Life as a pecker is blessed with playing at beautiful grounds, some provide a fine tea, and some provide exceptional teams littered with quality players from past and present, rarely all three. Still, on this muggy afternoon at the end of a single-track, the picturesque and quintessential hamlet of Blackheath in Surrey delivered the trinity of ground, tea and team.

Pecker Pug, a Blackheath local and regular of the club, had given us midweek intel that Blackheath was fielding a solid side with two father-son combinations, Surrey U16, Surrey U17’s, Tonbridge 1st team opener (close to Pobs heart) and Andrew Strauss’s former opening partner from Radley and their overseas Aussie. There are some theories our strong season of 2023 might be driving more competitive teams in 2024. Our recent run of form would suggest so, but Peckers were fielding a strong side, the sun was shining, and peckers were up.

Blackheath and Peckers took to the field slightly later than usual at 2 pm; the Blackheath u15 game against East Molesey was concluding, as we arrived, a young Sam Behn winning the game with a 4 to reach 50 on his 15th birthday. This was something of an omen; Sam was playing in our game in the afternoon with his Dad - Ed Behn ‘Big Dutchie’, owing to his Dutch heritage, , and POB had nicknamed the birthday boy Samsterdam. Ed a very familiar face and a former Pecker, having played in “That game – Peckers v Peckers If you know you know.

The outfield was as quick as glass, and the two openers from Blackheath had a look of “shitloads of runs”. There was no better response when Spinach delivered a contender for the nut of the season with ball number 2 to remove the 1st of their A players for 0 (It swung out and seemed to take the top of the middle). Spinach would complete his 1st spell without another wicket, but he would be coming back with valuable overs later in the innings.

Snax opening at the other end would extract as much swing as this muggy afternoon could provide, but anything slightly short of a length or wide got punished.Ed Behn and Freeth were starting to deliver on the pre-match intel. The fours were flowing, and despite some valiant dives and stops, it wasn’t long before the run rate began to climb rapidly. There were three overs for Snax before Greasy came into the attack, delivering some lively medium pace from one end and Trash taking over from CHRIS….Spinach. Trash got two wickets in 2 overs to remove Traash and Bushell, and the peckers were very much in the game, 65-3.. As we know, the thrill of cricket is turning points and swings in the game. How a game can “get away from you”, this is where the game truly got away from the peckers.

The Bonnet of shame was back and was being distributed widely as the Pecker fielding deteriorated in the humidity

Ed Behn (former Pecker, opening partner of A Strauss), not played for three years, decided now was the time he’d score 100 with a 131 strike rate of 76 balls. It was almost chanceless; 17 4’s most hit sufficiently to leave fingers stinging or our team tumbling at the boundary, and our overrate dropped as we fished balls out of thick greenery around the boundary.

Our next wicket would come when Blackheath was on 209, Greasy removing their number 5 for 45 soon after Ed Behn had retired on his faultless 100. Pirate took a fine catch, but we must have a special mention for our Spin twins Kamikaze and Lav the Whizz. The run rate could have easily gotten Blackheath to 300, no wickets taken, but the leg-spin of Kaze and the off-spin of Lav pegged the top order back and kept us in the game.

Spinach returned to bowl out his four remaining overs and take three more wickets, removing their middle order to finish with figures of 4-36. So Blackheath finished on 215 for 7; as we set about a glorious tea (Homemade lemon drizzle, cookies, carrot cake, five variations of sandwiches, scotch eggs, cocktail sausages, excellent) in Blackheath's very well-appointed clubhouse, we felt we’d got away with a reasonable score to chase with a fast outfield.

Pirate and Kamikaze opened up for the peckers against the Blackheath attack, who were managing to extract some inconsistent bounce from the Blackheath track. Kamikaze got into his stride early, neat off the pads and the short ball to get to 26 quickly before getting bowled by opening bowler Riddy Junior. Pirate would follow a few balls after feathering to the slips for 1, bringing Mole and Lav to the middle together and an expectation that we were still very much in the game despite two early wickets.

That optimism was squashed quickly as Mole’s 1st ball lifted off a length to the keeper, Lav missing a straight one on 4. Peckers were now 50-4 with Trash and Kwakka in the middle, and despite the mini top order collapse, the pecker's optimism was still glowing; Pobs instruction to Kwakka, “Just give the strike to Trash”, the total was still deemed doable. Indeed, the bowling change fed this optimism as the surrey youth had taken a blow. There was now more traditional Sunday Village bowling from one end, which gave us hope of some quick runs and getting back into the game. Trash and Kwakka were scoring at a run-a-ball, but the pitch was starting to deliver more for those digging it in and extracting some inconsistent bounce. One of these would do for Trash on 19 as a hook came off the glove and helmet and looped to the keeper.

What followed was more of the vintage Pecker collapse, Greasy, Millhouse, and Spinach all being removed in succession without scoring by the slow bowling of Greenway Sr. Peckers were 92-8, and now the revised goal from Pobs was, let’s get to a hundred as we haven’t for the last two weeks. Kwakkas' resistance for a 38 (off 34 balls, a great knock) was eventually ended by the young Sam Behn (15th birthday, already got a 50.

but with the peckers at 100, some sense of respectability was restored. This left Snax to join Pobs in the middle to treat us to a new shot - the two-knee’d sweep, something of a theme as Snax found himself on the deck in the field (dropping a juggled chance), at the crease and post-match in front of the Blackheath clubhouse, not dissimilar from the Porto fall “he’s had a good life”.

He managed to reverse over a cricket bag saying goodbye…Kamikaze’s new GF Samurai seems amused, as chauffeur Pirate waits for good chat on the way home

Peckers finished on 109 with Pobs unbeaten on 12, our 3rd loss in a row; whilst some might consider it a crisis, the peckers have been around long enough to have seen these cycles and to quote the Gatusso meme, “ Sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe shit”.

Ed ‘Big Dutchie’ Behn leads the victorious Blackheath from the field

What is not shit is the Blackheath fixture, tremendous hosts, and fine players, and it was delightful to enjoy a few beers with our friends as the sun set over their beautiful ground. On to Tilford for another cracker in the sun.

Penned by Kwakka