Decade

1996 Season

Results

Appearances, runs, wickets and catches totals

1996 – Gents fly through turbulence to do the Double

he Year of Transition saw The Gents face problems on and off the pitch, but the nine hard-core members, who played 132 times between them, forged a superb team-spirit. The social side of the club improved as a result, even during the worst sequence of results since 1990-91. Reduced availability by many players meant, however, that guest appearances were a record. A series of tight finishes against universally strong oppo in a low-scoring season made for excitement all the way, The Gents deserving credit for bouncing back, after a losing spell, to win their last four games and regain the President’s Cup. Earlier, the Bob Ashton Cup had been retained in a drawn series. The Lager Louts match, on the only warm day before June, summed up 1996 as only Patel (48*) and Ashton (21) made double-figures. Both were to have superb summers with the bat, Mark scoring 493 runs and All Rounder of the Year Dhruv 322. These two and Mr Snelling utterly dominated the averages. The Gents had to be at their best to beat the improved Enterprise, Ashton again breaking the club’s bowling record. Fifties for Bodders in that game and Ashton against Urbans a week later and the great West London rivals squared up in gale and sleet at Beverley Park. After some grim defence Arthur’s top-edge was safely snaffled by second slip Burman and when Monk brilliantly caught Bignell high above his head off a full-blooded hook at square-leg, thus avenging his expensive miss off Arthur one year before, one sensed it was going to be The Gents’ day. And so it was, helped greatly by Wright’s 5 for 26 and an excellent 37 from Bill Murphy, his best innings of the year.

                That made it six wins on the trot and it should have been seven, for The Gents had Hadfield’s merry men on the ropes. Mr Hughes rightly bollocked Hibbert for bowling 70 mph beamers in the twilight, but to no avail as Horace proceeded to pitch the ball onto a succession of Gent stumps. But Mike was on fine form for two other June games fitted in around Euro ’96. Wandham were bamboozled by the spin of Bignell and Patel (despite the controversial run out of guest pinch-hitter Hill by tough Yorkshire ’keeper Ken Haynes) and Virgin Casuals beaten off the last ball in a marvellous match as Burman and Snelling scrambled the winning run after some good work by Hughes, Boddington, Patel and guest Chris Mitchell, who with Gavin Fryer-Kelsey would join the club at the winter AGM. Three weeks before, a minor classic had been played out against FC Chad. Catches galore were dropped but a brutal Todd 58 not out on a good wicket set up a brave oppo reply. Chad went for the win at all times and were only five balls off the draw when Dhruv Patel bowled the last batsman in the 49^th over, the most ever bowled by The Gents. During the 1995 AGM, Jim Wright had been elected Vice Captain and shaped up well when he took the reins, as he did for this game.

                Structural problems were, however, beginning to surface, for example when only nine men were fielded against a far stronger Wandham outfit at the luxurious Fire Brigade ground in Epsom. This was a sign of things to come, but next week it was back to winning ways. Gents/Saints clashes are almost guaranteed classics and the 85 scored by Trevor Mayhem against torrid bowling by Snelling and Ashton defied superlatives. He fell, unluckily, lbw to Snelling and Stuart then won the game when he had Webster caught Burman in the last over. The Gents owed their own good total again almost entirely to Ashton (43) and Patel (47), but Fryer-Kelsey’s 6 elegant runs was arguably the difference between the sides! This game had, along with many others, been wrongly forecast by tipsters in The Gent, proving just what an unpredictable season it was. The Beggars deservedly revenged their May defeat in a far better-tempered game than in 1995, after their left-handers, the Arthur brothers and Taylor, confused Ashton’s bowlers, not that they needed much confusing. It was in late July and August that availability problems began to bite. A hotchpotch ten-man side was destroyed by The Weasels on a dodgy pitch and halfway through the first fixture with another friendly football ex-pat side in the wilds of North London, this time hailing from Sunderland, The Gents were staring another defeat down the barrel. However, astute bowling changes by Ashton (who had only himself and guest Sanjay Patel as seamers) saw spinners Patel, D and Bignell bamboozle the middle-order, helped by two fine close catches from guest Ian Dallas, and expose the tail, ready for yet another rabbit shoot by The Gents’ skipper, including the lady scorer Boobies Ansell as Last Man!

                East Harrow Cheetahs, Part Two of the club’s ambitious first Double Header, were back on the list with many new players, two of whom, Jaques and Torbe, crushingly put on a record 138 for the fourth wicket. Snarler was creamed for 21 in one over, but kept his head up, not only capturing his maiden Hat-Trick, but grabbing the first octet of wickets in the club’s history. Ashton was serenity itself in the reply, and he and Burvo smashed the club’s sixth wicket record. The losing run continued in a Merton storm a week later. The Gents batted steadily, greatly assisted by Burvo’s friend, the dapper JJ Mitchell, and played well for nine-tenths of the game. However, in pitch black, Graham Young and his partner Adams were somehow allowed to add a then-record 41 for the tenth wicket to nick a win as the visitors’ self-discipline fell apart amid some of the most bizarre incidents ever seen in a Gents game. As lightning crashed, ’keeper Burvo and silly mid-on Masher collided going for the winning catch, the oppo thinking it was deliberate, to give them a chance. Eleven men tried to captain at the same time, causing the legendary post-match bollocking administered by Mr Snelling!

                The Gents quickly learned their lesson. A week later, some amazing pinch-hitting by Phil Hill (46) got The Gents off to a flyer against Southampton, but highpoint of the day was a great Trevor Mayhem ton before he was superbly run out by Fielder of the Year Bill Murphy. Chad guests Tony Buck and Colin Naish liked what they saw and were duly headhunted in time for the 1997 season. The President’s Cup was won after two great team displays. Mr Hill rightly copped the Man of the Tournament award for his astonishing 6 for 8 against FC Chad and brutal 26 in the final against The Weasels. These two games saw The Gents unrecognisable from the side which had suffered five losses in July and early August, with the fielding at least a class higher. The Gents had held together in difficult, often turbulent, circumstances, winning two cups and 13 matches in all, climaxing with a narrow win over a friendly but ramshackle Rotherham outfit. Still, The Gents at last got Mr Walker’s wicket (twice in fact, as The Millers had two innings!).

©The Gentlemen of West London Cricket Club 2006