Pic: The Barley Mow, Tilford, Surrey courtesy of allposters.com
The following have all played cricket at one time or other: Bacon, Lamb, Veal, Trotter, Duff, Roll, Root, Gosling, Beet, Sweet, Branston, Pepper, Salter, Peach, Capon, Partridge and Pheasant. For the fish course: Salmon, Herring, Whiting, Hake, Pollock, Pike, Bass and even Whale. There's Mead, Waters and Beers for drinks and at least 14 Cooks (including our current 'Chef'). Sadly, in the culinary if not the cricketing sense, there are no Ducks.
* Above courtesy of inveterate writer of letters to newspapers, Neville Denson, of St Bees, Cumbria, who also wrote:
Cricketing Compassion by Neville Denson
He runs the village pub, at drink
And food works long and hard
Yet every Wednesday in the nets
He comes and takes his guard;
He turns his arm a time or two
He'll chase balls wide and far,
Then back he'll go at nine o'clock
To keep behind the bar.
He's way down in the averages
He's slower in the field,
He would have been out leg-before
If someone had appealed
But everyone took pity on
This ageing number seven
Though on his form he wouldn't make
An under-nines' eleven
His bowling was atrocious
He couldn't hit the sticks
He'd sixteen no-balls, fourteen wides
And none for ninety-six.
But everyone took pity on
This ageing man of spin,
And said that dropping him would be
A shame, a crime, a sin.
Such is the heart of cricketers,
Compassion won the day;
We'll nurse him till his form returns-
Oh yes, and by the way,
Our feelings are not influenced
By the fact - let's make it clear -
That after games he treats both teams
To dinner and free beer.
* Daily Telegraph: Willow Walks: Britain's best village cricket grounds - pitches that will knock you for six
