Brighton Beamers Cricket Club

Palmers start season at about 5.37pm

You have to appreciate that the memory is a little hazy after all this time (and indeed wasn't exactly on full throttle on the day) so if this isn't how you remember it, you probably were there.

Palmers - Hove Recreation Ground. Some anxiety on the Skipper's part about exactly how many Beamers would turn up but one Phil morphed into another to make eleven. Beamers won the toss and opted to bat. Rigby and McKenna struggled against a sharp seam attack and both sadly succumbed, the latter apparently (well Wayne said) to the best ball of the season. Smith and Arthur, however, gradually mastered the bowling and flowed and flourished till……. having seen off the openers with aplomb, Arthur was deceived by the first-change dobber and, taking a full toss on the bonce, retired hurt.

At this point the opposition decided drinks were in order and various people were sent off to find some. This took a very long time.

Smith and Loafer ( Lo Far? Loofah? - some poor unsuspecting soul that Frank invited along thinking the Skipper hadn't got a team when in fact he'd already selected 13) got into their stride and the runs flowed. Smith in particular showed why he's not been put up for the MCC for nothing and stroked and flayed the ball to all parts like the true gentleman he is. Latterly, assisted by Cave, himself showing early season promise, Smith powered towards his century only to be thwarted by tea, five runs short.

Tea went on a very long time. The opposition, lost in some spring-time idyll, completely forgot about their innings and had to be cajoled into re-starting the game 20 minutes late.

So soporific did this whole phase of the game become that your Skipper has only a dim recollection of what happened next or indeed that anything happened at all.

He thinks Bassam and Wright bowled well and had some early success. He seems to recall Cave being made to bowl a long spell with a bad back. There are fragments of memories of Smith and Wake bowling a bit and Wake taking an extraordinary catch at silly-mid off which should by rights have taken his head off. Oh and then one of their batsmen threw up at length, on a length, just outside off stump at the pavilion end.

He dimly remembers us bowling them out in the last over to win, probably a famous victory, only faintly marred by a distant recollection of their last batsman having dozed off in a bush somewhere.