This week's memories are from Calypso Pete Millington who will have been keen to play this year, following on from the 2019 season in which he achieved his career best batting average of 39.56. Wicket-keeper/batsman Pete has played for the club since records began and has been a captain and committee member in this time. Millman has 15 half-centuries to his name on Play Cricket, but he is serial ton-avoider as previously covered in the blog.
I'm not sure what's going on with the formatting towards the end of the article, you'll just have to put up with it.
Worth noting that Pete did submit a different funniest memory for this, but I have banned it as I am saving it for when it comes up in the weekend scorecards! Here we go:
Earliest cricketing memory
As a junior I played for a local side called Oxcroft Barbarians. It’s fair to say I wasn’t very good and retired age 13, ending a promising career as a middle-order batsman/leg-spinning all-rounder – only coming out of bowling retirement at Perkins a few years ago to take the key wicket of their captain with a deceptive, slow half-tracker that he could only lob up to mid-wicket! He knew he’d met his match as he trudged off.
My first game for CACC was in 1995 (I think). There’d been an EGM to discuss dropping the 3rd team before it was decided that members would try and get friends, relatives, anyone to join the club. I found myself playing on Henry Fanshawe playing fields (it wasn’t a cricket ground), scoring 43. We lost every game that year, except one late on when I scored 99 no against Newbould, starting my career of ton avoidance (I hit a 4 to win it but nobody bothered to tell me I was approaching a hundred).
Favourite Ground
All of the tour grounds are great, for different reasons, but my favourite is Perkins. It’s very similar to Stonelow as it’s in an urban area and quite compact. The track is normally great too. In the early days of my touring it used to be a 55 over game so we had lunch and tea (which were both amazing). Some personal memories too: taking “Speaky” for 18 runs off an over (great); being presented with the shattered bail at fines, having shouldered arms to a straight one (less so).
Best teammate
Sir Gerald of Bradwell. Gerry was my first captain when I joined and he helped me acclimatise to senior cricket, both on the pitch and in the pub. Probably more the latter, where we would spend Saturday and Sunday evenings drinking in The Daggers and latterly The Pond, revisiting the days events, getting “locked in” and then staggering home for a whisky (Gerry must have had 50+ bottles, and he never seemed to like finishing them off). His cricketing feats got more impressive as the evenings progressed.
From a purely cricketing perspective we’ve had some great players at the club so it’s difficult to pick one. Best performance I’ve seen was probably Locky at Barnsley, where he released the handbrake and hit a big ton, most of the runs coming in the latter part of the innings (I can’t find the scorecard but Andy probably remembers it).
Best opponent
Sadly, I didn’t get to play against Ian Bishop or Kenny Benjamin but I think I strode out to bat against Norton Oakes in the Irwin Mitchell Mid-week league to find Moin Khan (Pakistan captain) behind the stumps and a test bowler at the other end. I didn’t last long.
I’m not great at remembering opponents but I didn’t like facing Rob Ward when he came down the hill at Bradfield. Pretty imposing as he ran in.
Best/proudest cricketing memory
From a personal perspective I’ve scored one ton, which was against Frecheville – 107 no. I also scored an enjoyable 75 no against Dronfield Contact to win a cup game, hitting Coops for 4 off his first ball and being carried off the field by the Havenhands at the end.
In a similar vein, we had another great 2nd team run way back in 2001, when we battled Collegiate for the title. We had a strong team with John and James Harrison, Roedog, Simmo (the less talented one), Coleshill, Dylan (P Steele), Sweety, the Ekester, Phil Mintoft and captained by Cookie (not The Bastard). So many epic games but with two games left for us and three for Collegiate, we faced off at Stonelow (we'd won the first game). They were an arrogant bunch and thought that if they beat us they would win the league. Unfortunately, we’d worked out that the online table was wrong and they had one point fewer than they thought. We knew that if we didn’t give them 7 points we could still win it the next week at Darfield. We were put in and were going well until a collapse, at which point Simmo (the less talented one) blocked for the rest of the innings. I managed to find a match report on the Collegiate website (it's a great read) – some of my favourite quotes:
“a good top of the table clash ruined by dismal negative Coal Aston”
"Coal Aston amassed 93-7 from 46 overs in a shameful effort."
“it is a travesty that this side are moving up to Division 3”
They only got 5 points. There’s even a match report celebrating taking the title at Rockingham the next day (quote: “It was of course an honour and a privilege to take part in the clincher”). We beat Darfield the following week and took the title.
Worst/lowest cricket memory
I once got a platinum (??) first baller i.e. after a long off-season, looking forward to the resumption of cricket I confidently strode out to take strike, went back to a loosener, edged it onto my pad and watched as it trickled onto the stumps. As I took my contemplative walk round the boundary, one of their fielders asked me to clear some dogshit off the ground, which I dutifully shovelled up. I must have done a great job and word of my shit clearing skills had travelled – I was asked to clear up a turd following week.
More humiliating (yes, it’s possible) was a game of two drops for the first team at Bradfield. The first, whilst at fine leg, was a top edge hurtling towards me that went through my hands and hit me squarely in the nutsack, pole-axing me. The rest of the team didn’t realise as I lay prostrate on the floor, with them screaming for me to get the ball in. And then, to add insult to (actual) injury, towards the end of the game I was under a skier at long-on and tried to catch it… …with my chest. The thud rang round the ground and was witnessed by the large crowd. The humiliation was delayed by the thought that I was having a heart attack. Suffice to say it cost us the game and I legged it home without changing, to drown my sorrows.
Funniest cricket memory on or off the field
Not so funny at the time but it also comes from the 2001 season. Jono was a mere 21 year old and was celebrating his birthday at The Casbah in town. I’d recently been to Mexico so was in a tequila phase, so I suggested we do shots. Unbeknownst to me, Jono knew the guy behind the bar, so for every shot I was doing he was having a shot of water. Fast-forward to the end of the evening and I’m absolutely hammered, being put into a taxi only to drunkenly crawl straight out the other side.
My next memory is of being woken up in a doorway, at 5am. A taxi home and a few hours sleep before I wake up thinking, shit, where’s my wallet (found it), where’s my phone (found it), shit that journey home was a bit blurry… …I’d lost my glasses!! Contacts in, I went into town for a search round places that I’d no idea whether I’d been to or not (pretty pointless in retrospect) and then back home for a bit more kip before captaining the Sunday 1sts and keeping-wicket against Alfreton. It was always a shit, low wicket there so I can’t imagine it went well batting or behind the stumps (it was a haze so I can’t recall). Home and in bed by 9pm.
Thanks to Millman for a sterling job, I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall at Collegiate's not-winning the league celebrations!
Back at the weekend with some more past scorecards.
