Sunday 24th August sees the first OECC Golf Day at Pedham Place Golf Course. The schedule includes coffee on arrival, 18 holes of golf and a 2 course BBQ meal.
There will be 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes for gross and net scores, as well as longest drive and closest to the pin challenges.
There are no cricket fixtures on this date so we hope to see you all on the tee supporting your club and having a fantastic time of it. To sign up, download the Entry Form or pick one up from behind the bar and hand it in with your remittance in an envelope marked 'FAO Richard Pickerill'. For more details, download the Golf Day Poster currently viewable around the club.
G'day OE's...and Russ! Another win for the 1sts and the club has a great beginning to the season in all grades and divisions. Wally, Shins, Wags, all the same person but you must be smashing them old mate. Well done pro, always remember we can never make enough runs, and look after Territory House as it is becoming an iconic fixture on the grounds of Foxbury.
I spent last week in Melbourne and don't mind saying that it was freezing for me. Coming from 30 degrees everyday to Melbourne's 14 degrees (and 2 overnight) was brass monkey stuff. I caught up with Maxi (Mario) Eliopoulos (and Rhiannon) at the footy at the MCG and continued on for a few sherbets or nectar juices at a local watering hole in St Kilda.
Happily travelling to Singapore and Malaysia tomorrow evening for some R & R for a week and a chance to catch up with some old friends from when I used to live there. Bargaining like my life depended on it and relaxing on a beach in front of a chalet while sipping some ridiculous looking 'fruit juice' with a kick a bull would be happy with! Selamat Tingall (goodbye in Malay)
David has given me the honour and privilege of paying tribute to the life of his dear brother Stephen. You will be expecting a series of funny stories but I also want with this last opportunity to speak before him to get beyond the clowns façade and touch the real man and give him full credit. He was I assure you a man of moral uprightness and it would be wrong not to give due reverence to that fact. David told me that at the family meal table when they were kids Stephen suddenly punched him right on the jaw for blaspheming – there was no coarseness with Stephen the strongest words he ever uttered were “Blinking Heck”.
Stephen was one of the most compassionate and welcoming persons I have ever met, I’m sure that will be echoed around this room. He had time for you, he accepted you, no matter what your creed, status or value. When I phoned Bob to tell him the sad news and ask on behalf of David if he, Eltham College’s Chaplain, would take the service for this faithful Old Boy he said without hesitation: “I would be honoured to do it; he always made me feel most welcome.”
I have known Stephen for the best part of fourty years, some here can go back further, but I never knew him to talk vitriolicly of anyone, he saw the good in us all. He had time for all. I have been with him when we have met the disabled, the mentally impaired and those with Down’s syndrome he did not pass by; he has sat there with them patiently bringing them food and drinks and talking to them, in short placing value on them. He was a man who embraced the marginalised. That is a tremendous quality to have in this insular self seeking society.
Why did he befriend all, even the marginalised? Could it be that he deep down identified with their plight? It cannot be easy to be uprooted from your home in India as a ten year old and shoed in to a public school in another country. It must have been quite hard too, to see your parents separate at a young age. Scars deep down, seldom discussed, he covered them with a veneer of frivolity. In time that frivolous habit became his persona and with more time it became his destiny.
The first time I went to his home in Lansdowne Road, Sidcup his Mother was very welcoming inviting me in for a meal. It was apparent that there was a tremendous bond of love between the two and she cared for Steve’s every need. Then when his Mother’s husband came in at three o’clock in the afternoon Stephen was greeted with:
“Good gracious up already Stephen, don’t tell me you have been out looking for a job.”
“No Major” Throughout the time he addressed this man as Major. Why? He simply said: “When my Mother first met him he was a captain so we called him Captain until he became a major.” That was the answer, the explanation – no more was said. Right through until the Major’s death there was this love hate bond. That tempestuous relationship between Major and Stepson continued through the years. After his Mother’s death the Major welcomed him back to the family home in Hillbrow. It was an atmosphere built on eggshells. The Major’s will made Stephen laugh. One minute he was included in it the next he was excluded. Finally at the Major’s funeral I asked if he had been included, Stephen said:
“Yes, I was left in; I think the tipex ran out before he did!”
I was not around to authenticate the following stories he told me:
Stephen was a Civil Engineer and specialised in foundations, he worked on the building of the Post Office Tower. The night before the Profumo Affair came to light Stephen was having a drink in Tottenham Court Road with Christine Keeler – who knows the biggest scandal of the last half century could have been averted, or was S. B. N. Hart the Third Man?
Also as a football referee in a match he sent off nine players for gross insubordination to the referee. Those nine were all on the same team and to top it all the team he normally played for. Apparently he took his role very seriously he even formally asked them for their names and wrote them down, although he knew them all, when one player said it was D. Duck, he asked: “How do you spell it?” And so he went through the whole team. How the goalie and attacker (who I assume became defender) carried on I don’t know.
Another story was when he was working down in Kent and obviously upset the construction team, for when he came to leave he found his Hillman Imp had been encased in concrete.
One myth I do have to correct though and I only found this out from discussing the incident with David the other day, Stephen did not get five wickets in five balls, it was David who got that and David who got written up in the national papers. This in itself was a paradox because he thought the world of you David and always sang your praises. To him your move to Canada fourty years ago was devastating, but he characteristically shrugged it off.
When I first meet Steve I was impressed by his shinny sparkling eyes, in many ways it went hand in glove with that saucy cheeky humour that was by then his persona. Also in those days he always had a creamy white linen jacket and tie, one could almost describe him as dapper, (although after ten years of the same combination it became drab). The Reverend John Steer who now lives in the USA wrote to me “I was very sorry to hear the news that Steve Hart has died. I have the happiest memories of playing cricket with Steve for the Old Elthamian’s back in the early 70’s. At that time he was training to be a deacon in the Anglican Church. He was always a great character. He had the habit of showing up a minute before the game started wearing whites that looked as if he had been sleeping in them for the last month. On his day he could get a few runs and was an effective keeper and bowler. I believe he was a Christian and so look forward to seeing him in that great pavilion in heaven.”
We became firm friends and it almost seemed that we were joined at the hip. His favourite haunt was the Black Horse in Sidcup High Street, always drinking ‘light and bitter’ and always last to leave. He did have a most unusual pallet, once for a dare he polished off a whole bottle of neat lime cordial – adding that it was “Rather pleasant.”
Around this time he moved out of the family home into a modern house round the corner in Birchwood Avenue where we held regular parties. In fact he was only turfed out of there because he had gas canisters in his garden that started exploding and the road had to be closed by the fire brigade. Why he had gas canisters I never asked, cranky things like that by then were fast becoming the norm. At the end of these wild parties he would go to sleep in an arm chair with a full glass of beer in his hand, sleep all night and still have an un-spilled glass in his hand in the morning, wake up and carry on drinking its stale content. He never dropped a drop.
That leads on nicely to his cricketing ability. I never found a better wicket-keeper; the consummate ease with which he always took the ball correctly was second to none. He did a spell at Sidcup when a young Ian Drewer came to play at Foxbury; he confided in me that he made the move for three years to give Ian a chance, that was consistent with his nature. Wherever I played cricket (mostly over Kent) and said I used to play for OE’s they would ask “Is that where that Indian wicket keeper plays?”, invariably going on to either relate an outstanding piece of cricketing skill or an outlandish action or prank he had performed. Even in the field when not behind the stumps he has taken incredible catches.
As for his batting, he had all the shots including a very ostentatious off drive and an equally over exuberant sweep, but there is one skill he lacked and that was shot selection. He did play some great innings and no doubt there will be many who can recall them. I never saw him make a ton, but others here may well have. In later years he managed to keep his end up well, until the desire for the off drive or sweep got the better of him. I know he made a hundred partnership with Chris Webb of which he contributed two runs – no doubt he gave much advice between the overs.
It was suggested that we wear an Old Boy’s tie or cricket tie. I could have worn my Primary Club tie, Stephen was my sponsor. Stephen was out first ball of an all day match at Beckenham Cricket Club (where the Primary Club had recently been inaugurated). He was carried off the field by the Beckenham players.
Stephen never quite hit it off with umpires. David was telling me when they were playing for the Sidcup Boys Club on the Isle of Sheppey, Stephen comprehensively stumped the batsman but he was not given out, the next ball Stephen again comprehensively stumped him out, but still he was not given out. Then Stephen kicked all three stumps out of the ground shouting “How’s that?” I played in a game with Stephen at Old Grammarian’s he was batting high up the order and had seen some rather dubious decisions. At one point the bowler on starting a new over ran up to bowl and realised he still had his glasses on and stopped to give them to the umpire, Stephen shouted to his partner David Powell: “The bowler’s just taken his glasses off” there was a long pause as the bowler paced back to his mark, then Stephen shouted out again “The umpire has just put them on!”
Stephen became a constant if not permanent guest at my home. My Mother was for ever trying to force food down him; he seemed to live on a cup of coffee and a cigarette. One year he came with us to spend Christmas in Newcastle with my cousins; then we went on to Scotland to more of my relatives for the New Year. It just so happened that while we were in Newcastle his beloved Charlton were playing there. There were twelve of us Charlton supporters put in a cage in one corner of the ground. It was not a comfortable experience, on either side of the cage the Newcastle fans were up against the wire just pointing at us trapped creatures and chanting, “We’re going to get you, we’re going to get you!” They were not interested in the game, they just wanted blood. There in the middle of this cauldron was Stephen cheering on his beloved Charlton in his red and white scarf oblivious to his fate. At half time Charlton were one up, that meant death but Stephen was ecstatic. Fortunately Charlton lost and we were given a police escort out of our cage across the pitch to a side exit and marched up the road to a ‘safe spot’ then abandoned. To my horror in all this sea of black and white Steve insisted on sporting his red and white scarf. He was fearless and bonkers but that was Steve.
In many ways Stephen’s main attribute was also his main Achilles heal, Stephen was too open too trusting and often got it just wrong. At times you couldn’t help but get annoyed by his antics and when he related them it was hard to keep cool. There was the time when he started mini-cabbing, then he wasn’t. Why? He had picked up a girl who seemed to be running late, but very attractive, so to impress her he tried a short cut she said she knew and left the road. The car eventually had to be collected by a pick up truck as not one tyre was touching the ground. He said in mitigation “The girl seemed to know the way but when we went down the steps I realised she knew the way by foot.” You had to laugh, but more and more these stories became the norm.
With the passage of time I left him there, I got married and Stephen carried on as a bachelor mixing as a bachelor man. Then coming more up to date he found a new lease of life with the Crazy Gang; he was, as it were, their playing mascot. They remained loyal long lasting friends and even recently they took him to Newcastle with them. Stephen, although twice some of their age, fitted in well and I want to thank you guys for being such faithful friends. Crazy is not a bad name for the motley crew, the endless list of penalties for drinking a yard of ale suited Stephen. I should think he seldom got a penalty for dropping a catch but there would have been plenty of other reasons to indulge. Also it was not frowned upon if you had four pints under your belt before the game started, if anything it was a bonus.
When Peter phoned to tell me of Steve’s death I was stunned. Surprised would not have been correct, for we all must have wondered how he lasted so long the way he lived. Mappy said he had been on anti-biotics for a few days then when he went to see him after being at the Club all day he found him dead in bed. Harty dying of a cold didn’t seem right. However, it turned out after the post-mortem that he had had lung cancer. That fitted the bill; in fact one wondered which would get him first the drink or the cigarettes. I was with him when his Mother had to have two thirds of her liver removed and found it incredible that it made no difference to his drinking habits. In theory it was the cigarettes that won. But it wasn’t he had four boxes of his favourite strong un-tipped fags by his side when he went. I’m glad he was oblivious to their effect; he had told a neighbour in his last days that he had found it hard to breath, but still puffed on. Our Harty burst through the Pearly Gates like Rambo all tooled up with his boxes of nicotine ammunition. That was my old friends passing, nothing conventional - gutsy and defiant to the end!
No doubt for the rest of the day and for years to come we shall tell and retell with great affection stories and escapades of Harty. Remember also the man beneath the clowns façade, the man who had time for the marginalised the man who had time for you, the man we are collectively proud and honoured to call ‘friend’ a faithful friend; the man I loved.
It was fitting that David chose Amazing Grace to sing, Stephen now echoes these words:
<“I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.
Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.”
Never again will Steve hear the words that must have been said to him more than any others “Come on Stephen; it’s past time”. There is no time restraint where he now abides and his eyes, which had dulled in recent years, have been washed in the Blood of the Lamb and will have that youthful playful sparkle once again.
Today there will be many a glass raised to the happy memories of Harty:
“The man with the clown’s façade camouflaging a heart of gold”
Phil Raisey
G'day fine people...and Russ!
Firstly sad news about the passing of an absolute champ in Harty. My day at Lashings Vs Bromley smashing the Pimms (and fruit salad) and inhaling about a years worth of 2nd hand cigarette smoke with Harty is a memory I look back at with smiles.
Work wise everything is going well and very hectic with my new role and initiatives rolling out as my area is a focus point for Northern territory Government as we manage the alcohol management and public safety model programs for the NT. With this intervention most of my time is spent dealing with the commonwealth government and STAFF!
I have been invited to meetings in Melbourne next week and will catch up with Max, sure to be some amber fluid. The following week I am looking forward to a short break to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur to recharge, relax and catch up with many friends over there.
The picture is from a match I played in last weekend against some other 'masters' in a 20/20 match infront of a big crowd in Darwin. Their team included past legends Greg Matthews, Terry Aldermann, Rodney Hogg, Colin Miller, Andy Bichel and some current 1st class players like Cosgrove and Bailey. Smacked them around, opening the batting and enjoyed the day and afterwards as well.
Ripper start to the season for the 'Foxbury Falcons' and good luck for the weekend.
Regards,
Ken Vowles
OECC has nominated it's first development squad to play in the Aero Sunday Development League Div 2 coached by Dylan deBeer. Captain Ed Thorogood asks that nominated players advise of their availability to him by email. First match is at home vs Bromley Town on 8th June 2008 and full colour clothing will be worn.
Squad as follows :
Edd Thorogood (Capt)
Rob Kennedy (Vice Capt)
Adam Parums
Charlie Mathews
Rich Pickerill
Tom White
Blaine Carey
Toby Watkins
Dan Driscoll
Jack Green
Callum Nash
James Driscoll
Harley De Vos
Chris Gaywood
Charlie Robson
Taking up the role of Head Coach and Professional will be South African Premiership and ex-Zimbabwean First Class player Dylan de Beer shown on the right being welcomed to the club by Club Captain Edd Thorogood, and again below in full swing on the pitch.
Together Dylan and Edd will be looking to further the development of the club by setting the target of reaching Division II of the Kent League within the next three years. This will be done whilst maintaining a fantastic environment for juniors, seniors and parents alike to enjoy cricket to the full.