LATE STARTS
Our work doesn’t really start until 11 o’clock: okay, we usually have to be at the ground for 9 o’clock, but we don’t really have to be functioning fully until play starts at 11 o’clock.
THE GREAT OUTDOORS
We get to spend all day outside rather than being stuck in an office: a bad day on the cricket field is better than a good day in the office.
SKIVING
Half the time when we’re at work, we don’t actually have to do anything: when your team is batting, you can either sit and chat with your mates or, if necessary, go to sleep on the job. Nice work if you can get it, eh?
PUZZLES
I’ve no doubt that 999,999,999 of my 1,000,000,000 readers will be completely engrossed in the book by now and desperate to get to the next chapter. But just in case you’re the odd one out and feel in need of a break, here are a few puzzles to keep you amused. If you like SuDoku, sorry, I couldn’t draw one of those…
I can remember coming of age clearly, because turning 18 hit me with a thud. The precise moment that the thud occurred was during my 18th birthday party at Pudsey Congs clubhouse (where else?). I was standing on a chair, getting carried away dancing to Cotton-Eyed Joe, and I smashed my head on the fire exit sign. Not quite behaving like a proper grown-up yet, then.
Unsurprisingly, it was Ferg who decided that the time had come for me to broaden my horizons beyond the playing fields of Yorkshire. I’d played my first few games for the county Second XI in the summer of 1995, and not done too badly, but I was still extremely raw, both as a bowler and as a lad.
So Ferg got in touch with Richard Lumb, his old Yorkshire teammate, who had moved out to South Africa and was involved with the Pirates club in Johannesburg. ‘Hoggy, it would do you good to go abroad,’ Ferg said. ‘I’ve sorted you out a club in South Africa, You’ll have a great time. See you in six months.’ And that was pretty much that.
I spent two winters with the Pirates, then returned to South Africa a couple of years later in 1998, a little less raw, for the first of two seasons playing first-class cricket with Free State in Bloemfontein. Both of them were fantastic experiences which, in different ways, helped me to find my way in the world.
My first spell in Johannesburg, shortly after I’d done my A-levels in 1995, was the first time I’d lived away from home. It was also the first time I’d been in an aeroplane. We’d been on umpteen family camping holidays to France when I was younger, but we’d always driven in the car and I’d never been up in the skies. My mum and dad drove me down to Heathrow, and by the time we got to London, I think my fears had gradually given way to excitement. Never mind the six months away from home, I thought, I’m actually going to go up in an aeroplane! Nneeeeeooowwwmmmm!
When I landed at Johannesburg airport, I must have come across like a little boy lost. For what seemed like ages I was looking for Richard Lumb and he was looking for me, both of us without success. He was going round asking anybody with a cricket bag—and there were quite a few—if they were Matthew Hoggard; I was going round looking for a tall bloke with grey hair, and there seemed to be plenty of them as well. Eventually, we found each other and got into his car. We got lost on the drive away from the airport, but he finally managed to take us to the famous Wanderers club, where he set the tone for my trip by buying me lunch and a beer or two.
And that was to become my staple diet for much of my stay in South Africa. Not so much the lunch; just the beer.
I don’t think I’d been warned, by Ferg or anyone else, just how much the South Africans like their beer. They must be the thirstiest nation on earth. Given the chance, they’d have beer for breakfast, and plenty of them do.
Before I’d even played a game with my new team-mates at the Pirates, they took me out to welcome me to the club. We went to the bar at the Randburg Waterfront, a lake just outside Johannesburg with loads of bars and restaurants around it. The evening started with a few convivial drinks, which helped me to relax as I was introduced to these strange people who, like it or lump it, were to become my new friends.
After we’d been in the bar for a couple of hours, I felt myself being shepherded towards the stage. When I was up there, everyone started singing, and I was given a half-pint glass full of the most disgusting-looking green drink. I had no idea what was in it, but something in it had curdled. I later found out that they had gone along the top shelf of spirits and topped up the glass with Coke. Yum yum.
The whole pub was singing at me to down it, so what else could I do? I remember drinking it, but I don’t recall much after that. I just remember waking up in the morning feeling very, very ill. But that had been my initiation ceremony at my new club. Welcome to the Pirates.
The problem was that just about every week seemed to be an initiation. The first game I played was for the club’s second team, so they could have a look at what I was capable of (and perhaps to check that I was still able to bowl a ball in a straight line after my ordeal at the Waterfront). That first game was away from home against Wits Technical College and, in one of those strange coincidences that cricket often throws up, also making his debut for Pirates that day was Gerard Brophy, who a couple of years later would be my captain at Free State and a few years after that came to keep wicket for Yorkshire.
I was quite surprised to find that it was really cold that day. I hadn’t initially planned to pack my cricket jumpers, I just expected it to be baking hot all the time, but I was glad I’d shoved them in at the last minute because it was bloody freezing. Anyway, both Gerard and I did the business on our debuts: he got 100 and I took four wickets.
So the cricket had gone well, but what really got to me was the fines system in the clubhouse afterwards. This was basically an excuse (yet another excuse) for making people drink vast quantities of beer, as decided by the fines-master of the day. Fines would be handed down for stupid comments made during the day, for embarrassing bits of fielding or for any other random transgression that could be deemed punishable by beer. This wasn’t something I’d encountered back at Pudsey Congs. Depending on who the fines-master was for that particular game, the punishment for a brainless comment would probably be to down a bottle of Castle. And that stupid shot you played? Oh yes, you’d better down another bottle for that as well. Needless to say, there was no mercy shown to the newcomers.
The worst offender for each game would be sentenced to death, which meant downing a beer every five minutes. The fines-master would have a watch, and every five minutes a cry of ‘Cuckoo, cuckoo!’ would ring out, signifying that the victim had to stand up and sink another bottle of beer. This would continue for as long as the fines session lasted, sometimes well over an hour. And to thank us for our sterling contributions in our first game for the Pirates, both Gerard
