HOF's (156 all out) lost to Horsley & Send (160 for 4)
 

A breezy but sunny day greeted the "young" bucks of Headley Old Freemen's when they arrived at the picturesque setting that is Horsley & Send's neatly secreted ground - so secreted is it that Geoffrey Moon, HOF's quiet, unassuming Aussie all rounder, failed to spot it even after driving past and he was well on his way to the south coast tourist hot spots before he realised his error & finally turned up about an hour after the first ball was bowled by H&S at HOF's opening pair of Hufton and Holliday. By all known form "Slider" Hufton and "Doc" Holliday should be a resolute and doughty opening partnership; a rock upon which to build a towering, uncatchable score, but once again the record books fell to earth like a modern-day Icarus. Hufton was caught out by an inswinging good-un by H&S's "I take a totally un-necessary 50-yard run-up" opening bowler and Holliday departed soon after to what he described afterwards as an "unplayable, wobbling" full-toss. The middle order once again failed to get the ball off the square with any regularity and the game became something of a digging-in operation akin to something the troops at the battle of the Somme would have seen as routine, led manfully by the aforementioned quiet, unassuming Aussie and the HOF captain David "Woll" Hammond. This tactic not only slowed the enemy down, but also the scoring and HOF's were shuffled out for a fairly miserable total of 147 in which the Aussie top-scored - however most of the overs available to HOF's were used up, so there was some hope in the hearts of the boys from the trenches.

Half time refreshments were taken morbidly after a threatened hairdryer outburst from Hammond who clearly thought his braves capable of better. With the thought of a good tonking in everybody's mind morale was low, but the tea was good and also there was the welcome sight of a proper cricket match taking place on the other side of the pavilion where H&S's 1st XI were rattling up a sweet little score of 196 against Egham in the Surrey Championship.

So it was H&S's turn to bat and here's always great hope when you have brilliant bowlers at your disposal. Great Hope wasn't playing unfortunately and nor were the brilliant bowlers and HOF's toiled manfully but all in vain to break through to the soft underbelly which presumably contained H&S's lower batting order. In order to get to the soft underbelly however you have to break the outer skin, and although there was an early wicket for Hobbs and some later ones for Hufton and Hammond, the H&S No 2 batsman nurdled a largely un-noticed half century and saw his side through to an emphatic victory with nearly 20 overs to spare.

So another match without a win for another new-look HOF's 2nd XI, but there were some positives to be taken out of the day: Chelsea won the cup against the Scouser 2nd City team; Naz Hussain scored an impressive 50 and the artfully named Randy Gale took a Michelle for H&S's 1st XI in their win against Egham; and Clarkey and the Richmondites were in the pub by 7.30.