Parklife - Vindication!

I remember the first time I set foot in the place, Saturday 6th October 2001 at 2.35pm. You may ask why I can remember this with so much accuracy. Well for football fans that was the day of England V Greece and that last minute David Beckham freekick which got us to the world cup 2002 finals, in what is one of the finest performances of one player in a game ever. I had been visiting my then girlfriend Rachel in Lincoln and I was rushing back to watch the game with my new housemates and I somehow managed to blag my way in to the already full pub to see the game. As a small sidenote I actually watched the game with the spurs legend, the ginger Pele, Garry Doherty, who in show of pure bossness (is that even a word?)  ended up buying about 20 of us a pint. So if for nothing else other than this he'll always be a legend in my eyes, and from that point on The Park was my go to place. I celebrated birthdays, anniversaries, break ups, make ups and even deaths in the place.

Now you've got a feel for the place and what it meant to me strap in for the first of many tales from time here. One that for me has had a happy ending, finally. Picture the scene, a student pub in the height of a summer heatwave......without the students, apart from a handful of hardy souls that decided to stay and work and waste the summer away. We devised more ingenious ways of wasting time. We had a game of monopoly that lasted two days and to stop anyone from cheating was locked in the pub safe overnight. We had the barroom Olympics, which consisted of various events including the triple jump, equestrian events (we paired off and did strange dance movements whilst piggy backing each other), weightlifting (who could carry the most crates of VK) steeplechase (running round the pub leaping over stools) and many more. 

This leads us onto the main crux of this story. The ashes were in full force and were being shown on the big screens. Being the sporty group we were we got into the spirit of things, it helped that there was a special offer on lemon fanta and vodka jugs at the time. A cricket bat was acquired from places unknown and a quick trip to sports direct helped us get some tennis balls and after making a makeshift cricket pitch in the very small beer garden that The Park had to offer we were off. As we were tight for space and running in the heat didn't really appeal to us we instigated a very simple runs scoring system where the runs scored depended on which part of the building you hit. You were out in the usual ways, being caught, stumps being hit and for very important for this story LBW.

Now as you can imagine that when you put a group of semi drunken men  trying to show off a little bit of sporting skill it didn't go well. We lost that many balls over the course of the first few hours of play that another few trips to various places to get more balls, I wonder if they are still up on the roof?  I wonder if the frisbees are up there as well?

Now again not wanting to boast at all but  I had played a fair bit of cricket at school and was annoying them a by proving a bit  difficult to get out and as the alcohol hit our system a little bit more, the balls being bowled or in most cases thrown at the batsman were getting wilder. Several diving catches were attempted and missed in most cases. My run score was going up each time I got into bat and I'll admit I was getting cocky, trying to wind up the rest of the players. They however had other plans.

They bowled a ball at me and it hit me on the leg at least six inches to the side of the wicket and I mean a legitimate six inches not the measurement that us men try and tell impressionable young ladies. Immediately  the bowler called me out, I thought originally that he was joking, there was no way that he could say that and mean it, alas the rest of the players jumped on the bandwagon proclaiming me out. I stood there dumbstruck, I knew I wasn't out yet here I was group mentality was in force full and the bat was grabbed out of my hand by the next batsman.

Did I take it in good grace and laugh it off? Did I bollocks, as I've mentioned in previous at this time in my life I was a little more hot headed than I am these days. I did the only thing logical and stormed off back into the pub, necked my drink and sat in the corner like a petulant child whilst hurling insults at them all. This little temper tantrum went on for about half an hour before I decided enough was enough and to hammer the point home I decided to storm off home with the idiots laughing at my admittedly childish behaviour. 

I would like to add they bring this up still and yes it still does annoy me!

It was only recently after 20 years that the truth has finally been divulged. On a recent catch up with one of the conspirators has come clean and admitted that I WAS NOT OUT! Just as I've been saying all these years, he admitted they only did it to wind me up and again I did the only logical thing that I could.....call them out on social media and finally expose this gross miscarriage of sporting injustice. It was up there with Maradona's handball, Lampard's ghost goal against Germany. That awful refereeing debacle in the Chelsea v Barcelona Champions league semi final, I could go on here but you get the point. And the bit that gets me is that he laughed at me whilst telling me, telling me that they had decided to do it because it was funny to wind me up and when I was drunk it  was even funnier.

So after all this time I am finally vindicated!

Now I really feel the urge to do two things, one is drink a large vodka and lemon fnata and the other is to play some cricket, so if those wretched souls fancy a rematch, you name the time and place and I'll be there!