History Lesson
Each year, for about the last decade, Failand & Portbury have entered a team into the Shirehampton sixes. In the first few years, we fielded what we thought was an unbeatable team, only to find that this was not the case. The closest we ever got to the trophy was when about 5 years ago we reached the semi-final, and would have won the game were it not for an umpire who gave John Bachelor run out when he had already passed the stumps as the ball broke the bails.
After that gut wrenching affair, the wind appeared to be knocked out of Failand, and since then our performances in the tournament have never set the world alight. This is despite bringing in ‘guests,’ such as Kyle the overseas player from Clevedon. It seemed that we were never to win the competition that had been started back in ’79.
However, this year, as ever, we told ourselves that this was the year.
The First Round
The story begins, as any good story does, on a rainy Tuesday night.
We were drawn against Lodway, who were an opposition that we had already beaten earlier in the year in the Portishead sixes and with the strong side that had been collected together, I knew we had a good chance of winning. Alongside myself, the team consisted of the 2 Walker brothers (Mark and Charlie), Sid, Sam Gunarathne and Ed Fowler.
We were the last game on and arrived to see the previous game coming to a close, with drizzle turning into rain. It appeared that we would have to play our match another night as the rain started to get heavier. However, come the end of the previous game, there was no sign of the Lodway likely lads, who had either been too terrified to turn up, or had assumed the evening had been washed out. So, Failand were given a bye through to the next round, despite the fact that if the opposition had turned up, it certainly would have been too wet to play.
So with a small amount of grumbling about having to turn up and not actually play, we set off back home.
The Quarter Final
The next round was the quarters against the hosts, and was due to be played on the Wednesday evening, again at 8:00. Ted Billing had come into the team in the place of Ed Fowler, as it was thought it was bad luck to have too many Eds in the team. However, with rain all day, the chances of playing the game appeared to be slim to none. The difficultly lay with no one knowing who to contact about finding out whether the game was on or not. So Ed, Sam, and the Walkers made the journey to the ground, and unsurprisingly found no-one there, and contacted the others to tell them to avoid a similarly fruitless journey.
After making several phone calls, to all the numbers I could find, no-one appeared to know anything about who ran the sixes. Finally, after checking the website on Thursday morning, I found a small reference that said that the sixes had been postponed until the following week.
On Thursday I was playing in another cricket match, and had taken a precious day off work. After a morning of eating toast and watching Pakistan bat in a strange manner, I was just going out the door when the phone rang. It was a gruff old man, that grunted at me, until after about 30 minutes I had developed a way of interpreting the grunts into sounds. Once this was achieved, it was only another 30 minutes before I realised what he was saying. His garbled message was that the next match in the sixes was that evening!
On my way to the game, I had contacted 4 of the other players from last night, and had arranged for them to play, but I had never found a sixth player. Luckily, it rained all day again. This time no one even made the journey to Shire. The match had now been postponed till the following week.
Tuesday night came round again, and after speaking to the elite sixes players in the squad, our club, and many neighbouring clubs, some new players had to be brought in. Mark and Charlie couldn’t play, Ted was on the lash up at the Failand Inn, and Sam was fixing his bat.
Russ Baker from Nailsea had told me before that he would be keen to play, but when asked was unfortunately unavailable, as he had a number of animal corpses to dispose of, but said that a young South African from Nailsea would love to play, so Matt Benn from Jo’burg came into the team. He turned out to be a lovely chap, despite having two first names.
I asked the Potter brothers to play, as it was considered good luck to have at least one set of brothers playing. I only spoke to Henry, the older and more sensible brother. The conversation went a bit like this:
“Hi Henry, can you and your brother play in the shire 6’s tonight?”
“Yes, sure.”
Both Potters were playing at home in a tour game in the afternoon, and on my way back from work I stopped at the ground to see how they had got on. The game had finished early, as Mark Walker had bullied his way to be rapid 80, and I saw Henry, and spoke to him again. This time the conversation went a bit like this:
“Hi Henry, are you and your brother ok for tonight?”
“yes, sure”
So I arrived at the ground, expecting to find Henry and Will Potter, Matt Benn, Sid and George Fellowes (who had jumped at the opportunity to hammer a ball around). Unfortunately, one of our players had not appeared. Henry had forgotten to take Will with him. When I asked him why, he said that I never told him that Will was playing. Although, after looking again at the messages I had sent him, which included phrases such as “both of you” and “you and your brother Will”, he conceded that this may not have been the case.
Luckily, a young chap from Shirehampton, who had not been picked by his own team, kindly said that he would play, all the braver considering we were facing his own side.
So after 4 days of getting teams together, F & P finally took to the field to play some cricket. After losing the toss, we batted first, and after some baseball hitting from Henry, and some fine running from the others, we got up to a score of 61. It was a par score, but we felt we could defend it.
We opened the bowling with our strike bowler Henry, who we felt may be able to take out a couple of batsmen, to really put the pressure on the opposition, or at the least start with a tight over. After the first over had gone for 17, we were not so sure of the outcome. However, we began to claw our way back with a couple of good overs in the middle, and then George came on to bowl. The rest of the team later told me that they thought that George was going to be destroyed, bowling a hittable pace that they feared would end up doing serious damage to passing cars. In fact, just before Greggie’s first ball, I heard Sid shout, “****, he’s going to be eaten alive!” I of course had no such doubts, and when Greggie took a hat-trick that effectively put the game beyond Shire, it was no surprise to me.
So we had got through the quarters, having knocked out the hosts, with considerable help from one of their own players, the very handy keeper; Adam.
All had had a thoroughly enjoyable time, with Matt Benn exclaiming “Why can’t we do this every Wednesday night!” to which Greggie pointed out it was a Tuesday.
Could we go one better than the glory years and reach the final?
The Semi Final
So Wednesday morning came upon us, and it was time to get the team ready for the evening. This involved an enormous amount of ringing around, and provided some great excuses such as “sorry, I can’t play, I’m already playing in another six-a-side competition.’ There was more bad news, as the keeper Adam who had played the day before so well, could not play again, as he said he was spiralling into depression, having been disowned by his club. This was unsurprising, as it can not be a pleasant experience to find what he found in his cricket bag. My natural cricketing instincts took over at this point, and realising that we needed a keeper called Adam, I asked Adam Grey to play, and later told him he had to keep.
Matt Benn was also out, as he had a whole glass of coke, and had decided to run to Swindon. Luckily, Russ Baker said that he would step in and take his place. Henry Potter was also out, as he had volunteered to take part in a police riot training exercise, where he plays the part of a rioter. He said he would be spending most of Wednesday battering riot shields with his fists, sticks, and iron bars, and throwing Molotov cocktails, eggs and flower at ranks of police.
Greggie, myself and Sid we in, and Sam had finished mending his bat, and was raring to go.
Our semi final was against Old Bristolians, who play two leagues above us, with what looked like 6 strong 1st teamers. And on this night, we didn’t have any brothers playing at all!
After winning the toss, Failand were in the field, and we managed to keep OB’s to a par total of 61, which included some careless overthrows, and some poor football skills from Greggie. OB’s just lost the two wickets in their innings, and Russ and I opened up in a bid to chase down the runs and go further than we had ever gone before. A good start and some exhausting running left us needing 20 off the last two overs, and completely shattered. According to Derek Gay, we ran three ‘one shorts’, which didn’t help. I immediately ran out Russ, as I felt he needed a rest, and Greggie came in to in his words “get these!” A few more balls later, and the back of the beast had been broken. We needed just one more to win, with two balls remaining. The bowler was running in to bowl, Greggie was ready to throw the bat, and then suddenly I had a flashback to last year’s game:
It was the first round. We needed 2 to win off the last over with 4 wickets left. One off the first ball. Wickets off the next 2 balls. Then a dot. Then a wicket. One ball left, one to win. Bowled! It was a tie! We lost on wickets! Everybody slaps their forehead.
WAIT! I shouted. The bowler halted in his run up. After a quick chat with Greggie, we asked to umpires what the rules were for a tie. They didn’t know. Derek Gay tried to give someone out. The scorers didn’t know, so after a lengthy discussion, it was agreed it would be done on wickets. Upon hearing this, Greggie decided that no chances could possibly be taken, and sternly blocked out the last two deliveries. We were through to the final, having tied with less wickets lost. Excellent
The Final
We were given the grace of a 7 minute break before the final began, and the Knowle captain won the toss, and kindly put us back into bat, having seen how physically battered we were.
The Knowle boys looked confident, as well they might, being a clear four divisions higher than ourselves, and having won the competition the year before. They looked to have picked 6 first teamers again, and their number included the local legend of ‘Stewie’ from Globe sports, who currently holds the record for most runs scored in a season in the B & D.
I was too weak to open, so Greggie opened with Russ. It was now seen as a brilliant tactical plan to run Russ out in the last game, as it had given him ample opportunity to catch his breath. The two openers started well, and just got better, with Russ starting to clear the ropes with bigger and bigger sixes. The ball started flying into Twyford house, and over the main road at the other end. After 5 overs of heavy hitting, we had got to 72, only losing the one wicket with Russ being run out of the last ball.
Going out to field we were confident. We hadn’t seen a score that big yet in the tournament, and in the other semi final, Bishopston had only managed 44 against Knowle.
Knowing that the opposition needed more than 2 a ball, we thought all we had to do was not do anything stupid and we should be home and dry.
Russ bowled the first over, which was much better than his one in the semis that consisted of 6 slow full tosses. Sid followed, and a couple of edges that went for four kept Knowle just in the game. After Sam bowled the third over, we were still keeping things tight, and with 8 balls to go, and Greggie bowling well, the game was almost won. Knowle needed 30 to tie off 8 balls. The tie was enough for them, as they had not lost any wickets, and as they had just witnessed, a tie was decided on wickets. 30 off 8 seemed too much, but things started to change. Greggie saw his bowling figures ruined when his last two balls went for a four and a six. It meant that it all came down to the last over with Knowle needing 20 to win the game.
I nervously bowled the first ball, and saw it clipped to midwicket, where the batsmen appeared to be happy with settling for a single. I thought to myself that they had given up the ghost. They weren’t even going for it. I was wrong. My next four balls, all nice length deliveries, brought 4 fours, all hit to various parts of the ground. Knowle had crept back in it and brought it all down to the last ball. Knowle needed just 3 to tie, and therefore to win the game. I felt I could do nothing to stem the flow of boundaries. My trousers were browned; my eyes were wet with tears. I could not believe I had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. I ran up to bowl, and delivered a floated half volley. The batsman hammered the ball again, but this time a fielder was there.
Sid shouted “bowler’s end!”
Adam cried “to the keeper”
Greggie had turned away and dropped to his knees, too nervous to watch the dying seconds.
Russ gathered the ball and threw it in.
The batsman had only run two, with no chance of a third.
Failand & Portbury had gone and done it. We had won the trophy at last, after many years of trying. Lodway, Shirehampton, Old Bristolians, Knowle. We have beaten them all, we have beaten them all. Knowle, can you hear me in Knowle, your boys took one hell of a beating.
After everybody had calmed down, there was a quick ceremony, where everyone declared it was a thrilling final, and a great end to a grand tournament, which was played in a fine spirit. One cup has gone off to be engraved, and another cup will be displayed in the pavilion forevermore.
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