Sticky Wickets and Perfidious Preachers...

Is nothing sacred! Avid readers of these musings - three at last count - will recall last month's episcopal missive urging some tie-in or other with the Methodists. That, of course, was and is plain daft. Church is finest Tuscan extra virgin olive oil to Chapel's plain tap water. Both, of course, have their place at table, but mix the two and spoil 'em both is so very plain to see - to all but Bish Tom it seems.

This 'All for One and One for All' Christian unity malarkey is all very well in theological theory - and one admits strictly in line with our dear Lord's command to love one another as He loves us - but it fails utterly in frail human practice.

Not that one is urging any Keynesian free-market model of naked congregational competition; nor indeed any Darwinian evolutionary ecclesiology awarding victory to the fittest and Devil take the hindermost. Nothing as combative or as violent as this is my theme. All I rightly mean is that we all need our little tribe to which we give our loyalty and from which, in return, we receive our security. Team St. Boniface owes not least half its contentment from not being Team Our Lady of Succour - and vice versa.

Gone, mercifully, are the days when either side might seek to probe and prod the other's difference with sharp pitchfork or blazing faggots, yet a certain friendly rivalry still obtains as it should. Fr. 'Dismal' Dismus, over at Our Lady, will never let a lengthy dinner pass without just the once - possibly more if the port is exceptionally good - trotting out that oldest chestnut of all: 'You worship Him in your way and I'll worship Him in His.' H, bless her, will retaliate with her best low-cut blouse, strongest perfume and most outrageous flirting, aptly to demonstrate that clerical celibacy may be all very well for those who truly can take it, but must be pretty beastly for they who cannot - Dismal, it being oft alleged, very much one for whom the whole 'Noli me tangere' thing is a perpetual struggle.

Friendly joshing no more, that sort of thing. Just the one day a year do we draw back, heave on the heavy armour and prepare to do direst battle. Come, then, the second Saturday in July, comes also the annual inter-parish cricket match. Think 'Gott Mit Uns!', think 'Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition', think Henry V giving it large on St. Crispin day and you'll have some flavour of the right and proper partisan fervour engendered in each proudly loyal beating breast.

As befits any half-decent military campaign, strategic planning begins some several months before. Spring can have barely sprung before heads will be put together over pints down at The Dragon Inn, first praising the previous year's victory - or excusing its defeat. Thence calm, rational review of our team's many towering strengths - plus its very few weaker spots - will precede roaring determination to put one over the Dismus mob by fair means or....by fair.

This last my insisted strongest suit and, as Honorary Captain, the hand that is always played, howsoever fiercely resisted by my far less scrupulous team mates. There is - I will tell them each year as they do so need reminding of it - a fine but clear and impassable line between jiggery and pokery. On the one side sits preparing just the right wicket to suit our bowlers not theirs, or - though this I admit is a mite shady - leaving a crate of ale within sight of their alcoholic yet still mighty number three.

Quite, quite beyond the pale, though, are such dark deeds as the intent two years ago, by our slip fielders, to use putative parish gossip cruelly to intimidate and fatally to distract the other side's batsmen. Thus - "VAT man been round again has he Clive? Can't be easy keeping afloat what with your Deirdre's spending habits." Or worse still - "How's that Derek of yours doing in Pentonville these days Adrian? Finding it a bit tough I suspect, what with his good looks." Perfectly outrageous you'll agree. Overheard the blighters practising their lines and sent three of them packing an hour before the toss. Plenty of afters too as you can well imagine. Took a threatened parish newsletter revealing and shaming all to quell the ripening dissent.

Anyways, this year all was going perfectly smoothly on the preparation front - H even promising not to attempt a repeat of her exotic South American tea that so divided opinion last year. Personally I can take or leave roasted guinea pig with equal ease, though I can perfectly see an alternative perspective - more or less universally held on the day - that the day Peru is recognised as a Test playing country is quite soon enough to be sampling its national dish of household pet.

The team then settled - same as last year though without Perkins Min. on third change as he was on Australian post-college walkabout and out of contact; Perkins Maj. an acceptable if half-witted substitute - the pitch readied to take seam only (our forte), the scorer confirmed as having taken all his medication for the past month at least and so necessarily forth; all this duly accomplished, what happens but I have the Dean on the phone on Thursday evening telling me that Bish Tom is 'strongly minded' that it would be a great ecumenical wheeze if I were to ask Methodist Preacher Simon to put up a couple of his chapel players for the match!

Even the Dean - Tom's most loyal supporter through episcopal thick and thin - had to admit, with some forceful prompting on my outraged part, that this was quite the most idiotic, cock-eyed, daft, deeply damaging and hurtful notion ever to have dared to show its miserable face around these parts. Setting aside any antipathy I might have for the whole project (see above); not counting even my personal dislike of Preacher Simon as a puritanical sneak who, in his day job as local village Bobby, showed himself hell-bent on nicking my little runabout for being somewhat road-tax free (see previous); what in heaven or on earth was His Dis-Grace thinking I would do? Just casually inform a loyal player of some twenty years or more service to his team that he was to be sacrificed on the altar of faux 'Christian unity'? That enough, I assure you, to turn the whole village back to its pagan roots and me with it what's more!

The other thing about Preacher Simon that gets my billy goat is that he is fat, hugely fat as you ask. Call me insensitive, call me uncharitable, call me theologically ill-informed - but when a fellow goes round espousing all that is lean and shrivelled in human conduct, then I expect him at the very least - in propria persona - to evince that way of living, as if dining alone and unloved off nothing but raw vegetable matter and rank dislike of anything resembling fun. I do not expect some gut-bucket to be telling me not to eat all the pies as he clearly quite fancies them himself.

The Dean duly dispatched with a veritable nest of fleas in both ears, the telephone rings once more. Disaster! News comes from Australia that Perkins Min. has got himself right up a judicial gumtree - matter relating it seems to some inebriated and naturally hapless endeavour at midnight alligator wrestling in Sydney zoo. Fellow has lost a chunk of his right arm and all of his freedom. Foolish, unhappy boy. Even sadder to discover that blood is thicker than cricket and that both Perkins Maj. (substitute third change) plus Perkins Père (sound middle order) are heading South to the rescue.

Admirable though this familial bonding in times of crisis may be chez Perkins, where does this leave me but two down and - gall loaded upon wormwood - little choice but to see if Preacher Simon and his mob could after all come to our aid. Hysterical amnesia of the whole wretched process has mercifully robbed me of any recollection of my grovelling convo with the Dean, or of Preacher Simon's instant promise to turn up on the day with a fellow puritan chum [Aside: are Puritans allowed chums?] and to 'fight the good fight with all their might'. Promising approach I grant you that martial air, but God forbid any hymn singing as such on the pitch. Dismal's lot wouldn't know where to put themselves. 'God bothering' they would call it and rightly so in my book.

The day dawns, the teams assemble, when hoving into view comes Preacher Simon and his chum. At least they're both wearing decent whites. Should have expected no less from the evangelical wing I suppose - always accusing us middle-of-the-roaders of being several shades of grey - but a relief none the less.  Even more remarkable, just as Preacher Simon breaks - as it were - the puritan mould in being a porker, so too does chummy Clive, who looks an absolute super athlete with a dash of actorly charm to boot. Six foot and some, rippling muscle upon rippling muscle, clean chiseled face with just the right amount of stubble to set the ladies a-twittering. How do I know this? Could hear the twittering from the tea room without having to look!

All very odd. Could this hunk of a chap really be 'one of them'? Terribly alarming prospect if this gets around. Women folk beating a path to Chapel's door and all that. Funnily enough, never seen him about the place before. Not my habit of course to go poking around Chapel to see what's up, but if he were local within twenty miles I cannot imagine it would have gone entirely unnoted. No one else on the team seemed to know him either, though in truth most were too focused on sucking in their bellies to be much help.

"Simon, my good man," - no way would I be using the 'Preacher' bit - "perhaps you could introduce your companion. You of course we know from your daily presence within our Parish, upholding the law, serving and protecting, no fear no favour and so forth, but this fine looking young fellow is a complete stranger to us all." (Best not to mention the 'road tax disk checking' angle at this juncture. Team bonding and all that.)

What then transpires is an absolute belter. Safe to say that in all my years as Captain of the St. Boniface Pilgrims have I never been so taken aback or, indeed, presented with such a troubling moral dilemma. For, as Simon quietly informs us, chummy Clive is indeed not really 'one of them', but an Oxford man who happens to be smitten with the Preacher's daughter and come down among the hicks and hayseeds pressing his suit. Up to a point one can see his - Clive's - point, for said daughter is a total cracker. (Must be from her mother's side. No way could Simon be the majority shareholder in that genetic merger.) Bit rough his having to leave the dreaming spires for unaccompanied psalms around the scrubbed kitchen table before dawn, but love being love and all that. No more need be said.

Here then - for me - if not so the team the first difficulty as Clive is clearly not 'of this parish'. When bounds are duly beaten come Rogation Week our man would not be found living within 'em. Now there are no strict and written rules about this - none certainly ever signed between ourselves and Our Lady - but it has always been taken that only bona fide parishioners participate in the game. 'Spirit of Village Cricket' and all that. Simon - quite the outsider in so many ways - taking a different view. His lot are more akin to the Borg, far less a matter of geography and so much more about - in this case a pretty loose - affiliation to the whole chapel tribe. Sort of a diaspora but without the fur hats or ringlets. You could, of course, as easily construct a 'Jesuit XI' on that same principle, but yet it still struck me as a bit rum - quite on the cusp of jiggery and pokery indeed (see above).

Could tell I wasn't quite carrying Team Boniface with me on this, they all keen to let him play up and play the game even if a bit on the QT. That but though the loosener it came to pass. For not only was this Clive hunk an Oxford man but also an Oxford Blue at boxing and - of course - cricket! Not then the wandering scholar who just happened to be passing, but a complete ringer cunningly contrived by shameless Preacher Simon to win us the day and his lot the glory. I tell you this - should you ever need something underhand accomplished, find yourself a serving police officer who is also a lay preacher - preferably an apron and compass johnny as well - and you can consider it done!

There are times when ramifications and repercussions simply roar and rattle through the head. If, as I must, I spurn Simon's cheating ways on grounds of the furtherance of cricket as a force for good in this largely benighted land of ours; if, as I say, I were to do the right thing I would be totally in the wrong with Team Boniface, for whom victory at all and any cost is the only thing. More, news of this moral outburst of mine would soonest reach Bish Tom's ears. Could I depend then on his support and shelter when the thunderclouds of error threaten to pour down scorn on the shoulders of the righteous? You can see my problem.

At this juncture, let it now be said that from henceforth Fr. Dismal can do no wrong. I bow before his theological science, I positively kow-tow to his liturgical art. Wants he me to be more Catholic than the Pope? He has but to whisper it in passing and I am Vatican bound. How so? This so. For as I stood darkly pondering my lose-lose options and wondering how I might put a positive spin to H on a new posting to Wales (her absolute and final bête noire for reasons never yet fathomed), over strides Dismal with grim news of his own and a humble request for a great favour.

Turns out that two of his mob have simply failed to show on the day and he's down to nine against our eleven. Could he perhaps borrow one of Team Boniface to make a proper game of it? Could he! Never was a Gordian Knot more swiftly sliced than this terrible one of mine. "Have this young Clive. Not one of our regulars, but was going to blood him anyway. You're most, most welcome to try him out on our behalf." Dare anyone utter a squeak of protest? Dare they not for dear of foul discovery! I swear I saw a button or two crack on Preacher Simon's bulging best white shirt as he strove in silent anguish to contain his fury and despair. Team Boniface quelled with that certain stern gaze that reads: 'If this gets out you'll be the laughing stock of the county, so just lip it OK?'

Did feel a bit sorry for poor Clive. Could tell that he'd rapidly - as an Oxford man ought - worked out that this tactical team change would do his suit no favours with the father of the piece. But to his eternal credit (funny what does get written into the Book of Life) he did not hold back. Our Lady won the toss - funny too how that always happens, perhaps God is a Catholic after all - and we are put into bat. Clive opens the bowling. More or less closes it too. Never has seam bowling of the like been seen around these parts and, having been on the receiving end of some of it, never again would be quite soon enough for me. First ball was an absolute screamer just missing tip of the nose; second a cunning swinger almost clipping off-stump; third a straight up and downer of simply colossal speed that one, of a mercy, managed to heave high in the sky for any to catch it who should wish.

Rest of Team Boniface fared little better: forty-two for seven by tea with three bruised rib-cages and at least one kamikaze run-out rather than face another cruise missile (Shan't say who bottled it. Any one of us could have cracked. Team solidarity and all that.) Post-prandial fielding didn't do us much better. Turned out - who would have doubted? - that Clive was as handy with the bat as deadly with the ball. Our meagre total was soon swatted away and it was off to The Dragon before George properly had time to line up the many pints needed by both sides.

Naturally enough Preacher Simon did not join our traditional post-match revels, strong ale - or indeed weak beer - not being his thing. Shame in one way that he was not then present to witness the unifying effect of some light libation - Our Lady and Team Boniface soon in one harmonic voice. (An ecumenical beer festival could even be the way forward in faith. Might suggest that to Bish Tom. Chapel wouldn't be able to come, but we'd survive the loss.)

Got talking to Dismal as one Captain of Side and Souls to another. Couldn't really let on about Preacher Simon's intended devilry; not - though I could wish it so - through any scruples on my part about dobbing him in it with Dismal, but, much more I fear, from fret about how I would have answered the inevitable inquisition: what would I have done in the end had Dismal not been short? Still don't know. (Perhaps I ought to sign up for that advanced Moral Theology course the Dean is always banging the drum for. Doubt though if even they could give a good answer.)

Anyways, I did dare to ask how come Dismal was two down on the day. His mob have loyalty to the cause writ through them like so much seaside rock, so for two stalwarts - brothers even - simply to no show did seem a puzzle worth unpicking. Dismal was just in the middle of explaining that he had no explanation for their absence, when the pair of them burst through the Dragon's door in a positive whirlwind of apology come fury: apology for their seeming apostasy, fury at the real cause of it. Farming lads the pair of them, there had been some recent sharp discussions with the King's Men regarding the possible sale of agricultural diesel for unlawful use in motor cars. Swore blind it were none of their doing, as they would, no proof emerging, as there might, the whole affair seemed to have settled quietly into a standoff.

Then the morning of the match, out of the dawn mist came a dawn raid by a dozen or more of the King's Finest, threatening no end of search, seizure and arrest should not the brothers agree to co-operate in a comprehensive on-the-spot investigation. Had a tip-off they said. Some really fat bloke came into their offices in N the day before. Said he was certain they'd strike pay-dirt, but hurry as the stuff was being moved out the next day. Nothing the brothers could do about it but stand by and hope that no one would fancy checking the slurry pit where they'd thoughtfully hidden the illicit drums. Which of course they didn't.

The sneaking, snivelling so-and-so! No wonder he slunk off at close of play looking so very, very shifty. Tried to play both ends against middle stump and got clean bowled instead. Serves him jolly well right, the perfidious porker. Will save this one for the next time Tom gets some damn fool idea in his head about Church and Chapel 'doing it for Jesus'. (Always useful to have a hidden doosra to unleash when needed: 'Sorry Tom, didn't you see that one coming? Never mind, better luck next time.') For as dear Ecclesiastes knows - there is a time to play the straight bat and a time for the mighty slog over mid-wicket. Wise cove that particular Preacher. Will have him on my team any time.