Fathers snatch victory in 400 run thriller#

What a difference a week can make.

With the specter of Norris taunting their lack of victories in his absence the boys took to the field at the ‘creek’ last night full of resolve and determined to put right the wrongs of the past fortnight. The Fathers were up against it from the off with the late withdrawal of ‘Our Kylie’ and the second week no show of ‘Kermie’*.

The Fathers opposition were a wily crew who won the toss and elected to throw the bat around first. They showed they meant business from the off with a solid first over producing ten runs. The Fathers realized they were up against it and gave it their all. Unfortunately the six man Fathers outfit with Matt the ringer couldn’t contain the skilled batsmen of McSnafu who flashed the willow time and again and finished with a massive 199 runs amassed. Standout bowlers were hard to find however special mention needs to go to Gilly, Roscoe and Hugo for keeping the carnage down a bit. Itchy was his usual mercurial self in the field and broke the stumps and effected amazing run outs and catches time and again^.

Nads, in his capacity as captain, threw caution to the wind and put Gladdy and Itchy together as the opening pair. After a shaky start the boys took apart the McSnafu bowling attack. A couple of dubious run out decisions had Itchy climbing the ladder into the umpire gantry to express his disapproval. Once security personnel restored order to proceedings the game continued and Itchy and Gladdy poured on a 58 run stand. Having softened up the opposition with a display of power hitting, both of the ball and of opposition players, Itchy and Gladdy trooped off pleased with their evenings work.

Next in were Roscoe and Hugo. Cover drives, slogs and teasing cut shots were just a few of the masterful strokes they produced during their superb innings of 63. Roscoe played so well in fact he pulled a Chocco and did something nasty to his calf. Fortunately for him he has 20 days to recover until he next needs to don the tie dye. Other highlights of their innings together included Hugo nearly clearing up the bowler and one of the fielders by following through a little to heartily on his running between the wickets and Roscoe actually breaking the wickets in half at the other end with a powerful straight drive.

With two pairs down the Fathers were looking the money with 121 runs accumulated. Up stepped the ringer Matty and Gilly to have a crack. Despite having assured us he could ‘hold his own in A-grade’ Matty looked hopelessly lost against the McSnafu attack and despite the best efforts of Gilly the pair started to go backwards. A couple of early dismissals coupled with Matty’s reluctance to run soon saw the proud pair languishing on 3 runs after 3 overs. Gilly fought hard in the fourth and final over but the die had been cast. Disconsolately the pair trooped off with only 13 runs to their names.

The Fathers were now chasing down 199 and with four overs remaining they required 66 runs for victory. The smug McSnafu’s thought it would be funny to make Gilly bat again. His partner was the inscrutable Nads. Under Nads’ steady gaze Gilly was reborn. The middle of his bat clouted the hapless McSnafu bowlers to all four corners of the ground. When Nads got a chance at bat he too picked up the intensity and pretty soon all fielders were holed up as far as legally possible away from the batsmen. For reasons of safety the McSnafu team captain sniveled to the umpire that he’d like to have all of his fielders stay behind the wicketkeeper. The umpire laughed off this request and the Fathers cheered as Nads and Gilly continued to smash the ball at the McSnafu fieldsmen. The first aid tent did a roaring trade in ice packs and compression bandages and by the time the final over came the Fathers were only 15 runs off victory.

McSnafu had held their best bowler back till last, a wily and feisty off spinner who could turn it a mile. But Gilly and Nads were having none of it and charged down the pitch numerous times dispensing their own brand of summary justice. With the sounds of McSnivel weeping and whining in their ears the boys finished up with19 runs in the last over. The Fathers had posted yet another famous victory and finished on 204!!

Post match beers were a revelation. Hugo was good to his word and the Czech and Belgium brews flowed until late into the night. The Fathers present were full of Christmas cheer and the flush of victory. Could it have been any better you ask?

Perhaps……

Best wishes of the season to all the Fathers and their families. Stay safe and see you all in 2008!

#not strictly true - all references including scores and individual performances in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental or is intended purely as a means by which to fool Norris into thinking we can win without him.

*The disciplinary committee has been informed of these most recent transgressions and Santa may not be visiting either player for some time. Both players have been issued with show cause writs.

^also largely inaccurate

New site feature and message from Norro

G'day boys

Norris has taken advantage of the Fathers message board and has left us all a message.

Click here to view it and leave him a message also.

(You don't need a log on or anything, just type away).

Father's have no beer!!

International Shit Cricket Time (ISCT)

The Father's went down in a thriller this week but more importantly Kermit forgot to bring the beer (even though he was a late scratching) FINE.

DOUBLE FINE for Hugo for not reallocating a new beer boy however the club's beers were a fine replacement. Hugo to replenish Father's funds to cover the steep $2.50 beers that were downed by the four fathers left standing: Itchy, Nads, Hugo & Gladdy.

Back to the game......

The closeness of the match was not reflected in the score (148 v 72) or the losing margin (76 runs). Legend has it a number of poor umpiring decisions and hot blooded fathers keen on replicating the Aussies 20 / 20 match earlier in the night resulted in an “unsatisfactory loss indeed” as claimed by Captain Our Kylie. The captain of the night, Our Kylie was so furious with the teams nonchalance his hot pants were close to tearing (and not from a lack of cricket action of late).

The Captains gripe is well summarised in the following assessment of each father's performance based on a runs scored v runs conceded to provide a net difference .

** Chocco's over bowled by others due stretching too far for his drink during the drinks break. Out for a few weeks it would seem.

The Chocco / Gilly family amassed 53 of the losing margin. Something in the water in Tuggeranong.

The only Father who can hold his head high is Hugo with a positive contribution of 23 and a season best 5 for -11 (FINE CREDIT). His head was quickly lowered whilst scouting for the beer wench. This fine credit should come in handy with the double FINE mentioned previously. This bowling prowess is something usually reserved for the bowling star, Our Kylie but he seemed to have left his bowling prowess in the carpark.

The match started with the Father's sent into bat, and that is where the excitement stopped.

Nad's and Rosco finished with 17 runs, not much to write home about but after being 3/0 after 2 overs the comeback was quite impressive, especially after Spiderman bowling the last over to them who seemed to spring off the nets to get that extra pace.

Gilly and Gladdy faired even worse with a total of 6 after the mandatory 4 overs, with -18 coming from the final over. May have been better to declare after three.

Kylie and Itchy started in spirited fashion with Itchy being surprisingly aggressive with his batting style (again)! The pair amassed 21 after 2 overs but came back to earth with 28 after 4 overs after some dodgy run outs decisions and lucky bowling.

Hugo and Chocco started well with 17 after 2 overs but midway thru 3rd over Chocco's calf blew out and the innings ended in tears for all with only 19 after the allocated 4 overs.

The bowling overall was crap but not as crap as the batting. The highlight in the field being Nad's screaming catches at the back of the court. A sublime effort. However this did not help Hugo on two occasions by missing out on hatricks (FINE, FINE). Itchy and Our Kylie also received (FINE) for missing a hatrick also.

Generally a night to forget. Bring back Norris – the lucky charm!

Next weeks match is at 8.10pm. Team needs some refinement and as such a number of changes have been made, we are going with 2 spinners this week (Kermmy / Our Kylie), pitch is expected to turn:


1. Hugo (For the final match of the year extra special beers will be provided)
2. Itchy
3. Nads
4. Gilly
5. Rosco
6. Kermmy
7. Our Kylie
8. Gladdy

Reserve:
Chocco : wounded
Norris: encampment in USA
Bing: playing in 20 /20

Come on!

Fathers go down by 13 in high scoring thriller

The Coolie Chronicle - 'at the crossroads of Weston Creek'
Wednesday 5 December 2007

The Fathers showed guts last night at the 'Creek' to almost overhaul the huge total of 183 posted by 'Juicy Spam' (JS).

In a night that started out as one in which it looked like nothing right would happen for the Fathers the boys showed true grit and almost pulled off the impossible.

Last night the Fathers bowling and fielding performance could either be described as desperately unlucky or diabolical depending on your point of view. Recent brilliant performances in the field were forgotten as the best bowling the seven man Fathers could muster was Hugo's 4/8 (and that was the best by a long shot!) Catches went down, boundaries went through and run outs were missed aplenty. As Captain Kermie ruefully commented between innings, "this is the bad game we had to have prior to the season proper starting".

As it turned out the pep talk from Kermie prior to the Fathers turning out to bat proved the difference. The Fathers were chasing down a massive total of 183 and with the captain's words of "go for it" and "open up the shoulders' ringing in their ears the opening duo of Hugo and Gilly took the crease. A first ball wicket at Hugo's expense (sorry mate, had to put that in) didn't bode well but the boys withstood the early barrage to put on a respectable 31.

The next pair of Kermie and Itchy had the crowd as nervous as kittens. Itchy's performances with the bat of late had showed promise but he always had the propensity to lose wickets with rash shot making. With Kermie steadying the ship the pair overran the second wicket total of 51 to post 55 (33 - Itchy; 22 - Kermie) and the Fathers looked like they were in with a shot, albeit a long one.

Mash and Roscoe were in next and battled heartily. Some hard hitting was interspersed with bad luck and exceptional 'JS' fielding but the boys rode it out and produced a 26 run stand.

Next in were the debutant Sean and the comeback kid for the seven man Fathers outfit, Gilly. With a huge total of 77 required to win and with the encouraging words of their team mates ringing in their ears they took the pitch. What followed will live long in the annals of Fathers folklore. On debut Sean smashed six sevens for a personal total of 58. Gilly was unlucky (in fairness he didn't have much of the strike!) and the boys eventually came up 13 runs short of the target. It was very heartening for the Fathers to see their opposition start to panic under the pressure as they nearly lost the unloseable match but more importantly it was a shot in the arm for the entire Fathers team who, to a man, had earlier performed way under their normal high standards.

So, even in defeat, the Fathers took something away from the match. The inaugural Kermie captaincy could only be deemed a success. To take a dejected seven man team that have just had 183 posted against them and almost engineer a stunning victory is a great achievement*.

As usual the car park beers flowed, the conversation sparkled and the boys marveled at the angry young men and 4WD 'enthusiasts' who like to cruise the Coolie carpark late at night.

Next week's match will be at 9.10pm. Acting Admin Captain Hugo to advise team roster shortly.

*not great enough though Kermie, as losing captain you're dumped for next week - Hugo to advise.... :-).

Gladdy and his FFCC 'trackie' star in the Alhambra

Read all about the day Gladdy dropped in on Snorky and family in the Alhambra.