FARMYARD AND CROFTER’S GUIDE TO THE WINTER BLUES
Mid-winter, the rain is hammering on the Velux and the wind rattles the ridge tiles, the ageing Village Cricketer sits at home pondering. For some the lack of sunshine leads to Seasonal Affective Disorder, for our grumpy Fortysomething its Close Season Affective Disorder. For the first you can get some sort of lamp – for the second there are clips from You Tube from the era when it was all so much better.
Yes Forest Grump has hit middle age, it’s not chronological, it can’t be measured by your pulse rate, cholesterol level or hair loss. It’s when you get to that point when you start to say ‘it’s was better in my day’.
Now everyone knows that a creaky 45 year old has 20 years of village cricket left in him but it seems an age since he felt the sun on his back and the ball snicking off the edge for another 4 runs he will claim came from a pre-meditated dab behind point.
Winters are becoming more and more difficult as he progresses gracelessly through middle age. A lack of physical exercise (standing at slip for 45 overs in the summer is now his idea of a marathon) and the sheer delight that is a fine pint of foaming ale have caused his waistline to grow steadily since mid-September.
He has had begging calls from the indoor skipper looking to utilise his "extensive experience" to help him out of a selection crisis (they really MUST be short!) but the idea of playing his beloved, relaxing game indoors in a frantic fashion with a plastic ball makes the cantankerous lion in his soul roar one more time.
He comes up with numerous implausible excuses and settles down with his chocolate digestives and ponders major issues of state (like the potential inconveniences of changing his mobile number).
Add to this inactivity, the built in compulsion to consume carb rich stodgy food as his winter fuel (no one wants a prawn salad in January) and wall to wall sports coverage on his recently purchased Sky & our village cricketer is doing his best to add to the nation’s obesity epidemic.
His physical state is a symptom; his mental state is the cause.
Riddled with self-doubt as he observes the athletes on TV, he wonders whether he will play again. Can he still cut it? (Let alone pull it, drive it, see it, run it or scamper it?)
Is he too old to don the peaked maroon cap again or should he leave the representation of his club to the up and coming cavalry - The Young Bucks? After all, they are forever telling him that his reactions are shot; his quick singles are now leisurely ones that should be twos and that this velcro thing for pads is here to stay.
If he falls on his sword though, how will he spend his Saturdays in the summer?
He ponders this and every time it enters his mind he sees himself arriving at IKEA.
He could happily turn up at the ground on days when it is warmer than 18C , drink some beer with the other Old Timers and laugh heartily at the Young Bucks as they struggle to manoeuvre the covers on the arrival of the inevitable thunder shower. He could even go to the extreme and do the sporting equivalent of a trip to Dignitas and take up golf again.
However, as he ponders this thought, he realises that there will be so much to miss... The camaraderie, the team ethic, the ribbing (what an old school polite term that is) , the banter, the togetherness, the sulks, the tantrums and the jolly days out to sample the "money no object" teas in the posh bits of the County like Wilmslow.
He perks up a little and starts searching YouTube for clips to relight his fire...Hadlee, Richards, Khan, Dev, Bedi, Botham, Border, Marshall, Holding, Garner - Names which made him fall so totally in love with the sport in the first place are now enticing him to continue and are drawing him back from the brink.
He is now standing up, the Christmas cardy falls to the floor and he’s into his batting stance in front of the TV and as he plays along with Kapil Dev hitting 4 consecutive sixes he says out loud "I'm too young to retire... I can still be my team's hero" just as his passing spouse catches him mid hook shot and uses the remote to replace ‘Big Hits and Flying Stumps III’ with Cash in the Attic. But even the appearance of a bright orange TV presenter in place of a proper cricket legend can stop the recovery process that has now taken hold. The blues are being banished – and next up he turns to the club's website and manipulates the criteria for batting statistics from 2013. Given the correct parameters, he could have finished top of the averages, runs, catches. Now he’s not just feeling a bit better he’s almost cured.
Then he say’S the words that confirm a full recovery.
“Hello, is that Barringtons? Can you tell me what time you are open to on Saturday?”
So, invigorated, he resolves to, once again, look forward to another season on the Rollercoaster. He looks out for the first daffodil of Spring which always indicates that outdoor nets are only just around the corner. He vows not to become disenchanted when he hasn't got into double figures by mid May.
He re-dedicates himself fully as a Village Cricketer once more after banishing the blues – he’ll don his maroon cap with pride and, come June, will be stomping around having been dropped telling anyone who will listen that ‘it was better in my day’
[If you are affected by any of the issues covered in this posting please contact Farmyard and Crofter via Twitter, as a general rule we recommend 15 minutes of 80s cricket legends six time a day]
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