OSCC, 133-4, lost to Flamstead, 136-5, by five wickets Less than twenty-four hours after Scott Boatwright came within a single blow of a maiden century and Offley's fielders dissolved in the rain by dropping eight catches out of ten, the sun set on another season in the semi-finals of the Hertfordshire Village Trophy. A team bearing little resemblance to the one that had qualified for the last four, one that had been ripped apart by anniversaries, weddings and holidays, produced a spirited performance with a lineup held together by children's prayers and angels' kisses, relying on the presence of the Great Samdani to add a little stardust to proceedings. Following a delayed start due to heavy overnight rain, Ben Wiles inevitably lost the toss and Offley were asked to bat first on a green pitch tinged with green. Richie Barker and Dan Goord opened the batting, reprising the 2024 final where they shared an epic stand of 1 and were both back in the hutch within two overs. Aft...

  OSCC, 180-6, lost to Luton Town & Indians, 240-9, by 60 runs On a day where Shane Jones took a hat trick, two Offley batsmen walked off at the end with unbeaten half-centuries and Jamie Cummins sustained a torn hamstring that is certain to make him a slow-moving favourite among Tenerife's looky-looky men when he arrives on Wednesday (Jamie will be back on Sunday with his hair in cornrows, several Rolexes and a dozen pairs of sunglasses), there really is only one place to start. With Kaiz Ul-Haq's hat. Sporting a fantastic piece of millinery that made him look like a cross between Audery Hepburn and a slightly effete Indiana Jones and is available exclusively from Young Man at Roger's  as part of their Junior Arms Dealer Collection , Kaiz brought a touch of international panache to proceedings. Relegation-threatened Offley arrived at Potton to take on table-topping Luton and promptly lost the toss consigning them to an afternoon chasing leather in the sunshine. Had Cum...

   OSCC, 128 all out, lost to CKCC (Cheating Kunts Cricket Club), 129-9, by one wicket Kicked a chair over. Kicked a locker in. Kicked two stumps out of the ground after bowling some kunt who didn't walk and let some other kunt give him not out. So that was my day. In fairness the first two incidents were entirely my own fault for edging a short wide one but the third one..... Marc Ward's ten men (Thank you very much ECB for your wanky rules) started the day by waiting around for CCCC to turn up, the game not getting under way until 1.30. Highly ironic that you have these shitcock rules when you knowingly rig the fixture list in the T20 Blast and the Championship First Division. Ward won the toss and elected to bat first, the captain walking out to open the batting with Richie Barker. The Tango & Fanta combination put on 31 for the first wicket before Ward elected not to play a shot to a rapidly dipping  full toss and was bowled. Moments later Barker was following him...

  Anyone who has ever had any dealings with the ECB will know that the initials stand for Exceptionally Cuntish Bellends. I know whereof I speak. Been there, done that, got the medals and the T-shirt. At the highest level they get rewarded for their incompetence and intransigence with huge amounts of money and an excellent benefits package, safe in the knowledge that when they do finally produce one big fuck up too many they will be granted a handsome severance package. However, further down the level one encounters emotionally stunted individuals who get their jollies from being as unhelpful as possible. These are the volunteers who have a duty, a calling to suck the joy out of cricket. They would never admit it but these are the people who would happily build sewage works on traditional village cricket grounds and get just a little bit moist when they have an application from a town club to field a 16th XI in the league. Honest incompetence doesn't come into it for these people w...

  OSCC, 135 all out, lost to Abbots Langley, 231-9, by 96 runs On a humid afternoon ten-man Offley went down to an emphatic defeat at the hands of The Biggest Cock in Hertfordshire. Judging by his accent The Biggest Cock in Hertfordshire (TBCH) had been brought up on the other side of the world and got his childhood kicks driving through Soweto looking for homeless children to burn. TBCH celebrated every wicket he took with the type of delighted yells and fist pumps that the Voortrekkers used when pouring lead into the Zulus at Blood River. Unfortunately he did quite a bit of celebrating and then having behaved like a complete cunt in the finest South African tradition (not like anything our South African contingent would ever think of doing - splendid chaps those) earnestly said he hoped there would be no bad blood as that was the last thing he'd want.... The fact that TBCH spent almost his entire day fielding at fine leg or long off suggests he was one of those individuals that y...

It would be easy to write the usual stuff after a hectic three games in four days that have seen us fight our way through to another trip to finals day, storm up to fourth in the Herts League and move ever closer to the drop in the Beds, but truth be told after playing five games in nine days it hurts to type and I really can't be arsed. It wouldn't be fair to highlight Jamie's misadventures of the past few days which have seen him stung by a wasp, get out-sprinted by Roger before falling over and punching the ball for four (Roger had it covered Jamie, just like he told you - the moral of the story being you should always Rely on Roger...), fail to take a wicket in two fruitless spells and then fall down while bottling attempting a catch and having to watch and wave as it bounced over his head for a boundary while he was on the ground. If he'd been any more challenged in that moment he'd have qualified for PIP payments on the spot. These escapades and many more wil...

 OSCC, 162-8, beat Chorleywood, 127 all out, by 35 runs & OSCC, 122 all out, lost to Wolverton, 123-7, by three wickets Offley enjoyed a mixed weekend, winning one and losing one, enduring batting collapses and sparking them, moving closer to the sunlit uplands of midtable obscurity in one league and drawing ever closer to the drop in the other. Perhaps the only constant across the weekend was Darren Lunney's fielding off his own bowling. To drop one return catch might be considered unlucky.  To spill two unfortunate.  To shell three (all off the same batsman) reckless. And to extend the streak to four the next day might simply be regarded as clear evidence that Darren has penises for fingers. Marc Ward lost the toss and Offley were invited to bat first on their fifth trip of the year to the Lilley Cabbage Patch. (Incidentally we do have a friendly scheduled at Lilley for September; good seats are still available.) Ward and Jamie Cummins reprised their opening partner...

  OSCC, 24 (Twenty-four) all out, lost to Ampthill 28-3, by seven wickets Vietnam. You weren't there, man. You don't know! Across the United States grizzled veterans sit in bars and legion halls sipping Wild Turkey and Jack Daniel's and recount the horrors of the Tet Offensive, Khe Sanh and the fall of Saigon. Many years from now, the shattered remnant of Jamie Cummins' Dark Command may recall their trip to Ampthill with similar dread. It started well enough for the debutant captain who won the toss and elected to bat first on a good deck on a hot day. What happened over the next 11 overs was something that had not been seen in the 28 years of the club's sometimes illustrious and occasionally infamous history. This was infamy at its most infamous. With the club's all-time leading run scorer, Steve Bexfield, nowhere to be seen, absent either due to a miscommunication or because he was late as usual, saw the scorebaord from the road and thought sod this for a game...

OSCC, 99 all out, lost to Old Albanians, 202 all out, by 103 runs Marc Ward's dreams of making it consecutive victories went up in smoke the moment he lost the toss and condemned Offley to field in 30 degree heat at Lilley. Actually field is perhaps a slightly strange term to use in reference to spending hours lumbering about on a surface that makes rusty corrugated iron resemble silk. Faced by opponents who were younger, fitter and basically miles better, there could be only one outcome - the cricketing equivalent of a spit-roast in a Turkish sauna. Things began brightly enough with the news that Roger Piepenstock hadn't arrived by the time the game began. Roger duly arrived after one ball had been bowled and things duly went so shit. The visiting openers got off to a fast start, one that was only arrested when an errant Jamie Cummins full toss found a leading edge and Mark Kirkman took an excellent catch at midwicket. Unfortunately that didn't really do a lot to stem the ...