Morris men, beer and cricket

Our cricket season draws to a close, heralded by the annual President's Match and beer festival. For the last seven years, since leaving our old home, we have commuted back to play cricket. Andy thought about joining another club, but our hearts and friends are here; they are not things you drop lightly. It's about 15 miles away via the lanes, and as it was a special occasion we stayed the night over with a lovely friend.


The President's game is a friendly between old and existing members of our cricket club; the President picks what he hopes will be a crack team of retired or moved-away players, and the Club - mostly the youngsters - play them. This year the Club wore silly hats. It is a light hearted affair, bolstered by beer and good humour.

Naturally, this being a summer game, held in August, it was cold and windy. We were joined by Eynsham Morris, who usually dance in the tea interval. Eynsham Morris has been in recorded existence since 1856, and is thought to go back beyond, to the 17th and 18th centuries. Cecil Sharpe, the renowned collector of folk dances, witnessed them dance in the now closed Railway Inn, in 1908.

“The dancers met me, I remember, one dull, wet afternoon in mid winter, in an ill-lighted upper room of a wayside inn. They came straight from the fields in their working clothes, sodden with mud, and danced in boots heavily weighted with mud to the music of a mouth organ, indifferently played. The depression which not unnaturally lay heavily upon us all at the start was, however, as by a miracle dispelled immediately the dance began, and they gave me as fine an exhibition of Morris dancing as it has ever been my good fortune to see.”
(CJ. Sharp, The Morris Book, part III, 2nd edn. 1924)

The Eynsham Morris website is full of the team's fascinating, rich history and well worth a browse.

They are one of the things I still miss about our old village. They trickled in one by one, standing to watch the game and get an early beer or two in.

When the first innings was over and everyone trooped in for tea (or beer) and to partake of the good spread provided by the President's wife, they began dancing.

The highlight was the village 'in-joke', whereupon a pretty young lady volunteer becomes the centre of the dance; 'Maid of the Mill', otherwise known as the Eynsham Morris fertility dance. Various sweet and, one suspects, suggestive things are whispered to her, as the dancers 'court' her, to the barely concealed amusement of the onlookers, most of whom know how the dance ends.

I spent most of the second inning sat in the pavilion with friends and had one of the most disgusting pints of real ale I have ever had the misfortune to imbibe. It was called 'Grunter' and tasted as if someone had put several cigarette butts in the barrel. Should you come across this revolting and thankfully rare beer - avoid.

We - that is to say, the Club, for whom Andy was playing - lost, pretty rapidly, and not before time. All this cold, grim day was lacking was rain, and sure enough, it arrived. As is customary at the end of every match, everyone shook hands like gentlemen, even though they were all familiar and close friends.

With the near end of the season and the beginning of autumn proper, I have been frantically tackling tasks and chores in preparation for a new batch of commercial work which arrived, as I thought it would, this week. I am almost at the end of my commissions list. Including this chap; a portrait and a little different to what I normally do.

With my new exercise regime still going strong, I have begun recording my almost-daily wanderings in a new blog, 'Cotswolds Peeps' - more for my own pleasure than anything. It's a kind of record of the countryside, and the tiny things that happen in the natural world, which I find interesting. And, of course, the ever-changing weather.