It’s Not Cricket: The Summer of the Shattered Stumps!

In the week that England won the 2019 Cricket World Cup it made me recall how for one long summer we played cricket in Oxgangs, incongruous as that may sound.

Football of course was the bread ‘n butter game throughout the four seasons of the year. Because of the dark evenings it got quieter in the winter. Whilst the English upper classes are renowned for enjoying ‘The Season’ – Henley Regatta; Wimbledon; Royal Ascot etc. we youngsters at Oxgangs also enjoyed our season too where each one followed a certain pattern for over a decade. 

Activities would just seem to occur naturally – by happenstance – somehow it was ingrained into us perhaps like the other creatures of the water, the land or of the air – governed by the weather and the light and the temperature and the opportunities and the time available - and one of those was that come the summertime we would take part in other activities than just football up at The Field behind Oxgangs Avenue and adjacent to Oxgangs Road North.

One regular activity during the long summer holidays was playing rounders with an old wooden tennis racquet and ball.

These games were gender neutral and all the better for it allowing girls and boys to play together. Rounders was great fun and normally no team was in bat for too long which kept the interest going.

When recalling summers from the 1960s Pat Rafferty said ‘I loved the openness of the area (Oxgangs) - the hills, the walks and the hours spent on the Pentland Hills or Hillend and the Braid Hills too. As a family we used to go to Spylaw Park, Colinton with a picnic - soggy tomato sandwiches and a bottle of water which we all shared but I loved it and as there was seven of us we could play rounders too - great fun! 

Occasionally someone would fly a kite out on The Field and for one extraordinary summer we played cricket.

This was courtesy of Norman Stewart (6/3 Oxgangs Avenue) who had received a cricket set from his grandparents for his birthday. It was actually good fun. No doubt there would have been some basic rules with the set but it was probably the Oxgangs version of the game!  

Cricket Match Castle Leod (Peter Hoffmann)

And half a century on whilst I’m still not overly au-fait with all the rules but of a weekend I enjoy going down to Castle Leod at Strathpeffer and settling down in my deck chair to settle back and watch the UK’s most northerly based team, Ross County (founded 1902) play.

Photograph courtesy Eileen Cameron

Whilst the game was alien to many members of the Oxgangs community some people had more than a passing interest. Recently when I’d asked if anyone could recall the cricket pitch that was part of the former City Hospital grounds my good friend and former Hunters Tryst and Boroughmuir Secondary School classmate Geoff Hunter said he used to sometimes play for the hospital’s side. Now that I think about it he probably played for the school back in the late 1960s.

My father was different from many of the other local fathers in the Oxgangs neighbourhood in that he played cricket all summer and rugby all winter. He played full back for Boroughmuir FP at rugby and cricket for of all clubs, The Grange, perhaps the poshest club in town. Sometimes he also played cricket for Boroughmuir too - perhaps that was when he couldn't afford the Grange subscription fees!

Army Polo Fields, Dreghorn SPL

There were a few Saturday evenings when after playing locally say at Penicuik or the Army Polo Fields at Dreghorn he turned up at 6/2 Oxgangs Avenue with the whole of the cricket team.

When he played for Boroughmuir down at Meggetland an ongoing tradition in the game was to bring along a contribution to the spread for afternoon tea.

St Cuthbert's Cooperative SPL

It was a Hoffmann team effort in this endeavour as I had to nip down to The Store (St Cuthbert’s Cooperative) at Oxgangs Road North to buy in a couple of large jars of Shippam’s Paste and a Sliced Pan loaf. Mother would then make up the sandwiches spreading them with Stork margarine and applying the paste; the sandwiches were then wrapped up in the the bread-wrapper; Father had the glory leg - his role was to carry it down in the 27 bus along with his cricket grip (bag) and put them on the very long trestle table inside the pavilion concourse.

On occasion my brother Iain and I and perhaps a pal were allowed to go down with him on condition that we behaved.

Apart from enjoying the afternoon tea served up in the old Meggetland Pavilion (a former aircraft hangar from East Lothian) I enjoyed being able to go into the dinky wee green metal cabin with its flip up window to watch Boroughmuir’s inimitable former secretary and president Ronnie Tait record the scores; apart from finding it intriguing watching him record the statistics I had to make myself useful and fetch him a cup of tea or go outside to adjust the manual scores hanging outside on the front of the green cabin.

Having grown up as a massive fan of Wilson the Wonder Athlete I was less enamoured of his adventures when he was a World War II pilot or as a bowler on the infamous 1930s England tour to Australia but as I had a passing familiarity with the game the stories still had a passing appeal. It was cricket Jim but not as we know it.