Skip to main content

Player Profile #7: Josh Hook

 

Cool.

Calm.

Collected.

Not three words you generally associate with Offley's Mr Angry, Josh Hook.

Well, maybe collected because he does like to be picked up whenever possible.

The Boy With The Shit Tattoo came through the youth ranks under the expert tutelage of Darren Lunney and has been scoring runs for the Offley first team for over a decade. 

Hook has now racked up over 6000 runs to rank fifth in the all-time standings and in a team littered with fading stars, has-beens and never-will-bes, he is invariably the candidate most likely to get to 20.

Despite not owning a bat - something not generally associated with most leading batsmen - Hook's determination and idiosyncratic technique have helped him score four centuries - he is one of the club';s youngest-ever centurions alongside Mark Tattersall - while he has also added 30 half-centuries. 

Hook currently has a timeshare arrangement with Lunney where he borrows his mentor's bat and holds him responsible for any failures that may accrue if Lunney is remiss enough not to have ensured it is available for Hook's use.

Additionally Hook has taken 170 wickets, including a career-best 6-38, with his medium pace offerings, offerings that are invariably delivered with the sort of grunting noise a female hippopotamus makes in the final stages of labour.

He is also an outstanding wicketkeeper, especially when standing up behind the stumps.

Hook's devotion to the club is legendary and he makes no secret of the fact that he'd kiss the badge if he actually owned an Offley shirt. 

Indeed Hook would have scored even more runs for the club had it not been for his "cooling off periods" representing Lilley and Hexton.

He would also have scored more runs if his speed between the wicket was not reminiscent of a hamstrung penguin.

While his passion can never be questioned, a Hook temper tantrum is never far from the surface and he is now the guardian of the flame first lit by Colin Keeley and subsequently carried with reverence by Matthew Freeman.

Over the years Hook has feuded with captains, colleagues, opponents, umpires and has even been known to threaten his own shadow. 

While he may not share quite the same attitude to the pain barrier that Freeman displayed (that it is a barrier to be gingerly negotiated rather than heroically burst through), Hook can be a little fragile on occasion. 

Occasionally prone to mystery injuries, unspecified illnesses and a frequent need to poo whenever he's meant to be getting his pads on (all traits that he inherited from Freeman), Hook tends to disappear down the order at times much to the despair of his captains. 

Comfortably the most heavily fined player in club history, Hook's ink has played a vital role in funding the end of season curry night. 

To some it's a shit tattoo. 

To others it's an extra bottle of Cobra.

Did You Know: Josh once lost a race against Luke Munt. I won't say it wasn't close but watching Hook trail in Munt's wake was like watching a white man trying to keep up in the final of the 100 metres at the Olympics. For the only time in his life Munt resembled a black man 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The People's Champions

"We fight for lost causes because we know that our defeat and dismay may be the preface to our successors' victory." A day out that was confidently expected to end around lunchtime eventually drew to a close in the early evening as heavy underdogs, Offley & Stopsley C.C., otherwise known as the People's Champions, took their leave of Knebworth Park having reached the club's first final since 2008. Unquestionably no one was more surprised at making it through to the final than the team themselves, the semi-final victory prompting a flurry of hastily rearranged plans. Ultimately they were not victorious on the pitch - not exactly a shock as they were up against a side six divisions above them in the Saracens League, a gap that will be confirmed as eight divisions once the tables are finalised on Saturday night. Yet at the end of a torrid season where the club flag has been subjected to shot and shell, it was heartening to know it still fluttered defiantly in the...

iBat; iBowl; iPad

  OSCC, 71 all out, got about halfway against Leverstock Green, 155 all out iPad At the captain's request (for a direct line please dial 0-9 for Wardy) I'm not allowed to mention what effect Saturday's result has had on our survival prospects. However, I think I am free to point out this challenging mathematical poser, namely what would happen if you took the points we have accumulated in the Bedfordshire league (depleted by 10 after Sunday's concession) and added them to those we have accumulated in the Saracens League? Answer: we'd still be pretty severely fucked.... Things did not begin well on Saturday.  Richie Barker missed out with a nasty toe injury (laughably sustained attempting to bowl seam in the nets) and Danny O'Brien was forced to withdraw on the morning of the match after a tough week at work. Roger Piepenstock, a man who lives within a stone's throw of the ground, although perhaps not if that stone is being thrown by an Offley fielder, subseq...

The Triangle of Triumph

OSCC, 116-6, beat Shillington, 115-9, by four wickets OSCC, 174-6, beat Harpenden, 166 all out, by eight runs OSCC, 245-6, beat Hexton, 152 all out, by 93 runs Having started the season by losing six out of six - and conceding a seventh to boot - Offley kicked the season into life with a three-game sweep of assorted opponents. The week that began with the unfortunate Bus Wanka saga ended with the victory beers overflowing. Captain Roger Piepenstock secured the first win of the season against Shillington, having been elected to the position on the grounds of his patrician bearing and the fact he was the only one with a coin (a golden guinea presumably) to toss up. Manouvering his fielders with a combination of frantic arm-waving and polite requests one that conjured images of a pissed up usher at a garden party, Captain Piepenstock ensured Shillington were restricted to 115-9.  Mark Kirkman and Shane Jones were the pick of the bowlers with three wickets apiece but there were also tw...