Mighthy Ightham (the profiles continue)

And so we come to the 2nd most important member of the team.

Richard Bridge AKA Bridgey, Skip, The Silver Fox. (If I need to explain the first one, you've clearly been fortunate enough never to have read this blog before. In which case, leave. Leave now while your faith in humanity remains intact. 
Why Skip, I hear you ask? Well anyone who's played sport will know it's because he is our Captain or Skipper. In other words, our leader, our man at the helm, our wise old owl who leads from the front waving his bat like a mighty sword, who plots the downfall of our enemies, inspires his troops, finds out where the fuck Joe Austin's gone, prises a match fee out of Benwell, swears loudly in despair and who, late at night, when we've just been beaten by the 8 men, 2 children and a dog that make up the Falconhurst CC 1st XI, looks to the heavens and quietly implores God "Why me?" Bridgey has been skipper for over 8 years.
Silver Fox is a nickname Bridgey himself is trying, unsuccessfully to insert into the team's vocabulary on account of his prematurely grey hair. He thinks it imbues him with a certain sophisticated, savoir faire. Anyone who has been present at one of our "team bonding sessions" at The Old Red Lion in Holborn or in the changing room when he releases one of his infamous "squeakers" will know that it will take more than a few grey hairs to achieve this. Needless to say only Bridgey calls Bridgey The Silver Fox.)

The man who must take the raw materials described in previous posts (us) and with a magic alchemy worthy of Merlin himself, mould them into a tightly-knit, ruthless team of athletic gods. An impossible task?
Completely.
Sometimes though, he manages to arrange events in such a way that a motley collection of loafers, dandies, cretins, drunks, cripples, pensioners, teenagers and fatsos all turn up at the same ground, at the same time, with the intention of either playing a game of cricket or eating cakes (it doesn't matter which, for to achieve one, it is more or less mandatory to achieve the other) who are as capable of genius as they are of laughable ignominy. Often in the same game. What am I talking about? Often in the same over.
The frustrating thing for Bridgey is that it's impossible to know which. Which goes some way to explaining his grey hair.
Though he is by nature a kindly soul and a philosophical Captain, his temper may flare up occasionally and many is the picturesque, quintessential village green, nestled deep in the glorious Kent countryside, surrounded by pretty thatched cottages, perhaps a Norman church over yonder and little old ladies making cucumber sandwiches, that has echoed to the cry of "FOR FUCK'S SAKE!"
He is though, a magnanimous opponent and only slags off the opposition behind their backs. As exemplified by his stirring words upon being beaten by well known bellends, Shipbourne CC 1XI, and I quote "We'll clap them off, call them cunts and go for a pint." I put it to you my one reader, that even the Cambridge educated, ex-England skipper, writer and phsycoanalyst, Mike Brearly could not have encapsulated the Art of Captaincy so eruditely.
Anyway. It is to his cricketing skills that we must now turn. Bridgey is a very capable all rounder - which for my one American reader (howdy pardner) means he can bat, bowl and field to a good standard. Normally a cricketer excels in one, two or (surprisingly frequently) none of these disciplines but rarely do they excel in all three. Bridgey is one such freak.
Bowling - Though a very respectable bowler he is reluctant to put himself on to bowl until the crap batsmen are in (one of the perks of being the Captain), whereupon he will greedily despatch the old, the young and the infirm who tend to occupy the lower batting order, as efficiently as a dose of Swine Flu.
Batting - 'Pon being called on to bat Bridgey will belabour the ball happily to all corners of the ground with a combination of textbook cover drives, sublime cuts, pulls and almighty, cross-batted, eyes-shut, trouser-rending heaves down to cow corner, not to mention the textbook, Ightham-patented shot in which one thwacks it with an impeccable timing usually completely absent from the rest of the innngs, really hard into one's own foot from where it cannons of the ankle with a sickening crunch and dribbles out somewhere between square leg and mid-wicket at such a slow pace one can easily hobble a "quick" single. While crying.
Fielding - A reliably safe pair of hands Bridgey rarely drops a catch. Of late though his usually, equally reliable ground fielding has developed what can only be described as irony. How the hell can that happen? Well it goes like this. One of us will temporarily allow our admittedly pretty mediocre standards of fielding to slip yet further and either drop a catch, let a 4 through our legs or simply fall over. This is usually accompanied by hoots of derision, the tinkle of light laughter from the rest of the team and, by now his catchphrase, a "For Fuck's Sake!" from Bridgey. Sometimes this mistake will elicit a shout from Bridgey for us to tighten it up in the field a bit boys. Irony then kicks in.Within two deliveries the ball will be hit smartly to Bridgey and he will miss it. Balance s now restored to the universe.
For a summation of Bridgey's contribution to Ightham cricket we must go back in time to a late summer evening after a match in which we managed to scrape a win and in doing so, avoid relegation to Div 3 (where all the knobs end up - snigger). Ensconced in the George and Dragon and the loving embrace of 5 pints of cooking lager the team was looking wistfully back at the season's ups and downs. That's right. We were taking the piss out of each other. With great dignity Bridgey bore the good-natured attacks on his honour until he could bear it no more. With the wisdom of Plato and the eloquence of Stephen Fry (though not the sexual orientation), he said,
"At least I've managed to keep you bastards in Div 2 for 6 years."
Which is truly not the work of a mortal. It is the work of a magician.
Bridgey. Philosopher. Sufferer of fools gladly. Paul Daniels.