We had a cracking day out in the sunshine yesterday. I arranged a cricket match with my old mates at Hartley Wintney which featured no less than six of the Sporting Baughurst FC starting 11 from 1987.

We were a bit of a mixed bunch, but we did really well watched by a sizable gathering of villagers as we battled for a draw. Our fielding in particular featured no few than five catches and one near miss which shattered Peter’s fingers and left him hopping about like cat on a hot tin roof screaming in pain. Unfortunately for him, this caused great hilarity amongst his team mates, and the batsmen of the opposition.

Left to right: George Lethaby, Kevin Mitchell, Dave Beattie, Graham Mitchell, Mark Cunningham, Me, Mark Tyler, John newton, Bert Monger, Pete Holcroft.

As you get older you have to get a bit wiser when it comes to organising get togethers with old mates, but cricket is a great way of doing it, you all get involved and natural team spirit evolves as the game goes on. What starts out as a bit of a laugh naturally intensifies as mates try to look out for each other and get more determined, but in a good natured way (apart from Kev who I had to convince to walk after being given LBW incorrectly by our own umpire after the ball clearly hit bat first). When our two best batsmen were out, our only realistic escape was a draw, yet all the batsmen hung about and scored runs grittily achieving our objective.

At the end of the game we all had a few well earned beers with our excellent hosts, with plenty of lively and funny banter about the game, and the promise of a return game next year. The email descriptions of all the different Monday aches and pains, was a funny, yet poignant reminder that despite what our brains say, we are all getting older, and that we must make sure these get togethers don’t just fizzle out, life is too short to just sit around an do nothing.