Dave’s doing well in India 20/20
Cricket lovers in Pembrokeshire will be delighted to hear that popular umpire Dave Brandon is doing well in his second stint out in India with the 20/20 series that has so captivated the locals that there are sometimes upwards of 20,000 in attendance.
Dave is keeping in touch with Pembrokeshire umpires on his web site blog .
For those who have sky television the games can regularly be watched on Channel 789, which is the Zee Music channel, and he recently joined Sri Lankan umpire Martinez in officiating at the Ahmedabad Rockets versus Mumbai Champs match where the former team won by nine wickets as Ryan Campbell finished on 82 not out with skipper Damian Martyn also undefeated against a side which included Nathan Astle and Michael Kasprowitz.
His blog site shows there have also been humorous moments as well as his thoughts on the matches and one such moment came as he flew out because he was travelling business class whilst wife Julie was in economy. She was recovering from knee surgery but bravely decided to go – and Dave showed what a gentleman he is by switching seats with her! What a gentleman he is – and when he returns we will feature his experiences again in our cricket section.
No good at word puzzles …
When Haverfordwest County welcomed back ace midfielder Niel Thomas for their home match with TNS after a spell with the armed forces in Iraq the club administrators decided to put up a ‘Welcome back Thommo’ banner in the changing room, printing out the message in such large print that it covered six pieces of A4 paper. But Richard Friday and Lenny Lewis are a little long in the tooth for such ventures and they had great fun putting the message up after the sheets had been mixed up en route, devising all sorts of combinations, other than the right one. I daren’t tell you what club chairman Rob Summons said in a family column like this but it was along the lines of ‘this lot are hopeless at word puzzles,’ before he did it himself, muttering and cursing all the time!
… and in a different time zone!
Staying at the Bridge Meadow Stadium a moment longer it seems that Mr Summons might be good at word combinations but isn’t aware of time zones and the fact that places around the world have different times than us. Like the USA, for example, where they are six hours behind us so that when he phoned a pal staying in Texas for a chat he was quick to spot that the feller sounded sleepy and teased him about having a lie-on, only to be dumbfounded to learn that his pal had been asleep because it was 4am in the USA! He’s been teased since by his Bridge Meadow colleagues and I understand there are even plans afoot to produce a large clock in the Bluebirds’ office which has the times around the world to help Robbie in the future!
Vesta or Vista – it’s all the same to chairman Steve
Up the road at Haverfordwest Cricket Club, chairman Steve James has something of a reputation for being a good eater and showed his one-track mind in a conversation where the discussion centred around the relative merits of XP and Vista on the computer and he looked a little puzzled until it was explained that the topic was the new Vista programme put out by Microsoft, whereupon there was a huge grin from the big feller as he said,
“I thought you were talking about Vesta, the packet curry I used to make when I was a youngster!”
Steve would be the first to admit he is no whiz on computers but eating now - that’s where he really is knowledgeable!
Nice tribute to Dave
We recently featured an article in our ‘Unsung Heroes’ section on Dave Laugharne and within a week we had a nice e-mail from Bruce Evans, the former teacher now domiciled in France and enjoying the sunshine and a more relaxed way of life. This is what he had to say about Dave: “Whilst I was PE teacher at Taskers, his grandsons (whom he brought up) went through the school and Dave helped me with the school football teams for eight years, putting up the nets at Taskers or getting me pitches at the Cricket Club, and travelling with me to away games with his first aid bag. This was on top of his Merlins Bridge work and of course he knew a lot of the boys at our school.
In 2005 I took him on the school trip to London to watch the tennis at Wimbledon. He really enjoyed that. He deserves a medal for his work. He also goes into the infants schools to listen to children reading. What a man!” What a lovely and thoroughly deserved tribute and we could pay Dave Laugharne no higher tribute – and were delighted to hear from Bruce out in France, who says he is really enjoying pembrokeshiresport.co.uk!
