Nov 6th Update

November 6th Update

The momentum continues forwards, with different team members now ordering their own personal bats and equipment off of the Internet, which is very commendable. A word of warning on this front, if you’re in this with the intention of dipping into your pockets as little as possible, which is understandable in view of the fact that the intention was that we may only ever play one game, which now seems unlikely (Read on) acquiring and using a bat is going to become an issue. Those of us that buy our own personal bats will probably have to go through the process of ‘Knocking In’ the bat, which basically mean bashing it carefully for 6 or 7 hours prior to using it with a wooden hammer. This toughens up the willow making it ready to start whacking 4’s and 6’s against people trying to throw the ball at 90mph. The thing is - having knocked one out, the likelihood of you then lending it to someone to who could potentially break it with the first swing for a 6 is very unlikely. I know for sure that having spent night after night bashing away at my bat I’m not going to be lending it to anyone. So we either need to buy some old knackered bats, or all buy our own individual bats. Hopefully new team member Carl Hodgson has a couple hidden away in his Dad’s loft that he’ll let us use as ‘Pooled’ bats? For more info on bats, there’s some links on the blog and a few articles about knocking them in.


Wellstead Gardens

I’ve had a response from Lynn Tucker regarding the facilities at Wellstead gardens. She’s looking into the possibility of us using it and what the conditions are for doing so. I thought this was kind of funny in that I recall being told at staff conference days about how under-used it is and that it is a good facility (The images on the internet seem to re-enforce this as being true) but now we’re in the process of applying to use it, all the contacts that we have to communicate with in order to use it seem to be passing on my requests to one another! I’ll keep you all updated as and when I get the news.

Indoor Venues

This seems to have gone off the boil at the moment as again the staff you have to communicate with that deal with these venues (Garons) seem to lack any sense of urgency or have any info to hand. I’ll follow up the lead that I had already and see if I can push for some answers and prices. Dean Wells seemed to be under the impression that there might be equipment there at Garons to use, again this is one of these situations that if we’re to do indoor batting practice the last thing you’ll want to be doing is using your own personal bat on concrete floors trying to bat Yorkers. So again if there are no bats at Garons, this is another situation where we’ll need old knackered bats.

Basildon contingent

The team is seemingly divided up into two groups those of us that work and live around the college – Simon, Nick, Richard and those that live around the Basildon area – Me, Steve Bone, Badger, Mark Benson, Phil Buchanan, Carl Hodgson and Thomas Slater. The Basildon contingent have got the additional options of using Laindon Community Centre and Markhams Chase sports centre for indoor practice and Thomas Slater and myself have already use the community centre at Laindon which is a tenner for an hour and Carl has said Markhams chase is also usable, so I’ll be looking into that as an option for indoor practice.

Batting Order

No science here or merit proven through demonstration of skills, just enthusiam for wanting to play or previous recent experience. Carls in first as he was the Captain of his previous team and was obviously playing more recently than any of the rest of us and seems to be only interested in getting 4’s and 6’s!


1. Carl Hodgson - Wicket Keeper or slips
2. Richard Sainsbury - Wicket Keeper
3. Alex Wood - Wicket Keeper or slips
4. Thomas Wheeler - Fast Bowler
5. Steve Bone – Batsman
6. Richard Sandling – Batsman
7. Simon Grainge – Batsman
8. Nick Naughty – Batsman
9. Mark Benson – Batsman
10. Chris Keeble – Batsman
11. Phil Buchanan – Batsman
12. Dave Thompson - Spin/slow bowler
Potential opponents

Steve Bone has been talking to his students and we may also be having a game against them in the early summer, if news spreads amongst the students in the college and what with the Ashes in OZ over November, there’s the potential for more than one team to be formed I reckon?

Richard also has links with a team locally around Southend made up of Teachers who are mainly Kiwi’s and Oz’s and they too are also up for a match or two. So hopefully if this all comes together we may have some warm up matches with these other teams before we humiliate Dean Wells and his mates!

Equipment news

Dave and Richard have got their own bats now and I’m waiting to speak to Carl about the contents of his loft. It was good to see that everyone was willing to dip into their pockets to buy some 2nd hand gear to get us equipped and it might be that we’ll make Carl an offer for the use of his gear?

We are going to need gear –
Bats, balls, Helmets, Gloves, boxes, pads, wicket keepers gloves and special balls for practicing indoors. Keep an eye on Ebay.