John takes a catch but gets caught out
John Quinney plays cricket for Llechryd Seconds and, along with club colleague Ronnie Ratcliffe, is an inveterate roller of cigarettes before, during and after matches.
But our John was caught out in a recent match against Camrose/Spittal when he was fielding on the boundary and surreptitiously rolled himself a cigarette so that he could have a sly puff at the end of the over.
Marc Jones had scored a cracking 50 for the opposition and looked like adding six more as he struck a beautiful straight drive, which flew like a guided missile towards John, who nonchalantly plucked the ball out of the air with his right hand whilst keeping hold of his freshly-made ciggie with his left hand. It was all done in the blink of an eye and his team mates didn’t know whether to say ‘well done’ or see that he got fined for his misdemeanour – and in the end both happened because he received a solid pat on the back but also had to buy a pint in the bar afterwards for his naughtiness!
Gordon gets his leg pulled
Gordon Thomas works tirelessly for local sport as the sports editor at the Western Telegraph but my moles reveal that even ‘GT’ is capable of making the odd error – as he proved when he attended a recent photo-call to celebrate the fact that Manderwood are going to sponsor the Pembrokeshire Football League.
He turned up at the Manderwood offices in Neyland where he was delighted to meet up with Chris Tansey, the boss of Manderwood’s, plus Brian Hawkins and Colin Williams, who are secretary and chairman respectively of the league. The quartet enjoyed a nice chat but it was only when they decided it was time to take a photo that Mr T realised he had travelled without his camera – but soon remedied the situation with a short trip back into Haverfordwest whilst the others enjoyed a second cup of coffee and a chuckle about Gordon’s faux pas!
The robot was wrong - Steve is intelligent!
One of the highlights at the County Show this year was the all-singing and dancing robot which was paraded around the grounds and made witty comments about people in the crowd. One such person who was approached by the Tin Man was Steve Holmes, who was one of the best-known second rows at Milford Haven RFC and is now chairman of the Mariners - and teaches Maths at Milford Haven School. The Robot walked up to Steve and a couple of mates, peered intently at them for a short while and said,
“There is no sign of intelligent life on this planet!” before moving on.
Steve hooted with laughter alongside everyone else around but we would like to go on record in saying that Steve is a very intelligent being – considering he was a second row for so long!
Jason scores a cracker – but it’s from an indirect free kick
Spare a thought for Jason Rice, who is a gritty football player at Prendergast Villa, because in the first game of the season, against Merlins Bridge, he hit a screamer of a free kick from fully 25 yards into the top corner of the net. It looked as if he had scored the Villa’s first goal of the campaign after getting promoted last season but as he turned to celebrate with his colleagues he spotted that referee Alan Boswell had his arm raised aloft to indicate that it was an indirect free kick, which meant a goal couldn’t be scored from it. To add insult to injury, the Villa lost 4-0 and Jason is still talking about his ‘goal that never was’!
Behind every groundsman there’s an even better groundswoman
It’s always nice to hand out a few plaudits and one this week must go to Emma Richards, whose husband Chris, plus sons Tom and Owen, are cricket-mad. Chris doubles up playing for Narberth by looking after the ground but was recently unavailable on a Saturday morning to prepare the pitch for the afternoon’s match because of his work as a policeman. So Emma showed what she can do because by 8.30am she was up at the Lewis Lloyd Ground cutting the strip, brushing up and mowing the outfield. There were loads of runs scored and Emma added to the considerable list of things she already does at Narberth CC – who are very lucky to have this Jill of All Trades amongst their number. Well done Emma – and keep up the good work!
