I got off a to flyer, flyer for me- 26 of 10. I thought the track was even and hard; a mortuary for medium pacers but I got one that slowed of the deck and mistimed a drive into the bowler’s hands. Cricket, when I bat, is a bowler’s game. Did the bowler know that part of the deck would be two paced? Like heck he did.
Despite its excellent facilities, this can be a charmless place. It used to be a crummy sorry gaff but rocketed up cricket leagues and the social world when they sold their lease to a leisure club entrepreneur who bankrolled a top ground and pavilion. In return Acton cricket club got the Park Club. 2 to 3000 well heeled Chiswick and Shepherds Bush types who pony up £1500-3000 a year for tennis, swimming, gyms, spas etc.
The place reeks of ‘people like us’. If you’re not a member you can’t use the car park. When we arrived a Ukranian sentry barked at us ‘ outside, outside, you cannot enter, parking is member only.’ You also have to sign in a zillion times before they let you in. It’s a CRB thing because the club buzzes with happy kids at play and the fear is that visiting cricket teams are chock full of paedophiles.
I raised this with Acton’s captain. He was a bit upset when I asked what the fuss was about. ‘We’re in Acton. This is hardly White’s or Hurlingham and they let Osama Bin Laden in without any hassle at all,’ I said.
‘Acton is an affluent area’, he said.
‘Ah yes so it is, my mistake,’
I didn’t want to get into an argument about how posh Acton was. I’d lived in neighbouring ‘sexual’ (Ealing) for twenty years. I clearly didn’t know what I was talking about.