Southwell U21s Goosed By Arnold

After a phone call earlier on in the week from Notts and Arnold CC, Southwell CC got the opportunity to be involved in NAACC's club night and play in a u21 t20 match. After drafting a squad together within 3 hours, Tom Clarke's troops had a pre match warm up of fifa, had some pre game food of toast with jam, then set off to Goosedale on Friday night. After looking at the wicket and fancying a bat, Tom Clarke went with his teams quote of tails never fails, until it came to the toss and the coin landed on heads. Notts and Arnold won the toss and elected to bat. Notts and Arnold openers came out in their colourful kit, we were playing in whites, except Chris Green who'd forgot his whites, who was representing the ymca with his purple work shirt. Never change Chris Green, never change. Matt Clarke set the tone with a lovely first over. Batesy opened up from the other end and struck in his first over, the batsman skying 1 in the air to Gelly in the covers. Matt Clarke bowled 4 overs on the trot and got a deserved wicket towards the end of his spell of 4-0-16-1. NAACC rebuilt nicely despite decent bowling from all 3 Stokes lads. Tim Stokes removed the captain clean bowled and NAACC were 86-3 off 13. Olly and Chris Green had an over each but no reward. As the innings came towards the end Joe Wright removed Qasim Mahmood, the catch taken at long on by MC. NAACC had a few big swings at the end of the innings, Batesy (3-0-19-2) removing Yash Sarma last ball of the innings, Notts and Arnold finishing on 140-5 off 20. A very good fielding performance by Southwell with some tidy bowling figures too. A quick turn around and Gelly and Dan Stokes were walking out to the middle to begin the chase. TC in his element, full control over NAACC speakers for boundary music, plenty of S Club 7 and ABBA to be played. full control on the microphone too despite plenty of screeching noises, sorry everybody. Gelly and Dan Stokes got us off to a very nice start. 24-0 off 4. NAACC brought on the pacey Yash Sarma who unfortunately stop the free flowing runs, removing Gelly, Dan and Batesy. After losing Olly and Joe Southwell found themselves 72-5 off 13. It was crowd attendance announcement time, we thank the attendance of 11, we appreciate your support and time. Let me tell you, watching Chris Green's entrance to bat was worth the entry fee alone, nothing better than having the ymca song on full blast, we even had a few of the moves displayed by Chris as he went out to middle. Unfortunately he didn't last long but he had a great time and a standing ovation as he left the field. The skipper TC entered the field, a bit disappointed he had to leave the speakers behind to go out and Bat, I'm sure the crowd were pleased. Much to everyone's amazement of TC being compared to Boycott throughout his career, he actually teed off from the start of his innings. Barbs at the other end working it round the field nicely. Southwell were 110-6 off 18. Sadly we lost Barbs in the 19th over for a hard worked 21. MC came to the crease and despite our best efforts, Southwell fell short by 16 runs. TC finishing 36*.
I'd like to finish by thanking all the other players for turning up and putting in a great performance. As youngsters it's important that we stick together and do things like this as it brings us closer as group. I hope everyone thoroughly enjoyed the night because it was a great laugh and played in the right spirit. Thank you Notts and Arnold for your hospitality, great bunch of lads. Thank you to Phil Clarke for umpiring, the support of Jo, John, Boo, Sally and Chris Gell and to Stuart Grimley for providing the match balls and scorebook. Hopefully we will do something similar again soon.

Cheers
TC