EYMET’S FIRST MATCH

Squeaky keen and full of team bonhomie, in 1984, complete with wives and children Eymet’s cricketers set off in a hired ‘Cars Bleus’ coach on a boiling hot July Sunday. We were heading for Bordeaux Cricket Club’s ground, in those days situated somewhere deep in the Medoc, and our very first game.

A few beers were downed on the trip but in the main we tried to keep fit and alert for the challenge ahead, and good laugh was raised as two of the Griffin boys – their father Brian was captain – stormed past our old bus in a flaming pink beach buggy. As it turned out they became as much disorientated as our driver: one serried rows of vines looks much the same as another in that part of France’s wineland, as a result we finally arrived rather late for the picnic lunch; not too late, though, to be craftily plied with some irresistible “grands crus” – many of the opposition were in the trade. We enjoyed their wine, a nice change from Bergerac plonk, while they enjoyed watching us wilt from heat and alcohol before the game had even started.

As I recall (the scorebook has long been mislaid, just it often is today), Bordeaux went in first and knocked up an easy 138. In reply we were wiped out for a paltry 47. The Bordeaux chaps, gentlemen to a man, let us have another go and save some face, but we still failed to total their score with our two innings.

Not knowing whether ECC had a real future, few of us had yet invested in much kit, apart from the essential box and some pads, and not many of us wore boots: I shan’t forget losing a big toenail to a mean yorker, and hobbling around on a purple foot for the next two months.

Another, more pleasantly poignant memory, was the sight of Bordeaux’s superb heavy roller, a Ransome I think, a beauty with ornate wrought-iron shafts. Strange to see such an essentially English device sitting in 90 degrees of heat and humidity, surrounded by vineyards – but then, so were we….

C.B.