Today we travelled to Halvergate to see Hethersett and Tas Valley Cricket Club play in the final of the Carter/Norfolk Association of Cricket Officials (NACO) Shield. I am currently Club Development Officer but my role could well be changing in the near future (more about this later).
Halvergate is an intriguing place. There's nothing unusual about the village itself but there is about the area in general. Halvergate Marshes is an area of outstanding beauty. Situated off the A47 between Acle and Great Yarmouth, th marshes are as flat as flat can be. Windmills dot the landscape and animals graze in the fields. The Norfolk Broads run alongside the road before giving way at Great Yarmouth to an area known as Breydon Waters which run into the North Sea.
Many find the marshes flat and uninteresting. I beg to disagree. To me the flatness has its own beauty. You can see for miles as the outline of Great Yarmouth looms. As you turn off the main road towards the village of Halvergate you almost feel as if you are dropping off the edge of the world. It's quite intriguing.
The cricket ground on the village playing field is very attractive and today it was particularly attractive as we won the trophy with a 127 run victory. Local cricket sometimes confuses me. We scored a very decent 229-6 but Thetford made no attempt to keep up with the run rate or make a contest of it. The same occurs in the Norfolk Alliance League where they have a rather ridiculous scoring system where you can have one of four possible results - a win, a loss, a winning draw or a losing draw. To my mind the idea of winning and losing draws is ridiculous. In a limited overs game you either win or lose. What the "draw system" encourages is negative play. Over the past season we have had numerous examples of teams turning up with no intention of winning a game and hanging on from the first ball for a losing draw. This is dull and boring for players and spectators alike.
Tomorrow it will be back to the arts with this blog