Match Report - Gordon Potts Memorial 2014
Sunday 15th June 2014 saw
the seventh playing of the annual Gordon Potts Memorial match at
Forthill.
The event coincided with the last day
of the Dundee Beer Festival – and it quickly became apparent that
some of the players involved had heartily enjoyed the previous day’s
events in the beer tent....
As is tradition, it was Dundee v Dundee
United in this fixture and the teams gathered to find that such had
been the beer intake the previous night - that various random
invitations to play in the game had been dished out and accepted and
as a result 23 players were on show.
Debutants in the fixture included
Blackie, J Girolami Jr, the non dancing Walker twin and the Club
President Ian Stephens..........a fine mix of players indeed. The Arabs had some pre match selection
issues with the normally reliable Chic, Duke and Butts all posted
missing and this meant a captaincy debut for Nobby who looked
suitably nervous. All of this meant that the Dees sensed an
opportunity to win the fixture and level the series.
Dundee took to the arena; and it was
only when they were all on the field and arranging who would go
where, that skipper Bryce realised that he had forgotten to allocate
wicket keeping duties to any of his team. Clark reluctantly headed back to the
pavilion and donned the pads and borrowed Simmy’s (very smelly)
wicket keeping gloves. Finally ready to commence play, the
Arabs sent in Tucker and Ted who made a fine pair of opening batsmen
– or so the Dundee players thought....
Tucker went quickly (perhaps his vision
slightly clouded by 27 pints of cider the day before) and the FSC
president came in and played a couple of nice forehands before being
dismissed. Walker junior joined his father and the
pair of them were very subdued and fine bowling from Scott “Bob
Willis” Carrie, Cheese, Connie and Hector had them on the back
foot.
The innings was plodding along and run
scoring was slow. Ted was finally put out of his misery,
but more slowness followed and the trump cards of Bruce and Cully
even failed to hit the heights. Thankfully for the Arabs, Forfarshire’s
Scottish Cup winning hero from 1994 strode to the crease to rescue
them and looked in fine fettle as he took guard and surveyed the
field. Craig ran in and first ball demolished Gus’ stumps, much to
the great delight of the Dundee players. If ever a skipper’s innings was
needed this was the time – Nobby averted the hat trick, but Craig
picked up another wicket to make it three in the over and it was
looking doubtful if United would even bat out the overs and Howie and
Simmy were the last wicket partnership.
They saw it to the last ball when Bryce
steamed in and bounced Howie who tried to hook, but it was tooooooo
quick for him and he popped up a catch to Christian at square leg. Howie bounced out by the Big
Man..........innings over. The United total was a paltry 83 and
that included United’s normal trick of adding on one extra every
over throughout the innings. The Dundee lads were quietly confident
and unlike for Nobby..............the pulling of names from the hat
was kind to them and a reasonable batting order ensued.
Hector came and went and Ian was
unfortunately dibbly dobblied out by Howie, but Christian was going
well before he was undone by a quicker one from Tucker the Chucker.
How the young umpire failed to call this as a no ball is beyond
belief. Clark was welcomed to the crease by a
hail of doggie biscuits from the slip cordon; which he was grateful
for as he had missed lunch.
He fell and it was left to Craig (24
not out) to settle things down and he was joined by Robbie (30 not
out) who showed his commitment to the DFC badge by playing
brilliantly and seeing the Dens Park men home in style. This event has always been associated
with very closely contested games – however this was comfortably
the most one sided gubbing ever seen in the history of this fixture. Dundee hammered United...........! (you
can’t blame a correspondent for using such phrases given the
limited opportunity to do so in the last thirty years).
The players gathered post match for the
presentation of the trophy and it was great that Anne was there to
present the spoils to winning captain Bryce. He thanked Thomas Cook
for sponsoring the various trips that took key Arabs to various
places around the globe and hoped this would be repeated next year. The Champagne Moment recipient was Gus
for his golden duck and he gladly accepted the fizz, although he was
clearly not used to handling anything that was cheaper than £100 a
bottle. Thanks once again go to all
participants, to Ann and Ian, to Cully for preparing the wicket, to
Dave T for his sterling BBQ work and to Hogi and Midge for umpiring.
As ever, a good day was enjoyed by all as we once again gathered to
remember our lost friend.
So the series is now tied at 3 matches
each and the trophy rests on the Robertson mantelpiece for the next
twelve months. One can only hope that Bryce does not keep it in his
toilet area or else we will have a job getting it cleaned next year -
as the metal used in the making of the trophy is apparently highly
corrosive when exposed to toxins.
Here’s to next year.