5 Grounds Challenge passed with flying colours and aching legs

Ok, it is the big one. For 15 seasons, the club cricket season has seen me with scorebook, pens, pencils and everything else a scorer needs. 11 years as Sarisbury Athletic first-team scorer but those days are over now. Not that I will never turn up somewhere with the necessary accessories but there we go. 

A challenge, or even a gauntlet, was thrown down that I could go on a walk that would take in play from all of the five club games for Sarisbury Athletic. I have mentioned this in previous blog posts but – due to the sometimes far-flung locations of away games – there are only two Saturdays this season where such a thing would be remotely possible, the first of which was rained off. Now that the weather looks decent or at least dry, the biggest threat is that one of the three later games turns out more a mismatch than a match and finishes before I get there. Not much I can do about that.

I have a colleague from cricket walking with me today, Mel. I have seen him around the club but I don’t think I have met him previously. He says he is a quick walker. It turns out that he is an extremely nice fella and yes, he usually is a faster walker than me. He walks four or five times during the week, around 8 or 9 miles each time, so he is a serious walker certainly.

The route for the 5 Grounds Challenge would evolve but I had a preconceived rough idea. For Sarisbury Athletic Cricket Club, expectation is high for this season after 2022 when the 1st and 2nd teams narrowly missed out on promotion while our 4ths succeeded in climbing one rung up the Hampshire League ladder. We haven’t had the greatest start but our 1st team last season only won three of the first six before indulging in a great run of seven successive maximum point victories. It is a marathon not a sprint. Talking of which…..

Ok. The route. Starting from home in Sarisbury, we set off early enough to leave time for a coffee stop and leisurely stroll the 6 and a bit miles in total to the Reading Room Lane ground to book in with our 4th team, who are the visitors to Curdridge’s 1st team. The 4ths have lost their most influential players from last season and have struggled in their opening two games. A 1pm start and I hate to say it but it may be advantageous that this is the first game of the five, in case they are rolled over quickly. To be fair, there are still a few decent players on our side but it is a step up in standard from last season. Best of all, they have the irrepressibly enthusiastic Keith Hammond, just what every cricket club needs. He is certainly at his chirpiest today, for sure. We get there about 12:40. Most of the opposition haven’t turned up yet but they gradually appear, we start at 1:03 and we watch the opening couple of overs of us batting before heading off.

The longest part of the trek is the 7+ miles from there to Netley and Royal Victoria Country Park where Sarisbury’s 5th team are playing Locks Heath’s 4ths. This is what Saturday cricket is all about, the standard not high but 22 players (mostly aged under 16 or over 45) enjoying just playing cricket. Some of the youngest will no doubt go on to bigger and better things. Cases in point are the six young players who played for our 5ths in 2010 and 2011 – when I was their scorer – who went on to play at least once for our 1st team. We had taken advantage of a cut through by the M27 Junction 8 roundabout that saved a bit of time and we were ahead of schedule. Again, we are batting and putting together a competitive if not match-winning score. What is great at all levels is there are 22 players trying their utmost to win the game, achieve personal bests and play in the spirit of the sport. We enjoyed watching and chatting for a nice 15 or 20 minutes.

I pick up a bit of squash from the refreshments reserved for cricketers (all agreed with our captain), and we treat ourselves to an ice cream from the van in the park. It is about 22 Celsius throughout this walk so it is a nice coolant. Unfortunately we attempt to take a different short cut route out before becoming somewhat disoriented and it feels like hours – probably about 10 minutes in reality – until we find our exit. It is a bit south of where we would like on Hamble Lane and it adds another few minutes and perhaps another half a mile.

We have around 4-5 miles back to Sarisbury Green to catch a bit of the 3rd team in action, at home to Bishop’s Waltham 2nds. Our 3rds lost narrowly in a contentious match last week but today they are on our traditional village green, the club’s home for most of our 91 years. It is too small now for top class cricket, but both Barry Richards and Gordon Greenidge played here back in the day. Danger to neighbouring houses and to vehicles on the A27 now mean that nets have to be erected prior to play, given such short boundaries. We are in the 2nd innings now, chasing a good score but making a very decent fist of it, as are we, as despite not finding the optimal route back to the Green, we had once again kicked on. Mel and I are an interesting contrast: he has never walked this distance before but he can really walk quickly, and we fed on each other’s strengths. We have had a few stretches where we have taken a real purposeful pace. We are both starting to hurt as we climbed Sarisbury Hill. We are around 10 minutes ahead of schedule though.

We briefly visit The Hollow, about 5 minutes walk away, as the 1st team are at home to Portsmouth. It is also the first ever white-ball coloured-kit black-sightscreen league match at The Hollow so almost a half n half scarf occasion. Injuries and the unfortunate unavailability of our overseas player have made for a challenging start but we won away last week to sit in 4th place out of 10. We have put on a good total of 239 and nabbed the early wicket of whom I see as one of their best three batsmen. Hopes are high. We also hear news that Tom Mills has scored a hundred for the 2nds so we may not need to race so hard for the last leg. That is a relief. The route there is slightly downhill.

We are hoping to return later for the climax of the 1sts game but first we have a 45 minute walk to Locks Heath where our 2nd team is playing their 1sts. It is, as the rest of the afternoon has been, a race against time while not knowing our exact deadlines but we don’t push ourselves quite so hard. It has been a difficult balance between pacing ourselves and keeping pace, ensuring that we have a bit of energy left for the final legs. Our target was to reach Locks Heath ground at 6pm or before and we make it comfortably at 5:45. Yay, we hear the sounds of cricket a minute or two before then and yes, they are still playing. We’ve succeeded in getting to the five grounds during play but we would still have about 2.8 miles to walk back to return to the start.

A win last week for our 2nds, a week after a defeat snatched from the jaws of victory satisfying the maxim that things that look like a given on paper rarely play out as simply in real life. We get to the Locks Heath ground today just in time to see a not too promising position. Despite the Mills hundred, we have only totalled 193 and the opposition are 120 for 2 with one of their youngsters flaying our attack around on about half of that total. We both pick up water there, wander around the boundary talking with one of the fielders, the evergreen and remarkable Jon Floyd who keeps his 67 year old concentration to make a good stop on the boundary.

We cut through the side roads with some expensive housing and then opt to pass by the back of the first team ground and reach it through the woods on a path that ends at the clubhouse. We are both tired and aching but it had been a really interesting experience. As I said earlier, we have very different walking patterns during our week and we thrived on each other’s strengths. Mel kept up the pace to ensure we were always ahead of the clock despite never having walked this far before. He also had a couple of useful short cuts and was braver in taking routes that I would usually avoid in short stretches of busy road without pavement, all of which saved precious time.

Drinks from the bar are in order after 25.13 miles (I later add to that by walking the short distance home for my total of 25.35 miles). We watch the 1sts fight hard to the end before losing, Portsmouth’s other two key batsmen scoring 105 and 59, and meet a few players who have returned to the club after their matches finished. Disappointingly, all five teams have lost and each had their own story of how their games panned out.

I have walked this distance before on a few occasions but I don’t think that I have ever found it this challenging before. Having the unknown deadlines made it a bit energy-sapping while retaining the adrenaline. Conversely, Mel had never walked this distance but could still keep extremely strong pace, even to the very end. My calves were burning but seem not too bad the morning after. Definitely the toughest but best walk of the year so far.

Serenaded by Greenfly

There has been a lot in the media recently on the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) across industry and it taking over the bread and butter parts of work. Of course, it may lead to needing fewer staff in many workplaces while AI doesn’t need food, holidays, days off or too much consideration for wellbeing. I wonder whether AI could do some of the hard yards for me when I walk, leaving me to do the less automatable task of drinking coffee. I’m afraid we’re not quite there yet so I still have to both walk and have coffee.

A few chiffony wisps of cloud perforated the sky on another warm morning that became warmer. A rather dreamy walk to coffee at 6 miles. I had a route in mind and a time by which I would aim to return to Sarisbury’s cricket ground. However, it was going to be a good distance and while I didn’t hang around when I was walking, there is a way to be in a rush. If you sit in a coffee shop taking your time and doing nothing you can observe the kind of rush other people are in when they pay their bill or buy things from the counter.

I passed through Fareham to the Cams Hall estate. I was going to take the right fork and keep close to the water on the right. It wasn’t too long before I could hear some loud music, a bit like Green Day, a bit like McFly. Perhaps I will refer to them as Greenfly. There were indeed a few annoying midges and flying insects to encourage one to keep their mouth shut but more annoying for my feet was a constant changing terrain. Initially a normal solid path, then gravelly, then grass, some tree rooted paths through a wood, and even two spells walking on shingle at the closest points to the water. I felt my left sole becoming pretty tender as Greenfly became louder. I had initially thought it was a ghetto blaster but then sounded more like a live band somewhere a way away on the estate. The watery scenery on my right was serene, with not too much sewage, in stark contrast to the blasting sound to my left. It wasn’t bad music but there is a time and place. I was happy when Greenfly’s gig ended and I wandered in near silence as my ears adjusted.

My walk hugged the very edge of land for a while and I rounded Portchester Castle, remaining on what was the England Coast Path. I thought of my friend John Blake who is running the entire coast of Britain, knowing that I was following in his footsteps here. I continued along the coastal path until emerging by the Novatech building close to Lidl in Portchester. From then it was a long haul along the A27 in a no frills return to Sarisbury.

One lap of the cricket ground during which our 2nd team turned a competitive game very much their way with four quick wickets. Of course, it was totally down to me turning left (L for Losing wickets rather than R for runs) at the start of the lap. In the clubhouse, there was a live stream from the 1st team’s game at Rowledge that followed a remarkably similar pattern, both our sides ultimately winning (within a couple of minutes of each other) by about 80 runs.

I was now not walking too comfortably, with a sizeable blister on the sole of my left foot. The rest of my body is fine and not especially tired, at least no more than I would expect from 22.07 miles. I have the 5 Grounds Challenge due next week though I will see how my foot heels, er, heals. I have another option of scoring a game on Saturday and walking early in the following days as we have yet another Bank Holiday and Tuesday as a Privilege Day. We’ll see.

Unlikely pilgrimages

Several people have recently alerted me to The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, saying something like, “I saw this at the cinema and thought of you”. I haven’t seen it myself but I have read the book by Rachel Joyce, on which the film is based. Harold, a pensioner who lives in Devon, hears that his old friend is dying in a hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed and walks down the road to post a letter to her but spontaneously decides to keep on walking. It is anywhere between 500 and 627 miles (various sources) to see her, even though he only has the clothes and shoes he is wearing, not even his mobile phone. No further spoilers.

It has an element of believability but, contrary to what many believe, it is not a true story. It would be fantastic if it was and there are many emotional parts in the book (and probably the film). I’m not saying it would be impossible – indeed, the fact that many have believed it to be true would suggest it is possible. Whether it would be plausible for a pensioner who appears not to be previously prone to exercise is doubtful, to say the least. I wasn’t that unfit when I started long-distance walking (at 48) but I could barely move the following day after my first significant walk of 16 miles. It is inconceivable that he wouldn’t have suffered badly with both blisters and muscle pain, and he didn’t have specialist footwear. Walking that 500+ miles would also take significant planning; it is very easy to think you are going in the right direction and then hit somewhere with no obvious safe walking available. I must watch this film to see how realistic it is but I wouldn’t want to trash what appears to be an exceptionally fine feel-good film. From what I hear, I expect it to win awards, and hopefully it might inspire more to push themselves to unexpected achievements.

Jim Broadbent plays Harold Fry in the film, and from what I know of his other work I would expect him to be brilliant. If they made a film of my walk, I imagine Jack Dee might be a better fit for the main role though I am reminded of a couple of my students in the 1990s telling me that I reminded them of Eddie Izzard. I gather that this was in relation to the style and delivery of humour rather than any comment on sartorial elegance or gender identity (now identifying as female ‘Suzi Eddie Izzard’). That said, in more recent years she has taken to running and has achieved feats at which I can only marvel. 32 marathons and 31 comedy gigs in 31 days? Anyway, today I had a very decent walk, not even approaching one marathon even at walking speed, and certainly not in the frame for an open mike comedy session. If I was going to do comedy, it would likely be improvised and perhaps in the style of Paul Merton or Lee Mack, not that that is a standard anywhere near my grasp. But given that I do anything to avoid even karaoke, despite being given all the words, well you get the message.

I do some sort of improvisation on my walks, often deciding direction on a whim and going down roads and paths previously untrodden by me. However, 27 May is already in my sights as a more focussed walk as the back-up to last week’s rained off 5 Grounds Challenge. From Sarisbury to Curdridge, Netley and Locks Heath and back to the two grounds in Sarisbury. I haven’t yet decided whether Curdridge or Netley will be first. Judging by the shorter duration than usual innings by our 3rds and 4ths today, I know I need to get a shift on otherwise I will be on my own unlikely pilgrimage.

Today was the first walk of 2023 for which I had ditched my hoodie, leaving me only with a base layer and a long sleeved t-shirt. I never regretted that as the temperature began at around 14 and must have touched 20 Celsius on a sunny mid-afternoon. No trouble at all with feet but I admit to becoming a bit tired as I dropped into the cricket club to watch our 2nd team set up a comfortable victory only to throw it away. Earlier, coffee at 6 and a bit miles, much of the 25 minute break spent inadvertently eavesdropping on a conversation between two women on the subject of “all men are b*****ds”. As I was leaving, I found it amusing to pick up a tissue from the floor, smile, hand the tissue to one of the women, saying “oh you must have dropped this” in my most friendly and gentlemanly voice. Not creepy in any way. But we’re still all b*****ds, probably.

Not quite Harold Fry but over 20 miles on a warm day. 20.49 miles, to be more precise, helped by a couple of laps at the cricket ground. Rather than carry on to 500 miles – been there, done that – instead I wrote a song. Er, I mean I walked the short distance round the corner to home. Jacket potato with cheese, plenty of carbs and protein there, just what were needed. Food of champions.

Sunday achy Sunday

Due to inclement weather (is there anything else ever described as ‘inclement’?), the 5 Grounds Challenge was already down to 4 by early Thursday and it was clear by late Friday that I would be lucky to have one ground to which to walk. Everything crickety on both Saturday and Sunday was off by Saturday mid-morning, not that I was that unhappy since I had seemed slightly under the weather (sic) during much of the week. At least I felt a bit of an improvement by this morning.

More than a hint of (unforecast) drizzle as I started off but, by midday, it was very warm on the sunny side of the street. I had already had an early coffee break at 4.5 miles, and perhaps felt that I hadn’t shaken off whatever weather I had been under. No matter, sometimes a few miles can help.

Sunday walking is not the same as Saturday walking. Sundays feel more relaxed and one can usually smell Sunday lunches or even barbeques. As I walked past one pub, the essence of steak was evident. Myself, I usually prefer my steak well done, though sometimes I like it undercooked, but that’s rare. I was almost tempted to go in and have Sunday lunch but it would no doubt have sat heavy when I restarted.

I was getting miles rather than steak under my belt and, though still only in the high teens Celsius, it did feel warm and sufficiently sweaty to require a fair amount of rehydration. Achy legs usually indicate the need to drink more and I could sense a little tenderness in my soles, as opposed to the tenderness of Motown soul. I felt a bit overdressed with my thin hoodie but it is easier to wear than carry, once you’re a few miles from home.

It was hurting and still some way to go. I felt like the fan whose team is 3-0 down and the fourth official indicates 8 additional minutes. Mind you, I had to ask a Southampton fan to remind me how that feels. He told me it was like you’ve walked 15 miles and still have about 5 to go. Ok, it was like that then. I will say that I have tried really hard not to rub in their imminent relegation since I have a lot of good friends who are Southampton fans, and I have experienced what they are going through at the moment. But it is still funny nevertheless.

I passed by our cricket ground close to home. A beautiful late afternoon scene, the grass bathed in sunshine but sadly no cricket. Still slightly damp in isolated parts whereas my base layer and t shirt were soaked throughout in sweat. 19.49 miles of hard graft today and plenty of aches to rest tonight. Starting to think about the 5 Grounds Challenge reserve day on 27th May, which poses a choice of routes and the order in which I might visit each of the grounds. Some chin stroking over the next few days.

Doomed as doomed can be

Well, next Saturday’s 5 Grounds Challenge looks pretty much doomed. The weather forecast down here is rainy for much of Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Even if it isn’t raining on Saturday at match time, many cricket grounds, even those belonging to cricket clubs that may be well looked after, have wet outfields and are struggling to get games on. We managed to have a match completed on Saturday but it didn’t take that much rain overnight and in the morning to put paid to Sunday’s match.

Nevertheless, I will carry on as if it will be ok, just in case. Being a Bank Holiday today, both Pammy and I had walking plans, Pammy with some friends from a local club. I am not a member there but I took my own short walk around Swanmore and Bishop’s Waltham. It is not an area that I know exceptionally well but I had a set topologically circular route that would take around an hour and a half or slightly over. I saw a large number of footpaths off my set route so it is somewhere to explore at a later date.

Being a shorter than usual one, I fitted in a few speed walks and I appeared to be well within time until the realisation that New Road was deceptive both in length and in incline. The weather was humid and overcast and it wasn’t overly surprising that a few spots of rain arrived, even less surprising as it was at precisely the time I passed by the local cricket ground. Nevertheless, I happened to meet Pammy’s walking group close to the scheduled end of my own walk so we joined up for a few more minutes through a wood.

5.80 miles in better than even time so good for the legs and heart. Sweatier than I would expect for that short distance. Hopefully the next walk will be Saturday’s mammoth cricket walk but it is looking less likely with each ‘outlook for the weekend’ that I see. I have a reserve day, 27 May, when again the locations of the five grounds are conducive to an afternoon of walking, but that would be about it for this summer. Fingers crossed for then, if this Saturday’s challenge is not to be.