Peter Steward

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The Weekly Blog

Monday August 28th - Sunday September 3rd, 2006

During the football season, Monday mornings are largely given over to updating the Hethersett Athletic Football Club website and sending over match reports from the past weekend to the press. It is an enjoyable is slightly time consuming function and usually means getting up early.

The season didn't officially start until the Sunday, but there was still plenty of preparation work to be done. But the main part of the day was spent at Tas Valley cricket ground at Flordon where the annual August Bank Holiday Super Sixes were being held.

I have been playing for Hethersett Thirds this season, having decided to try and play cricket again. And I use the word try deliberately. Many moons ago I was half decent at the game, but now at the age of 53 I seem to have lost most of the timing and lack of practice has meant that batting has become a lottery and bowling has become very slow and creaky.

Nevertheless I enjoy my involvement with what has become Hethersett and Tas Valley Cricket Club. The club formerly played in the village but the facilities on the Memorial Park were not up to standard and when benefactor Richard Ellis offered to build two purpose built pitches with a clubhouse in his grounds about 10 miles away, the club jumped at the offer.

The result is one of the most pleasant grounds in the country, surrounded by woodland and fisheries. It really is a superb place to spend the day irrespective of whether you actually play or just watch the cricket.

As the season moves towards its end, the club holds a fun super sixes tournament which mainly involves club teams with a few additions from outside. The format is simple. The nine teams were split into three groups of three with the top two going forward after the group matches and the most successful teams avoiding the quarter-finals and going straight into the semis.

Not surprisingly I played for the club veterans and you could say we were the surprise package of the day. In our first group match we came up against a team comprising many of the club's youth team players and of course they told us before the game that they would annihilate us. We were "old" "couldn't move" and "well past our sell by dates." But as I always say there is no substitute for experience.

I won't embarrass the youngsters (and they know who they are) by labouring the point, but we annihilated them by over 20 runs which is quite a winning margin when the teams only face five overs each.

The same kind of thing happened in our second game. We were already sure of qualifying but a win would give us a free passage into the semi-finals. Again we came up against a team of relative youngsters and again we won easily to take maximum points. I had what I thought was the innings of the day. I went into bat at number four and was in for nine balls without facing a single one as my partner took all the strike. I didn't get another bat in the tournament but the record books will show that I was 0 not out.

The day did produce one first for me as I volunteered to keep wicket for the first time in my life. I enjoyed it and don't think I let too many byes through. I enjoyed wicketkeeping as I still enjoy fielding in the slips. You have to keep alert and switched on throughout the game (this will mean absolutely nothing to those of you living in the USA or non cricket playing countries).

So to the semi-finals and we came up against a team comprising members of Hethersett's first team including my son Matt. He spent some time before the start winding me up and explaining just what he would be doing to my bowling. That is until I told him that I wouldn't be bowling!!

Once again arrogance nearly proved to be their downfall. They batted first and scored a large 83 which equates to almost 14 runs per over or over two runs off every ball. This was going to be a stroll in the park for them as I'm sure they envisaged skittling us out for single figures.

A downpour in the middle of the match necessitated a break and a move onto the synthetic wicket on the second pitch. There we gave them nightmares as our openers put on well over 40 runs in the first two overs. Matt's team had saved their best bowlers for the last few overs, but we still worried them more than a little and they had to pull out all the stops to win by something like 10 runs. Morale of the game was: never be cocky and never underestimate the opposition.

The final was a great disappointment. It had scarcely started when the heaviest shower of a very showery day ended the game and a team from Garboldisham beat Matt's team in a bowl off when it stopped raining as the pitch was unplayable. A bowl off is the equivalent of a penalty shoot out at football without the excitement. Players bowl two balls at the stumps with the idea of hitting them. Garbolidisham hit twice and Hethersett missed the lot. And so ended a typical English Bank Holiday Monday.

Since I stopped working I seem to be doing plenty of gardening which surprises me because I don't really enjoy it. I have enough problems doing my own but I have now added Matt's to the list. He is renting a house about eight minutes' walk away and the garden has overgrown during the summer. So on Tuesday myself and Anne set about cleaning it up and clearing the weeds and then taking them to the re-cycling centre at Ketteringham, which is about two miles away.

That took the morning and I spent the afternoon writing. Writing is my passion as you will probably have gathered. I like it as much as I dislike gardening. Around lunchtime received a phone call from our eldest son Chris who has spent most of the school holidays in Thailand. He was ringing from Bangkok Airport and will be back home tomorrow. Apparently he has bought me a number of CDs. Did I mention that music is an equal passion to writing?

And of course a third passion is football. I am chair of Hethersett Athletic Football Club and if you want to read all about them and my football blog which is different to this one go to their official web site which is available by clicking here.

Myself and Anne also have season tickets for Norwich City, a club I have been supporting since about the age of eight. I reported their matches as a journalist for a few years, but primarily have watched their fortunes from the stand. At the present time we have one of the first team squad - Mickey Spillane - staying with us. He recently signed a three year contract and tonight was playing for the Reserves at Carrow Road. Season ticket holders get into reserve matches free. Unfortunately last season we were in the top reserve league and playing against the second strings of the likes of West Ham, Arsenal and Chelsea. This season we have been demoted as the first team are no longer in the Premiership. That means we are coming up against the like sof Colchester, Leyton Orient and Stevenage Borough.

The club seem to be using this to give their youth academy players a game and so it was a very young team that drew 1-1 with Orient. We found the game rather dull, although it was good to support our "lodger."

Wednesday was a special day. We took our friends Ron and Jackie Baker to Southwold - a special place for special people. Ron is the bravest person I know. He has been a friend virtually since we came to the village and every Saturday morning for years I popped in for coffee and a chat. For many years he had a stressful job with a finance company and when he was made redundant from that he was employed as a classroom assistant for special needs children at Hethersett high School.

I should imagine that he was immensely popular in that role as his patience, kindness and outgoing character would have gone down so well.

In January 2004 he collapsed at home with a brain aneurysm and was rushed to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital where I believe his chances of survival were low. The next day he was transferred to Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge and underwent a number of major brain operations.

It all looked very bleak, but Ron survived and came back to firstly the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital and then the Coleman Hospital. He was still very unwell until a further operation at Addenbrooke's inserted a shunt to drain fluid away from the brain and the change was unbelievable.

To cut a long story short Ron's rehabilitation has been nothing short of a miracle. Whether you attribute this to the work of God or the skills of the surgeons doesn't really matter. Today he is back home, has all his old humour back, remembers virtually everything from the past and has just learned how to walk again with a frame which will shortly be replace with some sticks.

So on the eve of his birthday we wanted it to be a special day and so drove to a small cafe at Bungay in Earsham Street that we had been to with Ron and Jackie on a couple of previous occasions. This establishment had been voted national cafe of the year on more than one occasion. In truth it's more of a restaurant than a cafe but is very popular with local people and quite rightly so.

After lunch there we drove to Southwold which is one of our favourite places. The Suffolk seaside town was busy as this is the last week of the school holidays before things begin to slow down as we move towards Autumn.

It's only when you push somebody in a wheelchair that you realise how many hills the resort has. Southwold has a great feeling of peace about it and an undeniable class. It's great for walking and the afternoon tea on the pier is good - quintessentially English. A special end to a special day.

It has often been said that retired people soon realise how difficult it was to fit in work and I'm certainly finding that. Easrly morning writing gave way to a visit to nearby Wymondham. For those not in the know, Wymondham (pronounced Windham) is a picturesque market town just three miles down the road. Shops may be limited but the service is always good and friendly.

I primarily went there to get a couple of CDs - one for Ron's birthday and one for my former assistant Linda Walsh who has retired as well. Woolworths is just about the only place you can buy CDs in the town centre. I wanted to pick up the Peter Grant CD. It's not greatly my cup of tea but I think his youthful looks and almost classically trained voice has proved very popular.

Sadly Woolworths didn't have a copy, despite it being in the charts. So I took a new tack. Ron has a very strange taste in music (seeming to prefer very loud rock bands). I remembered listening on the Internet to a Welsh band called the Lost Prophets and their rather chaotic album. So I thought that would fit the bill for Ron.

When I got to the counter the assistant asked me if I had been able to find everything I needed. I told her they didn't have the Peter Grant CD and she said she could order it for me and have it sent to my home address. Problem is that would cost an additional £1.50 and would have to be imported from Jersey!

I didn't quite follow the logic of that and turned the "expensive" offer down, came home and bought it on the Internet for £7.99 instead of £9.99 and with free postage. I had to laugh when I saw a small poster on the counter of Woolworths aimed at A level students just embarking on life at University. It had a number of special offers which included "Stationary". This must be the most mis-spelt word in the English language. I have seen it like that on at least three different newsagents. Let's hope these A level students aren't going to read English at Uni.

My next job was to go round to Mel Perkins' to photostat the football club newsletter which I have been working on for the past two weeks. It includes an attack on the village for lack of support for sport - something I feel very strongly about. Hethersett is a wonderful place to live but some of the facilities do not reflect well on a large village of over 6,000 people. A closed meeting was recently held to discuss vandalism and anti-social behaviour in the village. Sadly the first and middle schools, the cycle speedway club, the football club and the cricket club were not invited to send a representative despite playing a major role in youth matters in the village.

As a result of this I e-mailed our district councillor Jackie Sutton in my capacity as chair of Hethersett Middle School and Hethersett Athletic FC. I would like to improve the relationship between the sports club and the village and also get some tangible recognition for the work they do. So the first edition of the club newsletter was quite hard-hitting. It took longer to run them out and staple them than anticipated but it did give us the chance to listen to the new albums by Bob Dylan, Snow Patrol and the Crimea (one I particularly enjoy).

We interrupted our work to have lunch at the Queen's Head - a regular weekly event - where we put the world to rights. The Queen's and Park Farm Hotel are owned by the same people and sponsor our football club men's first team and also give us a room for our monthly committee meetings. The village seems to be split between those that support sport and those that don't which is very sad. I am very grateful for the support given to us by Richard Bond who is general manager of Park Farm. Richard is also a governor at the Middle School.

Mid to late afternoon I went to the gym at Park Farm - something I have been putting off throughout the summer in the heat. I am determined, however, to get into a routine of spending an hour getting fit twice a week. Surprisingly I didn't feel too bad after the session, I think it's really a matter of building up stamina again.

I was only just back in time from that for a visit from Derek Brighton to measure us up for some blinds for the lounge. The last lot disintegrated when I decorated earlier in the year. I was surprised at the quoted price which I thought would have been a lot higher. We have known Derek for numerous years as he used to live in the village.

The hectic day continued with a visit to the library and to Rons to drop off his present. Popped in to Mel Ps again to sign some football club cheques and then it was home to try and relax, which was difficult because I received a number of phone calls.

Friday September 1st was a major day in the history of the Steward family. Matt was "passing out" (not literally of course) as a police officer with Norfolk Constabulary. It has been a long road since he first filled in his application form. But now one part of his journey is coming to an end and another part is just beginning. Today marked the end of his initial 12 week training.

The ceremony at police headquarters was very informal, but it was good to see a few old faces from the past including Les Parrett who conducted the short formalities and is at present acting assistant chief constable. I remember Les when he was a sergeant and have always got on very well with him and so we had a chat.

The most enjoyable part of the day came after the official ceremony as we drove to a pub at North Elmham and enjoyed a really nice buffet and then had a party at the home of one of the students. It was so good that we stayed throughout the evening and only left when I got knocked out of the table tennis tournament which was at something like 11 p.m. It was one of those really long and really enjoyable days.

For a number of years I have attended men's breakfast at the Methodist Church on the first Saturday of alternate months. This is not the appropriate place to air my views on religion and I'm not sure I could extrapolate them anyway. Still the breakfast is always enjoyable and is followed by either a video or talk. Today it was a video putting the life of Jesus into an historical perspective.

Having a cooked breakfast renders lunch irrelevant, so I didn't have one. Did pop in to have coffee with Ron which makes it just like old times. Saturday morning coffee sessions ended when Ron started working in the local butchers. Then his illness made them impossible. But now it's just as if the years have rolled away again. Ironically just before his illness he had told me that he was feeling rather tired and thinking of giving up his stints in the butchers and re-instating Saturday coffee!

The original plan for the afternoon was to drive to Wymondham to watch Matt play for the team but it was wet and windy, so I "chickened out" and stayed inside and spent time on the computer and then watched England beat Andorra 5-0 in a relatively irrelevant European Championship qualifying match. The commentators on TV questioned whether weak teams like San Marino and Andorra should be allowed to take part or whether they should have their own pre group tournament with only the better ones being admitted to the qualifying stages. I'm not sure I agree with that. It's always nice to watch England wallop somebody and lets face it, it doesn't happen all that often.

Quite often in life you really look forward to a day only to be very disappointed. Sunday was one of those. It evolved around football but was a disappointment. Hethersett Athletic's first team were due to open their campaign against newly promoted Eaton Beehive and expecting to win. It turned out not to be so. We lost 2-1, missed a penalty and quite frankly were awful and certainly on this display have no chance of winning the league this year.

Then in the afternoon we went to Carrow Road to see a match between Norwich and Ipswich Veterans which was preceded by the introduction of past players. Sadly none of the greats such as Martin Peters, Joe Royle were there and many of those introduced to the crowd were past reserve team players. In fact our own Mickey Spillane has played more first team games than many of them.

The match itself was interesting, if rather pedestrian, and ended 4-4 after Norwich had led 4-1. It was good to see people like Ruel Fox, Darren Eadie, Robert Fleck and Dale Gordon in Norwich colours again. "Fleckie" spent much of the game talking to the crown and clowning about but still managed to win the man of the match award!

Darren Eadie had to go off injured yet again. I am convinced that injuries throughout his career prevented him playing for England. At the end of the game there was a buffet for the players and the public. Excellent food and an okay event. It was organised by the new Norwich City Historical Trust which has been set up to celebrate the Canary past and safeguard it for coming generations. This is a highly laudable thing and I will certainly be supporting it in the future. Without understanding the past we can have no future (thought for the week).

By the time we got home from that there was little time to do much else except watch television and reflect on a very busy and very varied week.