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By Lawrence Curtis
I joined Grace's in the summer of 1999, playing four matches for the team - in white shorts for those with long memories. Jonathan Hardisty had told me about the group whilst we were both playing for Stonewall Football Club. I had not played since school so trepidation was high. However I was made very welcome and the sight of Andy Q bowling with his whites going almost see-through in the sun made me think it was all worthwhile after all.
Since that time I have somehow managed to get over 100 wickets for the club, and have even managed a few decent batting scores, including a 52 playing my favourite edge over the slips shot, and probably managing to get dropped my usual three or four times too.
But the last two to three years have been particularly difficult personally, resulting in my having to give up the captaincy, come off the committee, and missing a few games whilst I tried to deal with the problems going on in my life. I would like to take this opportunity now to thank the many people within Grace's for their fantastic help and encouragement over the last thirty months. Several people, who I prefer not to name, have stood out and been pillars for me.
This is what Grace's is for me. It isn’t just a cricket team. It isn’t just a few guys in whites getting together to see if we can manage to win a match or two.
Grace's is a bunch of friends of mine, who enjoy the passion of a game of cricket, lots of banter, as well as competitive play, in addition to getting together later for drinks and chat. Grace's are people I meet up with socially, some of whom I have got quite close to in a good friendly way. though never in a biblical sense.
Like any club we have people come and go for various reasons. It has been great this year to see so many new faces joining the club and partaking in the nets and matches. I must admit, especially with our anniversary approaching, it would be good to try and contact as many of our past members as possible to see if we can get some back.
But why do I keep coming back. The people are the main reason, matched with my love for a good game of cricket. Every time I get to the ground I feel like I am belonging to something good. The mickey-taking - many times at my expense - is a laugh. This year I have threatened to streak if Dominic hit a six, I took a hattrick, or someone hit a pigeon and killed it (you should have seen the swarm at our last game).
One thing I would like to see more of is getting together socially. I know how hard this can be to arrange, especially with people living all over the place, coming from Essex, Middlesex, Surrey, Hertfordshire, all over London, and more. But it is the social side that keeps me smiling, and longing for more.
By Alan Shiel
How was it for you then? Right, yes, pretty much the same experience all round I think. I always thought my Mum would be fine about it once she got over the initial surprise, though actually I thought she might have suspected something from doing my washing; those ugly smears on my nice cream trousers… but she never mentioned anything. And she has been great; she has even started to take an interest in my new lifestyle, to the extent of knitting me a charming white tank top with pastel borders; it makes me feel just as though I have walked out of the set of Brideshead Revisited when I wear it.
It was, of course my Dad I was worried about – I guess it always is. You have met him? Yes well you see what I was up against. Big strong macho guy, likes to spend his Saturdays getting tanked up and then sitting in the stand hurling abuse at his team’s opponents. He took me along a few times; I got vaguely interested after he came home after a few matches when his team had lost and declared them to be a “load of effing poofters”. That seemed to suggest that they were worth checking out, so I went to a few games but didn’t see anything that bore out his comments and I soon stopped going. I think my dad was quite relieved when I stopped; he used to get rather cross with me complaining about those gross striped socks that they wore and how I wouldn’t been seen dead in a shirt like the goalie had… Well, I mean, lime green with black thunder flashes; would you wear that in public on a Saturday afternoon?
Naturally I got all the usual stuff; I expect you did too? How he had tried to bring me up properly, where did it all go wrong? How could I do this to him? What was he expected to say to his mates if I was seen out hanging around with my new crowd… Well actually he said, ‘Poncing about with a lot of nancy boys in funny clothes.’ There wasn’t much I could say really. I tried to explain the historical and practical reason for dressing differently, I assured him that my new friends were not ne’er do wells and that if we like to sit around and take tea and cakes in mid afternoon then I can’t see what the problem is.
I get a lot of jokes from some my old friends of course. Some are a bit tedious, but some are OK. There’s a lot of ignorance around. Lots of confusion too about why we often don’t have long lasting partnerships, the fact that we are liable to catch things that normal people don’t, and the assumption that we gained our apparently strange interests at public school or at the hands of a very dodgy games master, or that vicar who rather speedily was moved to another parish.
I tell them I have never caught anything yet, and am not likely to, and that it was some late night television on Channel 4 that first aroused me and made me realise that my subliminal feelings were not necessarily unhealthy but were certainly shared by large numbers of men of all ages and backgrounds. There was this really pretty guy with a bouffant hairstyle who just sat in the studio without any obvious embarrassment and explained in quite graphic detail what it was that he and those of a similar inclination got up to.
I was pretty excited by what I was hearing, and then when they showed all these guys doing it, it was amazing. And made me realise that I wanted to try it – if I was brave enough. There were even people standing around watching and nobody seemed to mind; this was a Damascene moment for me.
But without the Internet I don’t think I would ever have dared to do it. I know there are some pretty dubious websites around, and that that meeting people off the Web is frowned upon, but I knew I just had to try it, maybe even just once. I found this group and would sit and look at their website late at night and eventually signed up for it. The first time I actually tried it, it was OK; it hurt a bit at the time and for a few days after, but I soon got hooked and meeting all these guys at weekends became like a drug. But I was leading a double life; family and friends wondered where I was going and whom I was with. I was too scared to tell anyone because I didn’t think that anyone would understand. Somehow I suppose I imagined that no-one would ever find out, and that I could compartmentalise my life.
But one day I was playing with these guys in the park (yes, we usually do it outside, though in the winter it’s just too cold so we hire a room somewhere), and I was discovered by my brother. It was pretty humiliating I can tell you. I mean. I was literally caught with my trousers down. Yes, there I was adjusting my box, my brother arrived and I was duly outed… as a cricketer.
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