Chairman's Blog

Jonathan’s real ability as a coach and to inspire performances of unexpected quality is when he turns out on the other side.  Bowlers bowl with more accuracy, venom, flight and determination; batsmen are more diligent; fielders let nothing slip through the fingers.  The big challenge facing Jonathan at Otterden was creating this level of performance and self belief in his own side!  To that end the Master Brewer arrived at Otterden not just with a brace of Churchills, Ricky and Harry, but full of Churchillian rhetoric, fit for the underdog facing insuperable odds.  From a Straggler position of abject failure with the bat (Toby the honourable exception), and boundaries being plundered at will from the Straggler bowling, Jonathan managed to conjure first a semblance of self-respect, through hope of salvation to an eventual and unexpected victory at the last gasp.  Fortunately he had not learnt quite enough of the wartime speeches to give us more than edited highlights, as we huddled in the middle at the fall of each wicket, but the intent was clear.  We were not quite fighting them on the beaches….