EVO – THE CLUB SCORER (AND VERY MUCH MORE) AT 700 (part 3 - 1995 to 1997)
Not only football came home in 1996 but finally the DCL title came home to The Rec after 14 long years. After the shenanigans of the final match in 1995 had the script been written. Torquay v Exmouth – “The Winner Takes It All” (Evo’s love of Abba had to appear somewhere). But for the weather it would have been all over weeks before with the trophy “coming home.” However, it all came down to the last match. Exmouth were reduced to 26 for 4 and at that moment Evo looked over to a former work colleague, Malcolm Dare, who later said “your face was saying I can’t believe what was happening” - he was so right.
The other league memory from 1996 at the Rec for Evo, you guessed it involved Sandford CC. They visited The Rec on a hot summer’s day and their overseas got hit somewhere rather painful to the extent an ambulance was needed. The suspension of play happened to coincide with England participating in a penalty which they actually won – all the players disappeared into the bar. Further good news, the overseas wedding tackle didn’t suffer any permanent damage and he fathered more than one child. All ended up well on both accounts as Torquay still won by about 6pm!
As for a story about an away match in 1996 – Braunton sprang to mind. A gentleman siting on the boundary was taken ill – a combo of the heat and alcohol. Similar to a later story, you couldn’t really make it up – Evo in the box and the late Mike Rawle a paramedic and St John Ambulance volunteer who had trained Evo as a cadet was umpiring. Then walks over the Area Nursing Officer for St John Ambulance. All ended up well on both accounts as Torquay still won by about 6pm!
Away from the pressures of league cricket in 1996 surely scoring for a match at The Rec involving the Lords Taverners should be so easy for Evo – wrong! It was probably one of his hardest. Scoring solo with Bob “The Cat” Bevan / Gary Newbon commentating next to him certainly tested his concentration.
The successful title defence in 1997, even though it was at Barton CC, will always be tinged with great sadness, as literally as the players were out celebrating, Princess Diana was dying in a French underpass. The match itself though will always be remembered as Steve Short’s finest hour (5 wickets) well and Ryan Horrell flying through the air having got Jim Parker out when Barton were just 33 more balls from saving the match and denying Torquay the title. Thanks to his colleague not, Jan Meyer, finding out the situation in the Exmouth match, Evo was put through the agony of knowing a winning draw wouldn’t be sufficient.
The other wicket from 1997 that Evo remembers was when Ian Baker got out Adrian Small of Exmouth CC out in a much re-arranged match – we won’t go there. “Bakes” hadn’t taken a league wicket all season, his last being when Torquay won the title the previous – a certain Adrain Small with a very plum LBW, which Evo reckons he had up on the scoreboard before the umpire’s finger was full up. Well back to 1997, Evo looked at Rachel Tozer his colleague and said, “this is the seventh ball of an over” to which the reply was “yes.” Evo knew what was coming and yes Smally’s middle stump went missing. Smally being Smally let’s just say knew and he came in the box afterwards and said, “I was out of the seventh ball of the over, wasn’t I?” Rachel and Evo couldn’t deny it. Many years later, Evo had to see the funny side when their sons made their 1st XI league debuts on the same day!
Another story from 1997 was actually a defeat away at Tiverton Heathcoat CC. On a spinner’s delight, well hardly surprising as the home club had employed a certain Stuart MacGill for the season. Torquay got Tiverton out for a low total but not unsurprisingly were soon in trouble caught in MacGill’s web. Defeat was surely just one ball away but Torquay lost by just 2 runs. However, if Evo heard “bowled Gilly” once he heard it a thousand times as the scorers back then scored from inside the original pavilion – a decade later a Torquay player did his best to demolish it on being given out, Evo won’t reveal who though.
Over all his years scoring, the one-time Evo felt really unappreciated by the opposition was during 1997. There was an away match, let’s just say the home club in recent years move from a very low-lying area. Andy Hele and if Evo’s memory serves him right, Craig Wiseman, decided to score a ridiculous number of boundary 4s. The opposition scorer wasn’t really old enough to score so Evo had to make sure his scorebook added up (the amount runs being scored his could easily not have added up correctly), while trying to ensure his colleague’s kind of added up while also operating a scoreboard he wasn’t use to. After the match he completed the League Sheet for them and dealt with Conrad, but barely a “thank you” from the club in question.