Author: James French

Readers, in the dark days of February and March, before the ritual of the clock change, may have look forlornly out of the kitchen window at the saturated ground and wondered how it would be possible for any decent bounce to be extracted from a decent length ball in April; but here we are, and…

It’s a time-honoured ritual within the Cricket Club that transgressions of a minor nature throughout the season get logged away in Tim Gilbert’s little red book, only to re-emerge in the public court of opinion one autumnal evening.  Some may have made a rather regrettable assumption that half a sports hall represents a division on the…

Extending the theme of Laskey’s poem, ‘alert in the heavenly deep, beyond the boundary of sleep,’ one might imagine that there is a pitch that needs rolling so that the angels can trust the bounce playing back.  And so it was, on a Saturday morning in August, that the old roller coaxed once again into life…

There are some known and well-understood principles at Walsham Le Willows Cricket Club; a lot of them focus on the established etiquette of how to play the game fairly and in the right spirit; balancing the demands of a competitive game with ensuring that everyone enjoys themselves.  However, top of that honourable list, one that is…

And so it was on that Sunday afternoon earlier in June, when Finn Daly was, once again, giving the assembled masses another in his excellent series of topical lectures.  Finn had chosen on that day to focus on the eastern religions adherence to the principles of fatalism – we, mere humans, are set on a dependent…

Keen readers of the Observer will know, no doubt, that the Walsham cricketers are a cerebral bunch.  Wander, as one might, into the home changing room before a match, pick your way through the detritus of discarded apparel and the smorgasbord of Boot’s compression hosiery offerings, and you shall find such earnest conversation happening. At the…

Those writers that might prophesise with a pen would predict followers of  Walsham Le Willows cricket hold a palpable sense of ebullience for 2023.  The fallow months of winter, interspersed with the odd early morning update from a hazy Lahore session of Bazzball, are receding; the blustery March days are hurtling us towards the inevitable three-jumper…

It will, no doubt, amaze many readers to learn that the members of Walsham Le Willows Cricket Club are avid followers of Greek Mythology.  In fact, many of our matches follow the lines of a tragedy – the prologue (panicked team selection); parados (the slow protracted arrival of the players right up to and beyond the…

In the autumn of the cricket season, with September approaching and the football pitch ominously bearing down on the carefully curated square, it’s the start of the reflection on the months passed in the quiet company of others. Cricket is better in the sun.  We have been blessed with sun.  Almost too much sun.  But it is better…