When We Was Fab – That Annual Cricket Dinner

The cricket club I played for in Oz was part of a much larger sporting society. Netball, football, tennis, hockey and Aussie rules were all part of this rich tapestry.

The cricket section was managed by a tremendous coterie of men and women. They gave up so much time and effort we really shouldn’t have done this.

As a prominent team at the club we were asked to book a table of 10 at the annual dinner.

No problem and once girlfriends had been reluctantly roped in we managed two tables collectively throwing some A$2,000 into the kitty. It was worth it.

The Committee though also made the fatal mistake of asking us whether we could help provide a bit of entertainment. I don’t know what impelled them to ask a bunch of early 20s blokes with a reputation for not toeing the party line to do this but we seized the opportunity.

The captain (about whom I could write several articles) drafted a play requiring other team members to impersonate those on the Committee.

We did a few rehearsals which allowed for both refinement and coarsening of the script and then it was the big night.

The auditorium had a few hundred people in it and a proper stage.

The set was simple a U shaped set of desks with piss taking name plates for the various committee members. One of the girlfriends had been coerced into announcing the show.

I remember standing backstage shitting myself thinking “We’re all going to get banned for life here”

This would have been a big problem as I was there three or four times a week.

Jackie announced us doing The First Tuesday of the Month and the curtains opened to reveal the set. It took a few seconds for the audience to realise what was about to go on and read the namecards.

My backstage anxiety was alleviated when all I could hear was people laughing. None of us had set foot on stage or said a word. The poor girls couldn’t really pretend they didn’t know us because every second seat around our tables were empty.

The show went on and we’d scripted it so everyone got an individual entrance.

For example the club president had the first name Kel. We changed that to Colonel and had people shouting Viva El Presidente while the lad playing him strutted around the stage in military uniform complete with reflector sunnies and beret.

Other individuals arrived on stage wearing minidresses and the sort of sized fake nose that would make Cyrano de Bergerac wince with embarrassment.

For my own part I was cast in the role of an extremely large pear shaped guy who was frequently seen in polyester safari suits purchased from the sort of gentlemen’s coutouriers found in the shittier bits of Bradford, Birmingham and East London. This necessitated me donning a really cheap, baggy sweater and stretchy track pants. As many pillows and cushions as I could sneak out of the family home were stuffed inside these garments and I ended up looking like a cross between the Michelin Man and Mr Creosote.

It also gave me carte blanche to do whatever I felt I could get away with when I arrived on stage.

I opted to carry a 6 pack and a large rainbow cake. Desperate not to catch the eye of any of my teammates because I wouldn’t have been able to stop laughing, I sat down, shotgunned a couple of the cans then buried my face firmly in the cake. Covered in vanilla, strawberry and chocolate cake and being more than a bit pissed I awaited the arrival of my next team mate on stage.

He had long hair so he’d been cast in the role of the club social secretary. A golden woman who ran raffles. The line for him was he’d spent a couple of hours rummaging around in the skips behind a local supermarket extracting chicken carcasses, mouldy chops and other meat products past their sell by date that could be auctioned off at the sports club once people were too pissed to notice the green tinge.

Clad in a minidress that would make people like Kim Khardashian, Katie Price and Bianca Censori feel ashamed he also sported a robust steel capped pair of working boots. Once again I had to stare at my feet to prevent the sort of guffaws that would have ruined the moment.

The underlying theme was that we dragged the club captain on stage and accused him of spreading AIDS by wantonly lending other players a protector that had previously been used by Liberace. I’m not sure you’d get away with doing stuff like this 40 years on but he was a very good sport about it and the audience had a good laugh.

We rounded the show off by all standing up, clicking our fingers and doing the opening chords to Jackie Wilson Said

Descending on to the dance floor we then did a version of Teddy Bears Picnic that would make a lot of people blanche. The other entertainment was a group of 17 year old girls who’d been practising a dance routine for a contest. They were serious unlike us idiots who were basically there to take the piss. And a game lot. It didn’t take too much effort to persuade them to run out of the wings in leotards ( some of which seemed to be a bit too sheer) and drape themselves over us while we did the bits about shagging and other bad behaviour.

Dropping to our knees at the end of the song we received a standing ovation.

The Committee took it well and while I spent about an hour trying to avoid the bloke I’d been masquerading as we ended up having a real laugh over a couple.

The only downside to the evening was getting a smack from my girlfriend for blowing a large cloud of cigar smoke in her face after she started complaining about some daft thing. We made up down by the local lake later in the evening.

I’m really glad my parents weren’t present to see this. My mate who was the captain ended up getting an end of season award for doing the whole thing and half the club seemed to want to avoid us presumably for fear they might feature in the next performance.

In reality we really appreciated the club and spent a shit load of money in the bar. People running it were great and I wish there was a few more like them now

Things were Marvellous.