My First Cricket Tea

Club President George Dickson tells us about his first game for the club as a callow youth. A trip to one of the East League’s great lost grounds—Atlas Cricket Club and his first cricket tea…

I was a pupil at Boroughmuir High School and it was, and still is, very much a rugby playing school. In fact, in my time, if you wanted to play sports in 1st and 2nd year, it was mandatory that you played rugby to the exclusion of all other sports. It wasn’t until 3rd year that we had the additional choice of either football (which I had little skill in) or cricket (which I had never played). So off I trotted over the boundary rope for the first time to learn the art of cricket.

Luckily, we had a sports master with a passion for the sport and quickly a core group of players formed, becoming Boroughmuir School’s first ever cricket team. We played early on a Saturday morning against other schools, the standard was woeful but I remember that time as being magical. I was surrounded by teammates that encouraged me to play the best I could, which allowed me to establish lifelong friendships and a lifelong love of the game.

After a while, some of the school’s better players were being asked to play for the Men’s 2nd XI later on a Saturday, as they were struggling for numbers. I would eagerly await Monday morning for them to regale me with stories of derring do and adventure but mostly it was them batting at number 11 and not getting a bowl.

As the season progressed and the men’s team disappeared on their annual holidays, the calls for school players increased. I secretly hoped one day I would be “spotted” as I was opening the batting by then and developing what I believed to be fearsome medium-pace swing bowling. In my head, I was the next Ian Botham. In reality, I was 13 and optimistic.

After one match, Chris Sprott finally asked if I would be available for that day’s match. He took me home to my parents and explained that he would take me to the ground, ensure that I was looked after and brought straight home after the game. They agreed.

And so it was, on a warm summers day in early 1981, aged 13 (the youngest in my year group), that I set off with Chris towards West Lothian and the town of Armadale, to play against Atlas Cricket Club and to make my Boroughmuir Cricket Club debut.

During the car journey, I dreamed of pavilion balconies, well dressed gentlemen in blazers drinking tea from China cups and polite applause from the women and children on the boundary.

When I eventually woke from my dream, what I was actually faced with, was a patch of ground outside of a black corrugated iron Steelworks. No pavilion to be seen, no blazers or cups of tea and no crowd in sight.

When I say patch of ground, I literally mean a patch of grass that was so unlike any cricket ground I had ever seen that we actually drove over the square thinking it was a car park. My overriding memory of the ground was – Daisies. There were daisies all over the outfield, the square and even on the ‘cut strip’ that today’s match was to be played on. This was less a cricket ground and more a crime scene for lawn maintenance.

The changing rooms doubled as a storage shed, packed with oily rollers and a scoreboard made from flattened beer cans, painted with numbers and hung on rusty nails. Talking of rust, the “beer can numbers” had been exposed to the Scottish weather for so long that rust began to form along their outer edges and there was an ever present risk of tetanus poisoning whenever someone scored a run or took a wicket. Thankfully this didn’t happen a lot as it was well known that a score of 80+ would win you a match here. This was a ground where batting averages went to die.

The toss was won by us, the only thing we were going to win that day, and we were told of the local rules particular to this beautiful setting. The ‘pitch’ in the loosest sense of the word was situated right in front of the Steelworks which, as I mentioned before, was a huge black corrugated iron structure and as we played in those days with a red ball, it made picking up the flight from that end an advanced optical illusion. The distance from the bowlers popping crease and the boundary at that end was also extremely small, possibly only 20 yards, so if you had any kind of run up, your back would be literally pressed up against the Steelworks. There was also a huge pipe that ran the length of the building about half-way up. This led to the weirdest local rule that I’ve ever heard of while playing this great game of cricket.

The opposition Captain took great delight in informing me that…

“If you hit it into the long grass at the base of the Steelworks, its 2 runs, if you hit it below the pipe on the full, its 4 runs, if you hit it above the pipe, its 6 runs and if you hit it onto the roof, you go and get it your Bl**dy self!”

At the time I played, they had two brothers who opened the bowling and let’s just be kind and say that they would be experts when it came to various types of beer and less so if asked to name types of exercise equipment. They bowled off three or four steps, banged it on a length and the ball either shot under your bat or attempted to remove your face. This was in an era before batting helmets became mandatory and I didn’t have one and I certainly don’t ever remember there being one in the team kit bag. I am now a fully trained umpire, officiating in the Scottish Premiership and Championship and had I been standing at any of these games in my current capacity, I would have abandoned it after the first delivery and called the authorities.

I watched as wicket upon wicket fell to the slow but accurate bowling of the two brothers and after about 20 or so overs in came number 11. Me, the schoolkid, the prodigy, the next Ian Botham. I was met in the middle by Chris, who had miraculously survived several appeals and bodyline bowling to greet me in the middle. “Just try and get a bat on it” was his advice. I don’t remember much of the innings, but I do remember being not out at the end as Chris was bowled by a “shooter” that defied several laws of physics. I think we were all out for a dismal 39 but some of our players who had played here before were quite upbeat and thought that it was a defendable total.

The players retired for a spot of lunch on the oily benches that were pulled from the deep depths of the shed. This was the part I was most looking forward to as we don’t play long enough at school to warrant a tea break, and the boys had told me stories of the copious amount of cakes and biscuits in the offing. Having quite the sweet tooth at the time, sandwiches weren’t going to cut it for me and I was heading straight for the “yummies”. Given that I hadn’t had any lunch and had come straight from a school match, I was particularly famished and looking forward to filling the rumbling gap in my stomach.

I remember that the protocol at Boroughmuir for the years I played, was “Tea for Two”, which for those uninitiated meant, “Bring enough to eat for yourself and for one other”. This often led either to an abundance of sandwiches and no cakes or lots of sweet treats and no sandwiches. There was no quality control and thankfully “known allergies” were a thing of the future.

Some teams however, had a designated tea provider for that game which meant that you needed to provide a balanced tea for 22 players. I guess the thinking was that this eliminated the need for portion control as you alone decided what was brought and it also had the benefit of being a one and done scenario for the season. Once you have had your turn, it was unlikely that you would be called upon to provide teas until the following season. This was the case at Atlas Cricket Club. Now, for whatever reason, I am still to this day unsure why, the person that was designated, either didn’t turn up, was picked to play but didn’t, was picked to play and forgotten, or was ill but, disaster upon disaster, THERE WAS NO TEA!!

As Atlas had spent time in the field, this wasn’t realised until the end of the 1st innings. There was a whip round between the players and a couple of people were dispatched to the local shop (which was just a corner newsagent that didn’t stock hot food or cakes). After a while, they came back with 2 plastic carrier bags each (remember, they were buying for 22 people here). Well, at least I will get something to eat, I thought. They unpacked their goods, laid them out in front of us and gave each of us a can of lager and a meringue for our tea! A can of lager and a meringue! And not only was it a can of lager, it was a can of Tennent’s lager that has a picture of a topless lady on it.

I was a 13 year old boy who had dreams of tea in China cups taken on balconies, being kissed by the sun. Not a bloody can of lager and a meringue. Anyway, Chris cruelly snatched the can away from me before I could open it, so for my first ever cricket tea, I had a meringue. One. Single. Meringue.

Back to the game, the field positions for such a pitch typically involved silly mid off, silly mid on and a few slips, so there, at the start of the 2nd innings, I found myself at age 13, absolutely starving, crouching at silly mid off, with a rumbling tummy and without a helmet.

I truly believed these might be my final moments on this Earth.

And honestly?

I could really have done with that lager!