Scotton Away (Eve League) and Ouseburn - WTF?

In the continued absence of Tim Carrington, I'm skippering the evening league side again this Wednesday - so boo-hoo for you.

Team is:

Charlie Afzal
Robbie Andonovski
Chris Cowell
Nick Crispin
Steve Ellison
Matt Goldsborough
Chris Kimberley
Jonny Knocker
Shaun Marshall
Callum McIntosh
Steve Spooner

6:30 kick-off at Scotton.

On an unrelated note - I'm slightly miffed at Ouseburn's skipper. Normally, being the shy, retiring type, I'd have kept my thoughts to myself. However his behaviour bordered on the bizarre on Saturday and perhaps some reasonably friendly advice might prevent future problems.

The first odd piece of behaviour was suggesting to call the game off after half an hour's rain despite his side looking in reasonably decent shape at 85-4. I don't understand why you'd want to captain a side and not want to play cricket - though I'm beginning to learn ;).

After the game (and Ouseburn's ultimate victory), I emerged from the shower to find that the Ouseburn team had already left, without even stopping for a post match beer. This I found distinctly strange, as the match hadn't been played in a bad spirit and they had ultimately won. Not staying for a beer after a game is usually a calculated insult after a fractious game - or sometimes an expression of frustration after a particularly bitter defeat, but neither of those circumstances applied here.

Finally - and what ultimately moved me to bother to post this, was the targeted insult at the people who put unpaid effort into improving the ground. There is a template for awarding ground marks to the opposition in various categories:

Markings (2)
Outfield (4)
Pitch (8)
Square (6)

To give a total of 20 marks.

Ouseburn awarded us:

• 1/2 for the markings - fair enough, I didn't remark the lines at tea time, as it was wet, covered in sawdust and muddy - and therefore pointless.
• 4/8 for the pitch - very harsh considering they got plenty of runs on it, and very few balls kept low. The rain subsequently turned it into a sticky dog - but this was hardly the fault of the wicket.
• 3/6 for the square - frankly bizarre, as the square is in great nick - perhaps he failed to notice that we played on the end wicket?
• 1/4 for the outfield - just plain wrong. This translates that he thought that either there was no visible preparation, or that the surface was dangerous. In fact, the outfield was pretty much pristine - the outfield was cut, the boundary marked, the sightscreens off the field of play, it had been cut on Friday and after the preseason heavy rolling, the ground is firm and pretty smooth.

This totalled a score of 9/20 - which is an insult to the people who put their time into the ground and just plain wrong.

If I have anything wrong here - please do let me know in the comments. Otherwise - sort it out.