Zed with the scorebook and a signed statement by Lionel to all those who doubted he had made his maiden century recently ©Nigel Stockley

Saturday 1st July 2006
Colne 189, Accrington 191-8

Today was our first away game of the season. On a sun drenched morning we traveled to Colne. It was an 11 o clock start, taking into the England kick off at 4. I won the toss and did not give into the temptation of batting first on a pitch that was crying out to the batsmen to pitch their tents and stay a week. My sole reasoning for this, was us fielding in the mid day sun in the latter half of the match and my confidence in our bowling attack.

The Colne innings had an electrifying start, it seemed that we were playing against an outfit that must have been ‘leathered’ on a dicey combination of White Lightning Cider and Shandies or high on weed killer as they were intent on hitting everything in the air or for four. When they were in the field later they attempted to sledge some of us with non comprehendible double syllables that can only be understood in 2 places…Colne and Enfield. They were 48-4 off 10 overs, then 130-8 before our fielding let them reach 189 all out. Zafar ‘puff the magic dragon’ Aslam (most of you will probably know him by his feminine and more affectionate porn name, Jenny) was once again the most successful of our bowlers with 4-32. This was followed up by impressive figures from the old Shropshire work horse and Accy legend David ‘what am I doing batting at 9 or 10’ Stubbs (3-37).

Our fielding once again let us down. There where a few impersonations of ‘ London Bridge is falling down’, whereby fielders were forgetting to close there legs after they let the ball go through and then collapsing in a heap. We had one particular instance were Immy did the can-can dance over the ball after he had ran past it. I had other fielders diving so slowly that by the time they hit the ground the ball had already crossed the boundary for four. Even the worms at Colne had enough time 2 move out the way of a diving Accy fielder.

One of the worms got lodged in 2 Immys head through his ear (The worm bumped into Sammy the tortoise and Jack the snail who’ve been residing there since 1992….coincidentally the same year that Immy took up cricket!). It was the worm that accounted for Immy drifting like wood on water from fine leg all the way to being 20 yard directly behind the keepers backside (no more comments here from me …just use your imagination).

Half a dozen catches went down (which is still about four less than what we normally drop!). Aside from these ‘little’ misdemeanors, the bowlers balled well. In the end our batting guided us home by 2 wickets with 5 batsmen contributing between 20-30 runs in the innings. Our fielding is often criticized by myself, aside from this the only other weakness we have as a team is our running when we are batting. Too often I see my players turning easy quick singles down and we need to work on this as it nearly cost us the game today and also 20-30 runs in previous games. The only people who are immune from this point are essentially Matt ‘I can still bowl with one leg’ Donnelly, Rick ‘honest, I'm not as thick as I sound’ Williams and to some extent myself. Between the three of us we bat almost like Bonnie and Clyde, where by our batting partnerships (if they do get going) hold a criminal allure about them, runs are stolen, nabbed and poached serially and fielders are forced to be on their toes all the time.

Despite these two criticisms the last 4 games we have looked like a genuine team were everyone is chipping in with runs and wickets and for once I can say we have given ourselves a chance of winning the league with 4 wins out of 5. Well done to all….role on again the Accy Juggernaut (no not you Spenny)