It has been ten years since I visited this cricket ground

Nothing much has changed apart from the clubhouse

Which has enjoyed a lick of paint and now looks quite splendid

Although I do not drink I was given a local ale on my arrival

As I am well remembered in these parts as I once hit thirty-six

Off six balls in a cricket match played during a summer storm

My club tie is still displayed in the bar next to a faded photograph

I am sitting on the boundary near the railway line under an oak tree

But I can only hear the trains pass by as my view is obscured by the high grasses

Which have grown here since the bombing in August 1942 which destroyed the equipment sheds

Local legends note that a German pilot was trying to bomb the railway line but missed

And blew the sheds the mowers and a few unlucky benches into the next county instead

Cricket balls are often lost here due to the inaccessibility of this neglected area

And are noted in the score book as Ball Lost due to Enemy Action