It's just not cricket...

The Boy - Bowling

There’s something so very British about the sound of leather on willow – and no it’s got nothing to do with 50 Shades of Grey – it’s cricket on a sunny (yes it was sunny in our part of Suffolk yesterday) Saturday afternoon.

The grass had been freshly mowed and the scent was a perfect backdrop to the scene before my eyes; eight teams of perfectly turned out young cricketers, laughing, running about, clapping and gently cheering on their fellow team mates.

There were lots of: “Good Bowl!” “Marvellous catch!” “Super fielding!” “Excellent back up!”

It was so very civilised or at least that’s what I thought…

There were a few stalwart parents from our club at the Tourney for Under 9 Cricketers, gamely clapping and supporting our little team of 6 throughout the interminable matches that had been going on since 10 in the morning. It wasn’t too onerous, our boys had won every match played and we were through to the semi-finals.

Absolutely brilliant, especially as two players in the team had never played in a cricket tourney before and in fact had only just made it in to the team for the first time. The Boy being one.

The kids were keyed up; it looked very likely that they had a chance of winning. The anticipation around the ground grew as the semi-finals were played out. It was an unbelievable match, both teams neck and neck, not a ball could be given not a run let slip by. They got through.

It was great.

The finals.

We could win. And even if we didn’t it looked like a great game would ensue. I was really looking forward to it.That is until I saw the team we were up against.

And their supporters…

If I said we were outgunned, outnumbered and outclassed that would have been an understatement…

To our five supporters there were 40 of theirs en famille with picnics, chairs rugs and banners – yup banners.

It seemed out of place; it seemed so contrived. It was scary enough to us but what it would do to our little team, I dreaded.

Suddenly there was an air of danger. It was uncomfortable.

As for their team – I counted nine children. And some of them looked suspiciously big.

The match started but I could see that our coach was very unhappy and then the whispers began – some of the children playing on the other team were in Year 5 (10 year olds up against  kids under 9). Some of the children on the other team had not been playing every match but had been resting every other one so were of course much fresher than our little band who had played six matches on the go to get to the finals.

As supporters we muttered about how unfair that was and gradually became more and more silent with suppressed anger. The team faltered without our support and started to lose heart. Fielding became fumbled, batting mistakes were made.

To loud cheers from the other side it looked like we would sink without a trace.

But coaches the world over now in the face of utter annihilation the best thing to do is to fight on and pretend everything is OK and he made us clap and call out good fields and unlucky when the boys didn’t quite and the little team rallied and started to fight back. Every ball was chased down, the boys started working harder as a team than ever before they clicked properly and it was great to see.

But they still lost.

The matter was brought up with the organisers who at least apologised to our coach though not I noted to the boys themselves. It was out of his hands and too late to do anything about it anyway. The other team claimed they hadn’t realised they had done anything wrong though as I trotted past I overheard one of the mothers saying that all their best players were Under 10s and as there wasn’t an Under 10 tourney how else were her kids going to get to play if they didn’t play Under 9?

It was galling to see their team go up and get the trophy and have their photographs taken but as I said to The Boy: “Better to lose honourably than to win by cheating."

I don’t think it cut much ice and it left a rather sour note at the end of a lovely day. But I think as a team the boys will stick together bonded by their loss and the fact that they should have won if everyone had been playing by the rules.

"Cheating," said The Boy in the car on the way back home: "just isn’t cricket, Mummy."

Bringing up boys: The bitterness of disappointment

When you are bitterly disappointed you can’t cry at the unfairness of it, you have to be grown up, bite your lip and slap your friends on the back and say: “Brilliant!” and “Well done!” and “That’s great!” You watch them in their glory as they jump up and down, beings apart and you become a looker-on rather than one of the team, the team you so wanted to be part of.

Walking back from the nets, you smile wanly at the Coach who says: “But you are very good at bowling,” while all the time knowing that you weren’t good enough.

You see your Mum waiting expectantly for you to go home and suddenly your desire to go there wanes and you start to drag your feet and dawdle longing to put off the inevitable questions and having to admit that you only made the C Team for Cricket.

You know she wants you to get in the B Team at least, and talk of the A Team? “Come on!” you long to shout. “I’m useless can’t you see! I’m not good enough! And it’s not fair! I love cricket and I should be at least in the B team!” But you can’t, she wouldn’t understand. She’ll just think you are a failure.

“How’s your day?” she asks brightly and you inwardly groan. You see your younger brother all smiling and bouncy and at that moment you want to thump him hard. How dare he be smiling when you are crying inside!

So you thump him and suddenly everyone is cross and your brother is crying and a bit of you goes: “Good! Now you know how it feels!” And typical Mum she would take his side and you feel mad and cross and it’s not fair! It’s never fair!

You say you only made it into the C Team and your Mum says something naff like: “That’s wonderful Darling! You were in the C Team for Hockey and guess what? The C Team was undefeated!”

You look at her as if she was stupid. “I mean come on! Doesn’t she understand that being in any team other than the C team is much much better?” Instead you smile at her and go yay C team undefeated while inwardly shaking your head in bewilderment. “How can Mum’s just not get it?”

You answer all the questions in monosyllables on the way home and kick the back of the chair for want of anything better to do. You get told off but hey what does it matter? You feel useless anyway.

You glower at your brother. “Come on then - smile then I’ll pinch you and you’ll not smile again. How come he’s always so happy everybody loves him, he gets everything.”

You hear your Mum suggest having donuts for tea

“But I don’t want those!” you say even though you do really. You just want to get what YOU want not what EVERYONE else says you should have.

You can’t concentrate on your homework and the words go fuzzy and nothing goes right and you get told off for leaving your pencil case at school and for taking so long but you just can’t do it and it’s too difficult and you don’t want to do it. “It’s not fair!” you inwardly rail. Mums are SO stupid.

It’s time for bed and you have to read to your Mum and you are so tired and you know she’ll only get angry with you and tell you off. “Why bother?” You stumble over the words and you are furious with yourself and HER.

“I hate you!” you say with as much poison in your voice as possible.

“But I love you and I know why you are so upset,” she says. You look at her amazed and suddenly you know she knows all about it and she’s not cross at all and you can’t help it but you cry. You cry and cry and cry and she just holds you like she used to and it doesn’t matter so much because she knows.

Getting the score (or why it pays to play sport at prep school)

There are many unwritten rules at school and not just for the children. I have just come back from the secretary’s office fuming at the injustice of it all. Thinking myself well organised and ahead of the game for once, I popped in to return the Holiday Sports Club form.

“I’m sorry your too late – there’s no more room.”

“What do you mean too late? The form said get your reply back by Monday -it’s Thursday afternoon and you only sent them out yesterday!”

I am given a pitying look and before I can say anything more in my defence she answers the telephone and I realise I am being summarily dismissed.

I flounce out of the office and although I would dearly love to slam the door I am prevented by the mechanism at the top - mentally I berate Health & Safety.

Normally I would not be worried by this setback. So what if my son can’t play cricket and football during the holidays but it matters - trust me

The car park at picking up time at the end of term had been alive with rumours about the latest 11-year old sporting prodigy at the school. He was spotted at a Cricket match by one of the leading private schools’ sports masters, who was acting as umpire, and there and then the boy was offered a bursary. As the child was already accepted at another school the father approached the aforesaid school to say sorry that the child would not be accepting the place as he had been offered a golden opportunity elsewhere. Short story long the school he was meant to go to offered the boy a Sports Scholarship on the spot without even seeing him play only for the other to offer a full Scholarship. It was, as they say, too good an offer to pass up – what a position to be in especially in the light of the Recession.

How I had laughed at the increasing number of mothers dolled to the nines who had come to watch their little darlings at After School Sports Club. I thought it was because everyone had heard that the new sports master Mr French was rather dishy and more excitingly, recently divorced. Now I realise that it was for far more sinister motives -to secure little Johnny a place on the Holiday Club list.

Those lucky enough to get into the Holiday Club will get the notice of Mr French, which will stand them in good stead for the rest of the year, and those with sporting prowess no doubt will be fast tracked. For sport at school is not just about keeping fit and working as a team it is about the kudos the top teams bring to the school and about the rewards that those individuals can earn – those unwritten rules of life.

The more I learn about the system the more I realise that it is a far cry from the civilised and polite environment I had always thought I was paying for. Getting ahead here is not about money, it’s about being cut throat, determined, even underhand. It was quite obvious that the word had got out and there had been a run on places even before the rest of us were officially told.

Luckily I have been given an even better tip off. I have found out that if I want my son to get the best sports teachers in the school he will have to secure a place in the Under Nines’ A or B teams by the time he’s eight otherwise he’ll be taught by the Gap year student and have even less of a chance to succeed.

So I have grabbed the yellow pages and frantically called up all the Cricket, Rugby and Football clubs in the area expecting them to laugh at my pretension but lo! they even have Under Six training sessions and my boy is signed up for the next three years. If you can’t join ‘em - beat ‘em…