anybody for a game 01

Anybody for a game of………Part 1

Sport. What sport you may ask?

Football, cricket, fishing. All well known outdoor sporting activities.

Table tennis, snooker, darts, and my favourite contact sport, 1 aside dominoes.

I’ll cover them briefly in order of appearance.

Football was played by most (leave me out) fit young men on the Island. However, these fit young men could be reduced to quivering wrecks when playing against the “Gilbertese 11”. It was a ritualistic form of blood letting.

These men, all rippling with muscle, no obvious sense of pain, were feared by all who were brave enough, nay, daft enough to play against them.

Two things will stick in my memory forever. The first was that very few of the Gilbertese team wore anything on their feet to play football. Bare feet. Yes, I said bare feet. Who needed boots with feet that hard?

The second thing was one of the team called “Ambo”. I would rather have been forced into the ring with Tyson than play football against Ambo. On my departure from the Island he had reached nine. His ambition was ten. Nine, ten, what’s he talking about? Broken bones. Legs, ankles, feet, anything was a target for Ambo’s flailing appendages. Nine of the opposing teams had had bones broken by this man of steel, and his ambition was double figures.

I still wonder if he managed it.

Cricket, another gentleman’s pastime. That was until you came up against the local team. I must admit that it was a lot safer than football, at least it was safer until you had to face any of their fast bowlers. This is one sport I did take part in a few times, but I learn my lessons easily and quickly.

A fifty yard run up. A grunt, a whistle of wind and the thump as the keeper snatches the ball from the air. How the hell the keeper saw it coming I’ll never know. I never used to see them. The only thing that gave me the hint that I’d been bowled at was the sudden draft and the hiss of the seam as the projectile hurtled past.

Because of this my stroke play left an awful lot to be desired. It was more a case of, adjust the “Box”, close the eyes and wave the willow in approximately the right direction.

Normally I was a pretty fair player. Not on Christmas Island.

Yorkie, he was one of the luckiest people I know. Even I must admit that Yorkie was a very good player. That was until he came up against the scourge of Moonie batsmen. April ( see photo ) . What a massive man. Muscles on his eyelashes. He could make a ball do things that would confuse a juggler. So what chance did we have?

Yorkie in the crease. Beautiful stance, eyes glued to April who was running up to bowl. Maybe hurtling would be more appropriate. Whoosh, thump, grunt, gasp of air, and there was Yorkie flat out in the popping crease.

We still don’t know if it was Aprils’s attempt at breaking Ambo’s record or just an accident, but the ball had smashed into Yorkie’s chest with the power of an Exocet missile

We all rushed, including April, to Yorkie’s aid. He was gasping for air, so at least he was still with us. What had saved him. Smoking had saved him. This must have been on of the rare occasions when ciggies have saved a life.

Smokers on the Island had two methods of transporting their fags. One was in a bulky tin of 50. Or there was the pack of 20 carried in a strong, purpose made plastic container. April’s ball had hit Yorkie right in the “breast pocket” area of his shirt. Contents of breast pocket? 1 plastic fag carrier. It was now a shattered fag carrier, but it had stopped the ball from entering his chest cavity and scrambling his internal bits. It didn’t, however, stop him from sporting the bruise to end all bruises for a long time after.

April was also noted for his ability to lose balls. When he hit a six you just knew that it had either entered the Pacific or ended up somewhere in the plantation. “New Ball” was always the cry of the day when he was batting.