The battle cry went out from Rob, “your circus needs you” for the annual rounder’s match against a team from Andrewsfield. As usual the circus members responded magnificently with a terrific turn out of 12 to 15 regular circus members and friends, supplemented by 4 or 5 chaps from Andrewsfield to even the numbers up. Shane Mayo turned his back on the circus, literally, walking away to join the Andrewsfield team to cries of "Judas", he would later regret his choice………

Mike won the toss for Andrewsfield and elected to bat first, he then told all participants the rules (more later) and that the “impartial referee” would be Mrs Gardener. The circus team wondered how impartial, with three members of the Gardener family on the Andrewsfield team!

So, the field was set, the Hoppmeister was to bowl for the circus team and all was going well until he let the first ball go. “Too high!" was the shout. "It must be between head and knee height" shouted the Andrewsfield rules officials who then set about complaining that we had a man in front of one of the base cones. We repositioned our fielders to comply with the “rules”, whatever happened to a friendly game of rounder’s?

The lemmings line up. A big hit!.

The circus fielding was pretty poor to start with; Deb’s forgot that when you go to throw the ball, you must at some stage let go of it!! Anyway, we rallied after an early onslaught from the Andrewsfield batters who hit some pretty impressive shots way into the outfield. The sight of Craig galloping like a gazelle to chase a ball down will long live in the memory.

As the number of batters was reduced by much improved fielding, we started to sniff blood and pounced tiger like to finish off the Andrewsfield innings. We were notified by the “impartial referee” that Andrewsfield had amassed the huge total of 82 points!! As you can imagine we questioned the legitimacy of this total strongly as it seemed  massive. On reflection though they did score quite a few five pointers early on when our fielding was a little erratic.

Emily demonstrates how it's done. Rob's mate Chris saunters home.

So, having galloped like gazelles and pounced like tigers, we found our courage and lined up to bat like suicidal lemmings. Rob duly threw himself over the cliff getting out without a score on the board. His main job was now to hinder the Andrewsfield back stop, Mike, as much as possible, later ably helped by Shane, who had a much more direct approach.

Play was held up temporarily, as the airfield returned to its primary purpose for Franck to land after his CPL flight test. Franck safely on the ground, and later to be found in the bar celebrating, play continued.

Franck, inbound. and safely down.

After what seemed an eternity, and the loss of a few batsman we asked what our total was. "32" came the reply, surely not! Still 50 behind, this seemed an impossible task. So a dastardly plan was hatched with Vic, a left hander, to hit the ball into the extremely long grass and nettles on the right of the pitch. Hopefully this would stunt their ability to return the ball so quickly and allow us to get a couple of five pointers to reduce the deficit.

Vic was born for the task, gleefully hitting two homeruns in quick succession. Great for our points tally, but Vic was now requiring oxygen and a cardiac massage at the end of the batting line. We continued to grow our score. Mike’s competitive edge now prompting the bowler to throw quicker and higher, supposedly against the now long forgotten rule book!! But we are made of stern stuff. We continued to add to our points tally, and when Roddy hit a marvellous 5 pointer, we surpassed the Andrewsfield total and for the second year in a row the circus team was victorious.

Andrewsfield in action.

Those of us who are not as fit as we once were, happy that it was over, had nothing left now but to retire to the bar for Pints and Burgers and to hope our wounds and aches heal quickly. It’s my guess that the Andrewsfield team, will return next year stronger, fitter and better prepared to try and stop the mighty circus going for three in a row!!

It was a great evening. Thanks to Mike & Carol for all the hard work moving planes off the pitch and organizing. Thanks to Mrs G for being truly impartial despite the prospect of a family feud. And thanks to everyone for turning up. It’s evenings like this that remind us what a special place Andrewsfield is.

Shame they can’t play rounder’s!! See you all again next year.