocet-style ball. I trudged back to my mates and Mr Martland:

"What happened there Leat?" asked Tom.

"He got me out Sir." I replied.

"I know that but why did you jump out of the way?"

"I was frightened of getting hurt sir."

"Why didn't you use your bat?"

"Don't know sir."

Needless to say Tom didn't see me as an integral part of his team after that.