Well, it seems as though the season only ended a month or so ago, and yet it's mid-December, I'm sitting at my desk at work with Christmas drawing near and a semi-fit, under prepared England are getting pummelled in the Ashes down under by a bunch of over-the-hill, arrogant convict arseholes; and I've just spent another painful night of dedicated, hopeless yet committed vigilance.

I can't bring myself to check Agnew's verdict on the dismal day, likewise I have no taste for meaningful work at present, so in an effort to raise my spirits I begin to peruse the HOBs website for the first time in ages - I am heartened by what I see. The upshot is that I've decided to put my listlessness to use in this review of the ups and downs of the Henleaze Old Boys' Season 2006.

So where to begin? A doleful performance at home to our fast-becoming nemeses, Lazarus XI (we really need to turn them over this season). In truth, they caught us cold; which is somewhat hard to explain given the excellent attendance for the net sessions in the preceding weeks. In short, save for a decent performance from our openers, and a wonderful opening spell from Joel, we were terrible. We'd have to pull our socks up for our in-at-the-deep-end inaugural 40-over match with Octopus the following week.

Octopus rocked up with only three-quarters of a team, their best player missing, and smelling like a half-drunk can of Kestrel. Fortune it seemed, might be on our side. We bowled them out with relative ease - everyone performing pretty well. The highlight of the game was the genuine and gratuitous sledging of Ogilvie when he came out to bat. Men were placed all round the bat as HOBs piled on the misery with freakish-like 'seal' noises (which for too long perhaps, have masqueraded as the sound of an otter). Ogilvie's torment was fittingly completed as the Smith twins orchestrated his demise: Caught SJ Smith, Bowled JS Smith. As Ogilvie Sr might say of a shoplifting palaver in the South of France: "what have you done sunshine?". HOBs proceeded to knock off the runs with a hitherto unheard of nonchalance, Davies excelling with the bat, aided by a few lusty blows from Anth and, towards the end, myself. All was right with the world.

With good spirits then, did the Old Boys traipse to Winford in torrential rain the following week. Astoundingly the match went ahead and we made it two wins on the bounce with a hard-fought victory over a home team seemingly hell bent on our humiliation (they fielded mostly their under 12 team). Matt cunningly managed to capture one of the images of the season - Captain Jon getting bowled by a boy a tenth of his size (and a hundredth of his weight) - but aside from this, and a notably splendid effort in post-match pub grub, it was a relatively uneventful match.

With the next match against Fishponds rained off, HOBs had a rest in advance of what were to prove to be two epic matches against Gremlins, sandwiching a routing of Mechanicals. The Gremlins contests, both staged at the YMCA Ground, were both incredibly tight affairs. Somehow, having bowled out Gremlins for a meagre 73, HOBs contrived to lose the match, although it did go down to the final delivery and the margin was a single run. Fast-forward two weeks and we are playing our second forty over game of the season against the same opposition; again, excellent bowling and fielding restricting our opponents to a below-par 146. After a strong effort chasing in the middle order, HOBs were always ahead of the rate but contrived to steadily lose wickets. With plenty of overs left, suddenly only one wicket remained, with Trahar and Barrett at the crease. Looking back at the match report for the game, the true terror of the final act grows and is evident in its authors' (Trahar) writing "Trahar's expert attempt to sweep of his legs turned into a hellishly looping swipe that really could have gone anywhere, landing away from the bemused fielders he thankfully ran away from the strike". In truth, we were shitting ourselves; nervous, shorn of confidence, petrified, hell bent on self-destruction - it was blow for blow a mirror image of the previous Gremlins encounter; an impending doom-filled defeat as inevitable as it was sickening. We were Atherton's England of the mid-nineties, experts in snatching defeat from the ever-receding jaws of victory. This would define our season and our club as nearly-men, losers, triers, did-alright-take-plenty-of-positives types; perennial and serial dellusionalists and defeatists.

But then Anth smashed a four and we won.

Well there you go; he is an Australian, after all. Trahar, in his match report, describes HOBs as "increasingly formidable" at this point. I'm not sure I agree. I'm not sure United Banks would either, given that our old habit of failing to chase down a paltry total returned the following week. We got "The Beast" out cheaply too, but still managed to lose by 6 runs with 3 wickets still remaining. That the opposition cheated by only using four bowlers is of minor import. The unsportsmanlike Bankers, though, would get their comeuppance later in the season.

A change of skipper, a new opening partnership, the immediate surrendering of our recently and keenly-won trophy, a neck-wound caused by an errant barbeque tong, and an umpire with his arse to the action at the critical moment all made the second half of the season rather more eventful than the first. Well, the tide has turned rather since I last sat down to write the first part of this review, England’s cricketers have turned from no-hopers to would-be world-beaters, and Australia’s odds for the world cup are receding faster than my hairline. Little has given me more pleasure over recent months (including the missus) than the sight this morning on the BBC website of the Aussies crashing to their first ever 10 wicket defeat in an ODI to New Zealand.

But on to our own little pleasures, and this great (little) club of ours; soon-to-be three seasons young, yet already brimming with history and prestige. What an honour it has become to don the Old Boys cap, to walk out with pride and passion on the hallowed turf of Golden Hill with our fellow men; and for me personally, to humbly lead this disparate band of strapping Homo sapiens, a whole (sporadically) greater than the sum of our collective parts. The sweet smell of summer hanging in the air, along with the lingering, dank cheap-perfume-cigarette-and musty-muff stench of Sarj’s or Jon’s most recent nocturnal conquest. But on with the cricket, and the continuation of this review.

Where were we? About to play the Ministry of Defence (that’s a whole damn government department, by the way) – a team who have the luxury of picking the cream of around 5,000 of our armed forces and civilians stationed in Bristol. My god though, we hammered them. I got my top score for the Old Boys, although to be honest, the bowling that was served up was on a par with Home-sick-Harmison’s recent atrocious effort in Australia. It was a bit embarrassing really. Was this all this once-great string to the British Empire’s bow could muster? So it seemed, as the match was completed with MOD nowhere near their target and we danced off the pitch to the Welly to the tune of a wicket maiden from Ed.

Following the cancellation of the next match against the Police, and our now bi-annual routing by Lazarus XI was a match against Fishponds Conservatives. They are, in truth, not the best of sides but we managed somehow to conjure our worst batting performance of the season, making only 97 against awful bowling in chase of a mere 112. It was classic HOB stuff, and frustrations got the better of the two Smith twins as a very public argument unfolded on the field of play – bewilderingly, they were both umpiring at the time. Anyway it was to prove Jon’s last match in charge of the HOBs resigning after the match, and I took over the reigns for the rest of the season. It was all a bit unnecessary really.

The rest of the season is pretty well documented, not that the first part wasn’t, but I had more enthusiasm for a review of the season at that point. Tom provided us with the comedy moment by missing a run out whilst umpiring with his back to the game, and we perhaps enjoyed our tour to London a little too much as our cricket in the capital suffered dismally. In the end, we wound up with 11 wins and 7 losses from 18 games, a marked improvement on our inaugural season. And as I sit here, finishing this review on the eve of the first net session of the 2007 season, I can barely contain my excitement for the challenge ahead.

Prospects for 2007

Well the word has spread, and our beloved cricket club has had a number of enquiries during the closed season from various wanters-in and would-be-members; news of a good thing spreads quickly, but I wonder how many will rock up for training tonight? Anyway, we’ve lost a couple of players for the coming season, so we could be in need of some new blood. Joel has been successfully drinking York University dry, while Huffy is now settled in newly-wedded bliss in London… let’s hope he doesn’t shit the bed. So, new opportunities are available in the HOB line-up, and Joel leaves a gaping hole in the new-ball bowling department – hard shoes to fill indeed. Speaking of Joel and gaping holes, we’ll also miss is tales of sexual encounters this season. Who will step up and fill this gap? (I seem to be unable to write without innuendo at the moment), my money is on Ashford perfecting those sneaky-but-accurate off-breaks he dabbled in last season and striding to the fore.

We’ll also be looking for continued progression from last seasons most improved player Niko Zographou and his amazingly-fast-growing beard. As well as being MIP last season, Niko looks to have initiated a new craze amongst the HOBs, by naming his new bat “Trevelyan the 3rd” (Trevelyan the 1st and 2nd were a rounders bat and a golf-club). This follows hotly on the heals of Sarj’s naming of his bat earlier in the season “The Penetrator”, aptly named for a man with such an frequently used and bulbous Bell-end. Who will be next? Jon naming his “The Lycos Lover”; Ashley “Big Daddy”; the possibilities are endless.

I expect us to be even more competitive this season, to develop a more explosive capacity with the bat and really try to score quickly throughout the 20 over games. I will also be expecting us to make the most of our advantage in youth (despite the counter-handicap of some oddly shaped members of the team) and improve our fielding in the pre-season net sessions, and some time will be dedicated to this. Personally I’ll be hoping to improve as the captain of the side, and shuffle the batting and bowling orders around a bit to give everyone a fair crack – so don’t get too complacent about your spot in the order, if you open one week, you could find yourself at number 11 the next. Similarly with bowling, as I feel we probably need to become a bit more flexible in this area. Either way, hopefully it will make for a more enjoyable season….

Lastly I’d like to set a challenge. Last season, although we did well, we lost a number of games we really should have won, mainly due to not scoring quickly enough. My challenge is for us to overcome this low scoring rate, with aggressive batting, and to win all of our games this season…..