So the first half of the 2023 season is in the books, a season that thus far has featured as many league wins as potential season-ending injuries. And the only thing that can be said about this halfterm report is that we could do better. Anyway, here are 20 Fun Facts about the season so far. 1) Pride of place goes to the fact we've set a new club record for lowest ever total, 40 against Old Warden. 2) Discounting concessions (for the record we've conceded two and been awarded the points in another) we've played 10 league games and won one. 3) We've won one game out of seven batting first and lost all three batting second. 4) In half of our league games we have failed to score 100. 5) In every single one of our league games we have lost 10 wickets, our best performance coming when Wayne Cutts was run out off the last ball at Sandridge. 6) Ben Wiles is the only player to have scored over 200 runs so far. 7) Mark Tattersall and Josh Scott are the only other players to ha...

  OSCC, 40 all out, lost to Old Warden, 41-1, by 9 wickets Somehow it's only appropriate that on the 147th anniversary of George Armstrong Custer's unhappy day out at the Little Bighorn, Offley & Stopsley produced the most spectacularly shite batting display in their history. No one who has been paying attention for the past two seasons can genuinely be surprised by a record low score. Since the start of the 2022 campaign we had failed to reach 100 a dozen times and produced scores of 52, 54 (twice), 57, 58, 65, 69, 70, 73, 78, 86 and 98. Therefore today's catastrophic implosion from 31-1 to 40 all out has been on the cards for some time, even if such a spectacular disintegration will be remembered as a clusterfuck of epic proportions for as long as cricket is played at Offley. On a scorching hot day Scott Boatwright won the toss and elected to bat first on the same surface that had seen Stony Stratford succumb to defeat two weeks ago. It was the sort of day in unforgiv...

 OSCC, 130 all out, lost to Pinner, 131-5, by 5 wickets The answer to the question regarding the bonus points on offer for a moral victory is 9. However, we got 11 players out, we scored over 100, we had two players score over 20 (in fairness Extras made the game a contest with 35) and at one point we had the opposition five down and them fearing the sort of humiliation and exposure that can only be experienced at 4am when your mates see you leaving a club with an unconventionally attractive lady, the sort who tends to have a bubbly personality. So we lost again, a defeat that leaves us 87 points adrift of safety with 300 points still to pay for. Following the success of the Race Night in March the committee are considering running a football card to see who can successfully pick which fixture will mathematically condemn us to the drop. There were plus points. Last year we were dismissed for 70 & 86 in two encoutners with Pinner Firsts. We clearly showed then that we did not be...

  Big shout out to Offley legend Mark Tattersall on becoming just the third bowler in the history of OSCC to take 300 wickets for the club. Tattersall takes his place alongside two other Offley icons, Richie Barker and Colin Keeley. The ability to bowl at an occasionally brisk medium pace (at least once or twice early in his spell) in contrast to Keeley's strictly montone slow medium, means that while Tatts may not have been the fastest bowler to take 300 wickets for the club, he is in fact the fastest bowler to have accomplished the feat. Tatts picked up number 300 in the narrow defeat at Milton Keynes when he removed Faisal Sikander with a vicious delivery that would have broken a stump made of balsa wood. Tattersall played in the club's inaugural season of 1998 and as the picture below shows he has not changed a bit. He attributes his longevity and success to a healthy lifestyle, plenty of exercise and avoiding vice - he makes a point of staying out of casinos.....

 Milton Keynes Warriors, 215-9, beat OSCC, 69 all out, by 146 runs   Hi. Firstly, are you OK?  It feels very strange indeed. I imagine that you might have been feeling a lot like I have – shaken, troubled, let down, worried for the wellbeing of people on all sides of what’s been going on, and full of questions. With aplogies to the poor, anguished soul that is Holly Willougby, Offley have far more important things to worry about than whether she can salvage her career and far more pressing questions to answer; namely as to whether Ben Wiles can rebound from his shocking start to the season and average double figures in the league. Not since the traumatic days of Boat Aid has one batsman's form been such a cause for concern following Wiles's latest single-digit dismissal at Milton Keynes. At first glance Wiles may appear to be riding high in the statistics with an average of 37.60 from eight innings. However, once the friendlies are removed from the equation and the spotli...

  Many years ago there was a pretty dreadful television cartoon series about the adventures of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. One of the villains was a fairly hapless imbecile named Trapjaw. Among Trapjaw's most distinct characteristics were a metal jaw, a magical mechanical arm and impressive back muscles. In many ways he was the Masters of the Universe answer to Offley's own Great Samdani. Following this weekend's revelation that he has the best traps in the club (something that has never been claimed by anyone else anywhere ever) it's worth noting the comparisons between the Great Samdani and the steel-jawed villain. The Great Samdani might not have a steel jaw but he has an eloquent lip.  While Sunday found him in the unusual position of trying to keep the peace (admittedly this was after he'd sent one of his six victims off in the direction of the pavilion) he has an impressive track record when it comes to finding himself in the eye of the storm, usua...

  Jono Evetts, 41, beat Stony Stratford, 35 (though they claimed it was 37), by 6 runs On a day where a bird shat all over Wayne Cutts's pristine white shirt, Offley's took a huge dump all over the title ambitions of their opponents Stony Stratford. Offley's bulk of biltong, Jono Evetts, set the stage for a sensational victory against Stony in a contest that not only threw the form book out of the window but also set it on fire and then pissed all over the smouldering ashes. Offley had not won a league game in more than 300 days while Stony had apparently not lost for three years, apparently after an exhaustive series of matches against the Sunshine Bus Second XI, Lady Zia Werner III's and the Northamptonshire Steelbacks. The visitors won the toss and, after inspecting the type of lethal surface that Princess Diana once did her best to outlaw, elected to bowl after their captain narrowly escaped having his leg blown off by a rogue landmine. Adam Ward plundered a couple ...

  OSCC, 78 all out, lost to Langford 286-8, by 208 runs The 100th post on this blog deserved something special.  Possibly not this special..... Considering that Offley's reputation has been battered more than Philip Schofield's in recent weeks, it was going to take a really determined effort for things to get worse. After all this was a team that had lost every single league game it had actually played in 2023. Going back to last year we've actually lost 14 of 15 games in the Saracens League (I'm ignoring the two we conceded and the one that was rained out). Heading into this one it was seven straight defeats on the spin in the Bedfordshire League, five of which could have been charitably said to have been crushing, including a pair of 10-wicket reversals and the small matter of the 177-run defeat at Warseley when Jono Evetts made 37 and the other 10 batsmen cobbled together 21. Yet Sunday was going to be different, not least because Scott Boatwright was leading the str...

  OSCC, 143 all out, lost to Who Gives A Fuck, 146-4 by six wickets Adam Ward bowled Offley to defeat on Saturday. After striking in his first over, Ward condemned his side to defeat in his second over by shattering the stumps of an immobile number three, whose feet appeared to be embedded in concrete. The only thing that moved was his bowels as he shat himself as the ball seared past stationery bat and pads. This meant the mean-spirited, miserable excuse for a batsman could take on the role of mean-spirited, miserable excuse for an umpire with dire consequences. It goes without saying that Offley did not exactly help themselves as they slipped to yet another defeat but this was the turning point. Along with the other turning point when the key batsman was run out by two yards and the mean-spirited, miserable excuse for an umpire kept his hand in his pocket. Josh Scott won the toss and abandoned his early intention to bowl after strong persuading from all-time Offley leading run sc...