EVO – THE CLUB SCORER (AND VERY MUCH MORE) AT 700 - part 1 (1988 to 1992)
It all started one sunny September morning, after a three-year apprenticeship with the 2nd XI, Well it could have been sunny – who can really remember if it was but it was back in 1988. News over the front fence in Fletcher Close, Esme Kingdon the club’s legendary 1st XI scorer had resigned because of club politics – nothing changes! Nigel Janes the new 1st XI skipper came out with the life changing words, “Nick the job is yours” and some five decades later the scorebox is now known as “Evo’s Summer House” – some people now only actually know “Evo” as “Evo.”
To put Evo’s longevity and dedication in context, his first match was just three weeks after the Hillsborough Disaster (Evo admits he was a Liverpool fan growing up but he is that old they were the team to support back then) and hasn’t missed a league match yet – even scoring away less than three days after a failed resus attempt on his own father.
Evo’s first match was away to Exmouth CC – from all accounts Hazel Vallis their scorer was very supportive as she realised Evo was nervous taking over from a legend, The match ended in a Winning Draw (remember those) for Torquay. A subsequent season, Evo did though have a foot in mouth situation with the same scorer, but that story won’t leave the scorebox – well apart from the fact it has subsequently burnt down.
One recurring story from his first season was Andy Kingdon then just a toddler on more than one occasion climbed the scorebox stairs expecting to find grandma Esme in the box! {Fast forward to 2014 and the match to celebrate Evo’s 500th match and “AK67” was one of the first invited to play.)
It is always interesting how certain opponents sticks in the mind of Evo when it comes to stories of his career – Sandford CC are certainly one. One of his earliest is when two of their batters had a mix up ending up with one with a torn hamstring. Matt Theedom now the CEO of the Devon Cricket Foundation was scoring that day for them and certainly didn’t expect to end up as their emergency 12th player at such a tender age. Around the same time, Phil Bradford came to the crease in a match against them with Rick Twose at the other end on 30+ runs. Knowing their styles of play, Evo jokingly said “Bradog would be first to his fifty.” He thought he might run “Twosey” close but you guessed it, Bradog was first to his fifty!
Talking of the Twose / Tolchard cricketing dynasty. Evo’s skill of locking things away in his memory was tested one day up at Barton – Dave Goulding had conveniently gone down with a shoulder injury and Roger Twose didn’t have a game for Warwickshire CCC so there was two “R Twose” in the scorebook. Somehow Evo remembered from a Devon CCC match their middle initials but had he got them the right way around? Of course, he had – Richard Paul Twose and Roger Graham Twose. Torquay won the match but it was as much to do with winning the toss and asking Barton to have a bat on a green wicket and having Malcolm “Sultan of Swing” Kingdon in the side already.
The early years of Evo’s tenure in the box saw him also score for the Sunday 1st XI. One of the regular fixtures was against Taunton St Andrews CC as a result he came across the Parsons’ twins as youngsters. Keith who now works in the shop at the County Ground Taunton still recognises but then Evo can take half an hour to get around the ground with people saying “you are the Torquay [and Kingskerswell] scorer”, with Evo thinking, “who are you.” On the same theme, until his fairly recent retirement as Head of Security at Somerset CCC Evo would have regular Sunday morning discussions with Paul Bulbeck, dad of Matt who skippered the club for several years, despite the fact Matt had moved on several years before, Paul still genuinely knew how Torquay had been doing.
Whilst pre-season matches don’t often rate a mention. The one against Brixham CC in 1990 is of note – Evo scoring for the first time al frescho and it was only April!
Although Evo would never really be described as an entitled person. An incident in the early 90s left a bitter taste in Evo’s mouth which lingered for many years. Traditionally the President’s XI v the Colts XI match was scored by the 1st XI scorer. However, the President decided to ask the 2nd XI scorer, who Evo had nothing against, to score the match without having the decency to tell Evo directly. For Evo this was a case of principal and sadly never felt able to attend the match again until it ceased being played – an early example of triggering an appreciation of the reasoning for this will be alluded to later. Only Evo of the trio involved in this sad tale, is still active within the club.
The winter of 1991/92, Evo started his journey to qualify as a Scorer with what was then the Association of Cricket Umpires and Scorers – even if you had passed the exam you had to have two references to join! His trip home could from the exam could have ended in disaster though. It was very foggy and there was a swan in the road – fortunately he was on a dual carriageway and there was nothing in the outside land.
Evo beating Linford Christie – well maybe not. On the day of Men’s 100m Final at the Barcelona Olympics, Torquay were hosting Exeter CC and restricted them to a reasonably low total. The final was due to start at 7.30pm – could the match be over in time! Things were progressing reasonably well but a little too slowly until Exeter CC bought on a young leg spinner, Giles White, who later became Director of Cricket at Hampshire CCC. Fanie DeVilliers the club’s overseas player set about him and match finished at 7.27pm. Evo sprinted out the scorebox past his parents, one of whom said, “where are you off” with the response coming back, “don’t you know there is a 100m final on!” (Some 12 years later there was a repeat sprint when Dame Kelly Holmes took gold in the Women’s 1500m but sadly after a heavy defeat against Sandford CC.)