A regular and welcome fixture beckoned for the day, another fine sunny late summer feel as I turned up at 5 minutes past the start time worried I may have been the cause of the delay to play being held up but it was soon apparent that this was not the case but I had missed the moment the Skip had won the toss and elected to bat so the smattering of Vagabonds that were there in relaxed form apart from the opening batsman who were focused on padding up.

James and Skip eventually made their way onto the field to open proceedings for what would become another ‘Bentworth Thriller’. With his father visiting and looking forward to the days play ahead it was unexpected that Ralph’s stay at the crease was shorter than the walk out there; a sharp caught & bowled for 1 run after facing only 11 balls and suddenly we were 13-1. Middle Mound joined Skip in the middle for some fun with five boundaries of his own, looking set until Armes (our tormentor for the day) nipped him out in the 12th over with 14 off 20 balls.

Then came Armes’ double gut-punch: Skip had been settling in to his trademark test style with some textbook cover drives, four of them to the fence and a healthy smattering of singles before gifting Pystock another catch for 25 off 33 and in fact it was Skip and Jeggings in back-to-back balls. Jeggings had what might be described as the most efficient innings of the day; one ball, no runs, straight to the pavilion. Ben was next to fall with a brisk 14 off 20 and we were suddenly 79 for 5 and it was starting to feel uncomfortable.

If anyone thought we’d go quietly, Ross (the Rhodesian firecracker) had other ideas. Six fours, one massive six, and a strike rate that looked like it belonged in ‘The Hundred’. He and Major Mound (31 off 39) were the ballast the tail needed and rebuilt our score to 145-6 and the Vags started whispering on the benches about 180+. Sadly though, the tail misfired: Mikey was stumped, then the Rhodesian Front was caught off his own leading edge, myself (after an unusual single) missing a straight one. The Hyde was bowled for a blob and Cosmic Hill (Minor Mound) was not out for 5 off 11 balls. Suddenly we were out for 164 in the 34^th over which was felt to be defendable, perhaps more that even but it’s what we had and so were determined to make the best of it.

Another fine Tea was provided by the genial Mr Stephen Hyde to everyone’s enjoyment and we turned our minds to the job in hand, now full of tea but refreshed and refuelled; even the B52 can be devastating once it makes it off the ground.

We did not know as we took to the field that we were about to witness Mikeys spell of the summer, perhaps his Vags career and found out later he had been in Tibet for 3 months meditating and practicing secret martial arts in preparation for this moment. We wanted, nay, we needed early wickets and Stephen was first to oblige with two beauties. Cosmic had bowled very well but was denied his due success with 6 for 0 but it was at that point Mikey that got that look in his eye, well it was a ball to the eye really that lit the fire and in just five overs he dismantled their middle order Botes, Achehurst, Bromley, Bromley (yes, both) and Ford all sent packing. 92-7. Pyestock were on the ropes.

The Vags starting to think about the jugs to be bought at the pub. Ben Lynch had helpfully identified the areas on the pitch that we had all missed that may help the bowling and the Skip reminded us of our duty, through his new battle cry, that will echo in Vags lore: ‘In Metam Semper!‘ always at the stumps and the teams Esprit de Corps was viscerally felt.

But then… Armes happened. He must have been seeing it like a beach ball 66 not out off 41, 9 fours, 4 sixes, and every one of them felt like it landed just where we didn’t have a fielder, often where we didn’t in fact as they cleared the hedge and found the road or field on the other side. Even Ralphs marathon 10 overs and Middle Mounds consistent 5.4 for 0 couldn’t stem the tide. They crossed the line in the 33rd, three wickets in hand.

It did feel that the day would be ours, perhaps it was the heat, maybe the bowling attack just did not pay enough attention to Ben (unlikely considering the consistent and determined nature of the his commentary), certainly the bowling of Middle and Minor Mound and Ralph deserved more success but Mikeys five for 33 deserved a match-winning headline. Rhodesian Ross’s fireworks had the opposition rattled and for a while it felt like it would be our day, alas the cruel mistress that cricket can be denied us in the end. Whilst we may have lost on paper heads remained high as the contest had been well played and there were tails to tell.

The official Vags motto may forever be ‘In Spiritu Sociatatio‘ but when the Captain calls ‘In Metam Semper‘, every Vagabond knows it’s time to bowl at the stumps and write the next chapter in pink-and-pink glory and it was with this in mind we made our way to the Sun Inn for refreshments and celebratory jug bought by Mikey. Jeggings as the more educated and refined amongst us also taught us the new Vagabonds song penned en-route from London Town to the ground from London Town and there were memorable renditions of it to the amusement of the other guests at the pub. I have managed to record it for prosperity below and we raised our glasses to the chorus of:

🎵 In Metam Semper

_For Baz! For beer! For pink on pink!_

_For averages high and wickets to sink!_

_For friendship first and cricket’s delight,_

_For roving the roads ‘til fall of night!_

From pub to pitch, we’ll never tire,

With stumps our mark and hearts on fire —

Raise up your voice, let all remember:

In Metam Semper!

The Honourable Paul Abbott

Tris won the toss (I think) and elected to field first. It was a warm day with a bit of a breeze and with the outfield suffering from the recent lack of rain it was going to be a day where balls would race to the boundary but some help would be given for all the bowlers from a very dry pitch. If you got it right it was hard to score runs on but anything off line or off length would go the distance as the outfield was like lightning. It made for a good game.

Binsted’s openers wandered out to the middle to be met with the double pronged pace attack of Will P and Stevie H. Both bowled really well without much luck. Will getting the ball to swing both ways and plugging away on a decent length and Stevie bowling one of his best spells for a while. He showed great control and got the ball to dart around off the seam. They both deserved more than they got , Stevie getting 1 wicket relatively early on with a fine ball that did enough to beat the defences of their No2 bat and rattle into the stumps. 7-1.

Soon, changes came with Ross (Manu) Albertyn replacing Perts and Luke H replacing Steve. Manu started really well, he caused the batsmen some real problems and had them playing and missing a lot. Luke on the other hand started poorly and took a while to settle in. The odd good ball interspersed with some dross! Anyway , mainly thanks to Lukes bowling the score raced along for a while with only Manu really showing the control that was required on this pitch. Eventually he took the wicket of their number 3 bat with a very straightforward looking LBW and the score was now 64.2. Lukes troubles continued and the score raced to 130 off not many overs before a young man making his Vags debut took a blinder of a catch at square leg and removed their left handed opener. A terrible ball from Luke was spliced by the bat and Harry Lynch was there to snaffle it and, as it turned out, change the momentum of the Binsted innings. Manu was still plugging away without the luck he deserved. Catches going down left, right and centre. Luke was bowling much better and starting to find a line and length. To put this into perspective Lukes first 5 overs went for 57!!! His next 4 overs returned figures of 4-13 to give him 9-1-70-5. Manu decided to take matters into his own hands and helped run through the tail by just getting batsman out by bowling them. He deservedly ended up with 4-59 off 11 and should really have had more.

Harry Lynch came on to bowl an excellent over (a maiden) and ex-Skip Bootie did the same at the other end. Binsted ended ALL out on 208. Some great work in the field by Paulie should be mentioned too. Throwing himself about with abandon.

A great tea was taken provided by the legend that is Steve Hyde. Fine cakes and nibble aplenty.

Vags opened the batting with the usual pair of the Chair and Trius. It was hard going as Binsteds opening bowlers were accurate and extracting plenty of movement off the pitch. The Chair facing 31 balls for his 3 runs before being caught and bowled and Trius similarly pinned down. Scoring continued to be slow as Ex-Skip Boots came and went fairly quickly, departing to an excellent ball that clipped a glove and was caught behind. This bought Manu out and he somewhat steadied the ship with Trius, taking the score onto 44 before he was dismissed LBW to the excellent J Baldwin (3-34 off 10 overs) Trev came out and the experience showed as he and Trius put on a great partnership and started to accelerate the scoring. A partnership of 79 followed with both batters running aggressively and stroking the ball to the boundary when the bowling allowed. With the score on 123 Trev fell first getting bowled by a ball that stayed a little low. This left us with 6-7 overs to score 80 odd and it was unlikely. Ben Lynch coming out to hit a quick 7, L Harding 10* and the ever impressive Will P coming out to…….wait, hang on that’s not Will, thats……Harry Lynch, who’d decided that he was bored of watching these sad old men trying to play cricket and that he should bat. Right now. At this moment. Screw Will P, senior pro or not this was Harry’s time. Will slumped back in his chair and Harry saw out the rest of the overs with Luke. Vags ending on 170/6.

Binsted are a great bunch, they play the game in exactly the right way and visit the pub after which is always respected by the Vags. They bowled excellently and we did well to get to where we did.

Well done Harry, a great debut.

On to the next one!

Luke H

The Chesterfield Arms, Mayfair, 6th June 2025

Vags 2025 London Luncheon at The Chesterfield pub, Mayfair[/caption]

The Vagabonds Committee: A shadowy mix of men who rule over us mere mortals by decree. Grand Emperor Baz (I assume that is his official title) sits atop his throne and ensures everything is right in the world of Vagabonds. Whilst we may primarily be a cricket club, anyone that has ever been a member, or seen me play from afar, knows that we are in fact a glorified food and drink society. Just one that happens to meet on 20-ish Sundays a year to play cricket, with varying degrees of success.

For those of you who can remember the mid to late 2010’s, there was quite a furore when the new fixture secretary, who lived in Chiswick, started booking quite a few fixtures “within the M25”. Was this a coincidence? We will never know, but he was never selected for any of the London fixtures just in case. Almost a decade later he seems to have learnt his lesson; no fixtures have been arranged for Glasgow.

Why do I mention the mistakes of the past I hear you ask, well it would appear London is back on the Vagabonds radar. Whilst we no longer play at Worcester Park, several members of the club have ventured into The Great Metropolis this week. At the behest of the committee, a London lunch had been sanctioned. London was back on the map.

Whilst the Sun is the official and spiritual and actual home of the club, it is only right and proper that we also have a London base. This will allow us to have a say in any important cricketing matters. The fact that the ICC is no longer in London is irrelevant. To which, The Chesterfield Arms was selected. Why there? Well Jeggs’s (grammar check) fiancé is the landlady, he lives there and the red exterior goes well with the blazers (as can be seen in the photos below). So it seemed only natural that 9 Vagabonds assembled there.

Varying levels of travel were needed: Basingstoke was probably the furthest, 2 flights of stairs certainly the shortest. Whilst I could take about the food: some baked camembert’s for all to share and then 8 Beef Wellingtons and 1 vension for mains, I would much rather describe Rosco’s welcome to London. Much like my cricket reports gently touch on the actual game, my food review will only briefly mention the food.

The train journey, one can only assume, was delightful. The newly nationalised South Western Railways providing Rossco the opportunity to imbibe a few train beers. As he pulled into the Waterloo his eyes were drawn to the Houses of Parliament, The London Eye, The Shard…I could go on. Luckily he eyes were not kept open for too long. Shortly getting off the train, he had an unfortunate incident. Whilst Rosco claims it was a very poorly pigeon he had a run in with, Bootes claims it was actually a healthy Pterodactyl. The sheer volume of shit that landed splat bang on his head makes me believe Bootes.

Whilst there is a rule about never having your blazer cleaned, as every stain is a story, for public health reasons Rossco with have to visit the dry cleaners.

For many, this was an early highlight of the day, with the gaiety only being slightly impacted when the pub ran out of Timothy Taylors Landlord. However, with another 3 ales on tap this was quickly forgotten. Food was good, service was excellent.

Remember gents; Tripadvisor/google reviews please! I have a wedding to pay for and the reputation score is a key part of Steff’s bonus.

On a personal note, I thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon. I think we should do it again. Maybe with less faeces’ next time. I’m not saying no poo, just less.

Pip Pip!

Jeggs

Ripley is a tranquil, scenic and well to-do village in Surrey. Mentioned in “The War of The Worlds”, the idea of an invasion of ill-meaning aliens invading Ripley has long be consigned to science fiction. That is until The Vagabonds came…

Our story begins, as many do, with a seemingly innocent WhatsApp message from a young man. He was enquiring whether 10 other like-minded individuals would like to dress up in white clothes and join him in a field one day. It turns out there were several similarly deranged persons, so it was agreed to meet on Ripley Common at 11.30 the following Sunday.

It should be noted that there are 3 cricket villages with rather similar sounding names: Ripley, Ripsley and Ropely. So, when your correspondent travelled down from The Great Metropolis, picked up at the station by frightfully helpful Stu Best, nice and early it was rather worrying that no other Vagabond was at the ground by 12.20. This was compounded by the instructions from captain Max to get to the ground for 11.30 if you wished to get a snout-full in before the game. Had we gone to the wrong village beginning in R? Had we turned up to an away ground instead of Bentworth? Obviously we were so afraid of our mistake that we started googling reviews of the best roasts in the area instead of calling anyone up to double check. Therefore, we were terribly disappointed relieved when our teammates started trickling in.

After a good catch up, Max strolled out for the toss and either won or loss. Either way, we were to have a bat. The Colonel and Mr Wilson went out first and put on a very steady 110 in 19 overs before Mr Whillins was bowled for an energetic 34. As often happens James fell a few balls later, caught for a very handy 50. This left Max Hill and Charlie Standish in the middle. Max went all guns blazing, with the energy of a young Will Perton at a Colombian vineyard and managed to reach 25 off of 11 balls. Charlie decided that running was overrated and managed a handy 23 almost exclusively in boundaries. T Gay added a nifty 16 and Manu a cracking cameo of 18 before our 35 overs were up. Max took the plaudits with 72 not out. A target of 264 had been set. Game On!

Ripley always does a lovely tea; however I feel they could provide more scones. The talk of lunch was the normal Vagabond dribble about something or other of no consequence.

Stu Best opened the bowling with Cosmo going from the other. So tight lines, length and fielding kept the run rate down slow. I cannot tell you exactly when or where the first wicket was taken, as our oppositions scoring was not quite to the same standard as we hold ourselves, but it was quite far in and for not a huge number of runs. It was brought about the a change in bowling with Max and James replacing the opening pair. James even had a chance of a hattrick ball but alas, decided he didn’t want that accolade. Things progressed in the field, as cricket tends to, but despite a few changes we still couldn’t the final few wickets. After 35 overs Ripley were 182 for 6, some lovely bowling and splendid fielding meaning we never looked in danger of losing.

A cracking day with a top-notch bunch of chaps.

Pip Pip,

Jeggs

It stretches the bounds of credulity does it not compadres? But yes, the 11th of May was a warm and sunny Sunday in the quiet village of Crondall.
At the Plume of Feathers, its historic pub with Tudor origins (possibly dating back to the 16th century) sat a bald, saturnine Colombian, his richly striped jacket bursting forth its own bloom of pink and red from a bench outside – an incongruent Colgate advert amongst the rich tapestry of historic buildings. Known for its old-world charm and thought to have served customers for at least 500 years, the pub is a prominent feature in this sleepy village. Like an Italian spaghetti western, the questionable Latino sat motionless in the dry heat, behind narrow sunglasses that veiled his staring, dark brown eyes. The only clue he was alive came from the occasional puff of his Marlboro cigarillo, emitting a plume of smoke as he swigged a mouthful of cold Cruzcampo from his pint glass. Occasional village gringos walked by nodding hesitantly at the implacable, solitary figure.

Suddenly the peace was broken by the throbbing blast of a biker’s engine, in one fell swoop the machine smoothly swerved into a perfect parking spot by the table and bench, the rider dismounting his 21st century horse-powered mustang and peeling off his helmet to reveal a bushy, red hedgerow that populated most of his face.
“Hola Capitán”, smiled Cementos. “Fancy a drink?”

“Hey Mikey…how do’s? Make mine a blackcurrant and soda,” smiled back Trius, “Where is everyone?”

In the next 10 minutes that question was answered as the brave, Vagabonds bandidos selected for today’s contest began to ride in. Big Boots, Tiny Trev, eThekwini Ralph, the three amigos Hill, Jimmy the Chair, Paulie the hopeful scribe (!) and ‘catch-this’ Ben.
Trius won the toss and chose to field – hmm…or maybe the alternative rendition cos I’m just a slack, lazy, no-good gaucho too lazy to check…maybe they won the toss and chose to bat!

Max the big Hill opened the bowling and sent down a few of his usual swinging, pacey deliveries. Trius shocked the Colombian into action at the other end and within the first few balls the Crondall opener had lost his balance as he salsa-sashayed around his wicket and knocked a bail off. Jimmy the Chair stared at him, demanding his removal while the batsman eyed him suspiciously before finally succumbing to the duck-walk of shame back to the clubhouse. Cementos bowled a further 6 overs with, overall, uncharacteristic steadiness, leaking a few fours here and there. Meanwhile, Skip, seeing that Max was not at his consistent best, creatively switched him to the other end and then both he and Durbs-Ralphie put in a bunch of great overs removing batsmen and keeping the run-rate well under control. Ralph was particularly consistent bowling a fine line and length. Hill senior took an over or two to find his mettle and finally snagged a wicket, but the highlight of this first innings was arguably the indomitable spirit shown by Cos and Paulie. Both had erratic moments but also came back into form with persistence and doggedness (and with the gentle, positive coaching of their skipper plus the constant, cheerful support of their teammates) to bag wickets between them – Cos succeeding despite his father’s butter fingers!! Paulie also took a quintessential Paulie catch…stock still, rooted to the spot, he remained calmy statuesque as he guided the ball into his flippers at point. Crondall normally field a competitive side but this eleven seemed a little weaker than usual and we kept them down to 165 for 8.

Tea was not hugely memorable, but I enjoyed the egg mayonnaise sandwiches and the lemon drizzle especially!

The usual suspects opened the batting, Trius going down first as he switched to spectator-mode and seemed to watch the ball hit his wicket! But he had scored a very useful 38 and set Boots and Chair up to continue the solid start, which they built on until Chair gave way to Max….all the way to about 20 short. Boots showed unusual care and patience to score well…did he come off after scoring fifty?? Someone fill the gap here please…even though I was scoring for an hour!! And what an hour, deftly coached in the technical wizardry of the computer app that enabled me to not only keep the score but also, for the first time ever, sustain a relaxed conversation while doing so…thankfully Richie then took over as I melted into the clubhouse to cover myself in cold water!

Suffice to say that Ben gave the opposition catching practice with 10 to go and between Trev and Max 166 was accumulated.
Back at the pub, shouty-striped blazers plus Vagabonds bonhomie and banter dominated the village high street until the sun began to set and Monday morning whispered its mal…or good intent…..

Well played you Vags! Another ‘W’ ticked off under a beautiful English summer’s sky!

We play Crondall at home later in the season…let’s see if they stiffen their resolve or if we can push home our advantage.
Hasta el próximo!

Cementos

Broadhalfpenny Down Brigands have written their own match report, well worth a read, which can be found by clicking the link.

And there are some cracking photographs taken by Meon Times photographer : Paul Jacobs / www.pictureexclusive.com

One other thing to note (though who knows if it would have changed the result) is that our paid umpire, John Farquhar, arrived 1 hour 40 minutes late, came on to the pitch mid-over, offered no apology, gave Trevor out LBW on the very first ball of his newly-acquired stewardship, and proceeded to give other dubious decisions, including a seven ball over in which I was bowled out – yes, you’ve guessed it – on that seventh ball.

Stevie