For many years Cound Cricket Club was a major part of life so the notes below may be of some interest.

That first summer for us in Shropshire of 1965 Derrick Donnell took me along to his other sporting passion, Cound Cricket Club. The village was as tiny as the ground but the setting was idyllic.

All the players came from Shrewsbury and the standard was quite good. The first and second team captains were John Tipton and Reg Purslow; both men were involved in the club all their lives.

I had a couple of seasons playing in the second team but gave up prior to the 1967 season as I decided to spend more time on all the work required at the house. I was to return however a few years later, again and again!

Apart from the family, playing sport was my main interest outside work; I began to play golf instead of cricket and joined Church Stretton golf club with Peter Parker Jones from the office. Peter was a short rotund man who had a job swinging the club around his paunch. We went round the course together very slowly and I remember the great feeling one Saturday morning when I broke 100.

A few times Edna and the kids would come along for the walk. The scenery from the course was magnificent with outstanding views of the Longmynd Hills. You really needed to be a mountain goat to play golf successfully on that course; I played for about three or four years before increasing back problems stopped me playing. I was never very good at golf and ironically the worse you are at that game the more you play. I returned to playing cricket for Cound when I gave up golf, as I never usually batted long enough to strain my back.

Still on the subject of cricket I went back down to Cound again after a gap of about six years. Many of the same old players were still there. This time I was able to take a couple of helpers with me. Emma was eleven and Debbie nine, eminently suitable ages to be trained up as scorers and assistant tea ladies.

They were only too willing to oblige and seemed to enjoy afternoons down there. I suspect they enjoyed the time in the pub after the match as well. Mrs. Purslow was the Queen Bee of the teas. She was a small wiry lady full of nervous energy who reminded me of Auntie Lizzie. She used to take a pride that her teas were the finest in the Border Counties Cricket League and her junior assistants were expected to be on their toes.

Debbie recalls being carefully taught how to put margarine on the bread and then scrape it off so you didn’t use too much. As the first innings drew to a close Mrs Purslow always got in a bit of a fluster as everything was being laid out. On completion of the meal it was always customary for the players to thank the tea lady and she would stand there beaming with satisfaction, all the stress had gone.

Emma became a scorer and I remember one evening game when I was under severe fire from the oppositions fast bowler when I was batting. This was long before the days of protective helmets and we played on some dodgy pitches. The ball kept whizzing around my head suddenly there was a cry from the scorer in the pavilion, Don’t you dare hit my Daddy! The fielders fell apart laughing.

There was one famous incident told me by Jim Roberts the first team captain. The opposition were batting first and Jim was fielding at slip . The bowler was just turning round to begin his run up when suddenly Jim was joined by the fielder from third man Ray Sudlow. The captain was cross, Get back down there Ray he commented. Ray with a worried frown on his face shouted, Help, Jim we have got big problems, Mrs Purslow says we haven’t any tomatoes for tea. Poor old Jim, it could only happen in village cricket. I bet Michael Vaughan the England Captain never had to solve that one.

That summer following my promotion at work I took over an even more important position, that of captain of Cound Cricket Club second team. For the past two seasons I had been vice captain to Bernard Morgan. We were half way through the season when he took the huff after a row at the weekly selection meeting and immediately cleared off for good. That left me in charge for the following weekends fixture at Whittington on July _10th the day after we had collected our newly adopted Daniel from Wolverhampton. I still have the fixture list for that season.

I absolutely loved being captain. This was far better than being a group leader in the Architects Department at Shire Hall. I just had to point my finger and they all did as they were told, well most of the time! It was wonderful, I felt like Napoleon. The trouble was he lost at Waterloo and I lost at Whittington! We hadn’t got the strongest of teams and usually struggled at the wrong end of the league table, but the spirit in the side was good and I always enjoyed the games win or lose. This now meant even more time away from home during summer. Monday night was selection meeting in The Fox pub at Cross Houses. Friday was ground preparation getting the wicket ready for the next days match and then the big day on Saturday which usually took up most of the evening as well.

All this with four kids and a new baby in the house as well. I enjoyed everything about village cricket and it made me realise what an idiot I had been to walk away from it in 1967 for six years. It was the characters in the cricket team that made it for me.

The opening fast bowlers were two gentlemen of somewhat advanced age and large girth, Brian Breeze and Phil Jones. Brian used to paw the ground like a bull before beginning his lumbering run-up and sweat used to pour out of him by the bucket load. I swear the ground used to shake as he ran in to bowl. Phil was a train driver who had a bad stammer; sometimes it took him a long time to get the appeal out Howwwwwssssszzzzaaaaaaatttttt was the strangled cry.

Fred Evans had played high quality cricket in his prime, a Manchester man who had once opened the batting for the British Army or so he said. By this stage he was in his late sixties but could still time the ball sweetly. It used to worry me when Fred and I were chasing the ball to the boundary side by side and he got there well before me. Ron Cooke became wicket keeper, he was built like Brian and Phil but was much older He had developed the technique of flinging himself on the ground sideways like a giant white pillow to stop the ball. At the age of 39 I was one of the youngsters in the side. Wonderful days, they could all knock the pints back after the match as well.

The cricket season of 1991 got underway at the end of April and I was looking forward to it as usual. I got off to an inauspicious start. I strode out to bat rather self consciously wearing my new helmet, there were a few ribald comments from the lads. I took guard and stared down the wicket as the first ball was bowled. The ball flashed by and I never saw it, very worrying! The same happened with the next few balls, it was immediately apparent the problem was the grille, which was obscuring my vision. I didn’t last long; the first straight ball hit the wicket. I trudged back to even more comments.

Paul Rice tried the helmet on and said, No wonder you got a duck this helmet has a thick fielding grille. I didn’t even know there were two types. I went out during the next week spent another £50 and bought another one.

There was a happy ending, I had my best season ever with the bat, and the tin lid made a difference as I thought it would.

The cricket season had finished and wearing my helmet had produced the results I wanted. It gave me confidence took away the fear of the short rising ball as we didn’t exactly play on the best-prepared pitches.

I was still playing for Cound 2’nd team but had given up the captaincy some years before. I actually ended up top of the league batting averages with an average of 39.22 after fifteen innings.

I was rather proud of that particularly after that first innings duck and my advanced age.

There we are, just a fraction of my life story.

Bill Clarke.