2010 Broadway Tour to Northampton by Gary Jones

Wednesday:

 The Note ( Steve Purcell) arrives a day before the rest of the team. He quickly makes "friends" with the staff in the curry house a few doors away from the team hotel.

 Thursday:

Most of the team arrive at the hotel (run by identical twins that are spitting images of The Chuckle Brothers) before midday (even Fitz!!!!). Dave Tanner (a very old Broadway face in every sense of the word) meets up with the squad in the pre-match pub. Adam, as usual, eats enough to feed an average family for a week as his pre-match meal. Fitz is skipper for the match at Mears Ashby and agrees with the oppo that as we have 12, The Note will field and The Spanner will bat. 40 over match with new ball per innings. Oppo bat first. They make 199 for 7. Opener gets 91 but is dropped lots. He admits he was 91 for 7 after the game. Thurman suffers most with lots of drops off his bowling. A number of boundary catches are spilled! Old man Tanner was most impressive bowler only conceding 14 runs from his 8 overs. Paul Tanner kept very well. A top tea was enjoyed by all with homemade cakes and an impressive array of savouries. Paul Tanner was out quickly at start of the innings but a big stand between Jones (60) and Lloyd (personal best 53) put us in a good position. 6 an over was needed off of the last 10 but a rapid 48 not out by Adam saw us home with 9 balls to spare. After staying for a couple of drinks with the oppo, the team hit the town. Only after the Note had popped in en route to chat to his friends in the curry house. After a couple in the local Wetherspoons, we found a local club that was full of 18 year old teenagers which made most of us feel very old but did not stop us hitting the dance floor. The Tanner brothers impressed with their "enthusiastic" dance moves. A tired and emotional Tom was seen to remove most of his attire (inc trousers) at one stage of the evening. It was nearly 3am before most made it to bed. Apparently, there were complaints from other guests that we had been noisy when we got back to the hotel and that the culprit(s) were in Room 5 (Purcell/ Walsh) and/or Room 7 (Jones/Gladwin).

Friday:

Breakfast was missed by Adam, Dan, Simon and Liam. A nice pre-match pub was selected again by the Old Man (despite the stick we give him, he is invaluable to the club in all sorts of ways - he did an outstanding job with this tour in every respect)! The Note was skipper for the day. The team were missing the departed old man Dave Tanner so were down to the bare 11. The oppo (Heyford CC) had 5 first team players, 1 second team player and 5 youngsters. So asked us to bat first. Tom made the longest every knock of one run when opening and needs to "get down the gym" so he can hit the ball off the square. Dan was out quickly thru a catch off of his bat and then his helmet. After 14 overs, we were 26 for 3. Oppo then gave the kids a bowl and Rob and Adam batted well together to put on 168 runs (by the end the 1st team bowlers were back on and being hit by them). Rob was eventually out for his best Broadway score of 68 and Adam was 98 not out at end as we made 209 in 40 overs. The oppo were delighted that, in their words, we had Al Murray (aka Rob) playing for us. The oppo innings was eventful with an incredible 6 catches dropped on the boundary as the big hitting 1st teamers hit the ball hard. We chipped away with some wickets and the kids batted in between some of the oppo 1st teamers but they always looked like getting home. We entered into spirit of the game with The Note bowling to one of the youngsters at the end as oppo got home to win in the 39th over. Paul and Tom went home after the game but rest of us (minus Grandad Fitz who was "too tired") met up with the oppo in town for drinks. But only after The Note has been in to see his curry house friends en route to town centre. We had the best night out with the oppo. Drinks in the Mail Coach. Live band in O'Neils and then club til the early hours. In the club, Liam became a step-Dad, we saw an amateur pole dancer show what she had eaten for lunch (much to Ian's delight) and (earlier) in O'Neils, we witnessed Rob snogging a granny.

Saturday:

 The day off from playing saw a few get the train down to London to see Palace win. Some poor anti-social behaviour on train on way back to Northampton by Rob saw a big argument between brothers which resulted in Rob packing his bags and going home. The Note bought a match programme for his curry house friends and popped in there to give them a full match report on his way back to tour hotel. The non Palace fans spent the afternoon drinking and watching the Test Match. The evening featured a very nice Chinese meal where Adam ate enough to make up for Rob's absence. Gary cleared off back to hotel after the meal as old age caught up with him. The rest enjoyed very cheap drinks in chav bar chain establishment The Goose and another live band in O'Neils. Even Granddad Fitz stayed out past midnight!!!

Sunday:

 The Note went to say goodbye to his Curry house friends by they had sorted out the restraining order by now and he was escorted out of the premises by the local old bill. The journey from the pub to the ground was made twice as long as necessary due to a) Gary wrongly suggesting we use the post code for Friday's game and b) The Note's Polish sat nav contraption. This resulted in Duncan, for the first time ever, being the first Broadway player to arrive at a game and in Broadway batting in the gloom at 8pm. We were up to 11 as Simon's brother drove down from Coventry to play. East Haddon consisted of mainly pretty decent club cricketers with a couple of kids. Skipper Liam let them bat first. On a lovely pitch, they made 249 with Liam and Chris Shaw being the pick of the bowlers. Broadway fielded well despite it being end of tour and there were hardly any dropped catches - apart from Liam dropping a skier that he would normally have taken in his sleep. I suppose his mind was elsewhere thinking about the dinner money he has to give to his new step-kids this coming term. Fitz was caught several times smoking in the outfield! A tough opening bowling spell by Paul Grayson (ex England fly half) was survived by Jones and Triggs who went put on 144 for first wicket to give the team a chance. Jones was out for 69 and Triggs for a personal best 63. Duncan and Dan continued the good work and it looked like Broadway were due for a heroic failure and finish about 20 runs short. But in the gloom, against decent bowling, Adam came in and smashed 32 in about 14 balls to see us home with 4 balls to spare. What a brilliant finish to a brilliant our.