What Anson Means to Me – Greg Pearce

The English teacher in me really wanted to write a piece after reading Jim’s first two. Please excuse my musings if they come across as at all self-indulgent.

It’s been over 10 years now since I retired from Anson and I’ve done a lot of thinking about it since.

I think the easiest way for me to say what Anson means to me is to start at the beginning.

I played cricket since I was 10 and really fell in love with it soon after. I played for lots of different teams at different standards, but it was playing for Paul Dale’s casual midweek team that really made me realise that playing cricket could be more than people criticising your bowling figures for the amount of 4 balls you bowled or telling you how you should have blocked that one. Paul’s team were all work colleagues and were all doing a lot of laughing when fielding and waiting to bat. This whet my appetite for more of the same.

I didn’t play much for Ardleigh Green, my childhood club, in the season before I joined Anson. I could always bowl tidily but my batting and ground fielding would always leave a bit to be desired. I remember being put at cover (anyone who played with me will know how ridiculous this is) and letting one through my legs. The reaction of my team was as if I’d broken into their house on Christmas morning and pissed on their kids! I remember thinking, I’m not enjoying this.

Big clubs always seem to be made up of people in an inner sanctum and people fighting to get into said inner sanctum. I didn’t want either. Jim has already said, Anson has never had that problem. If you take the field with us, you are one of us and we genuinely want you to do well.

At the end of the 1998 season, I remember talking with Paul Evans (who I think was feeling similarly) about joining Jim’s dad’s Sunday team and we decided to do it.

I attended an AGM before playing any cricket for Anson. I remember being in my Sports Division Saturday job uniform and sitting among a lot of big characters, all dressed up ready for a night out. They spoke about the nuts and bolts of the club, fixtures, selection policy and the ever present ‘how do we get more members?’

When all business was done, off the older members went to an over 35’s nightclub. I was immediately smitten. I wanted to join them but felt I really should go home with Jim and his dad. I was only 18 after all and hardly dressed appropriately.

I netted that winter at Chingford with Anson and really felt part of the club by the time the season started. I was very quickly taken with the characters in the team and cared about little else outside of playing on a Sunday. Sundays would now be spent socialising, enjoying each other’s successes and laughing. This is what I wanted from a cricket club.

I remember in an early game that I let another one through my legs (can you see a pattern emerging in my stories?) and no one said anything apart from the bowler, a certain Mr Monk, who shouted “I thought it was only women who had a hole between their legs!” At which point everybody laughed. But I knew they were laughing at his comment and not me! I hope you see the difference in my two bad fielding stories. This sums up the reason our club is so special.

Another early memory is of us all piling back to Hugh’s after a night out and him rigging up the karaoke. Myself and Paul’s initiation was to sing a song in front of the team and their WAGs. I loved every minute of giving them a tune. Paul I fear, enjoyed it less…

Every occasion was an excuse for lots of beer and merriment. I stopped going out with anyone who didn’t play for us and the ‘Ansoners’ became my entire social life. One memory that sticks out is myself and Psycho by the stage of Jaks in Romford, 3/4 pissed and miming a backward defensive, while trying to hold a conversation about batting, standing next to a speaker. Anson and cricket consumed all of my attention.

Anson became my social life and my rest and recuperation. We played to win but never at the cost of enjoyment and laughs. Jim speaks of the idea that ability was never mentioned and that is vital in the Anson ethos. I must confess I have fantasised about having a bit more batting ability in teams I captained but never at the cost of losing the characters.

This I feel should be the number one concern of any Anson captain. The trick is to marry giving everyone a game, whilst still staying competitive. Sometimes you do need to fill in the gaps by bowling specialist batsman or vice versa. Sorry Paul!  And no Steve this doesn’t apply to you!

I still miss aspects of playing. I miss captaincy and most of all seeing my friends every Sunday and the laughs. I don’t miss batting, bowling or fielding which is a problem when ever considering playing again. This tells me that I gave up at the right time.

I feel that the only way I will pull on a pair of whites again is if my son plays for an adult team and they are short. Let’s be honest, if my time with Anson has taught me anything, it’s that this is very possible.

I would insist on batting at 11 and just walking from slip to slip after every 6 balls. It would be great to play in the same team as my boy, but nothing would ever replace the times playing for Anson.

I believe there is a strong bond between cricket teammates as there is with rugby players. Even though it is a good few years since I gave up, I am still greeted by Ansoners old and new like a long lost friend, which to a certain extent I am. This made it so great to see everyone at the Anson do last year.  It honestly meant so much to me to get presented with my cap. Apparently, I just kept saying: ‘I’m so chuffed with that’ on the way home. My pregnant and sober wife found this more than annoying.

As time has gone on, I don’t really remember the wickets, catches or runs that Anson scored in the games I played (One slap through extra cover from Lee merges with every other one in my mind’s eye now.)  It is the laughs and the stories that I recount for the 1000^th time to my family, after I’ve had a beer.

I’ll sign off by telling the story of my son’s first training session with his team. A coach was teaching Michael a batting stance and then wanted me to throw balls down so that Michael could hit them. Before going off to coach the other kids, he said to me: “have you played cricket at all?” Immediately I wanted to tell him how we played a match at South Loughton where the grass was so long that more 6s than 4s were hit in the match. I wanted to tell him how we once played a match against Middlesex Tamils where they took it so seriously that I went out to toss up and they checked both sides of the coin to make sure I wasn’t cheating. (As if that would have made any difference at all.) I wanted to tell him how we once played a West Indian team who’s captain’s accent was so strong that when he won the toss and told me what his team would do, I didn’t understand him and had to peek round the changing room door to see if the opposition came out with pads on or not to confirm if we were batting or bowling. But in that moment, a little bit of self-awareness must have come over me and I just said: “a bit.”