Unless you do actually go to a train station adorned in an anorak with a thermos, sandwiches and a note book to watch locomotives going in and out, you probably have a fairly low opinion of trainspotters.
Well, you shouldn't have, because you are one, and don't let the fact that you don't actually, you know, spot trains, fool you. We all have our moments where our choice of past-time would cause others to look down noses at us, and if you are reading this, then you probably love cricket. And this makes you a de facto trainspotter, like it or not.
I spent my day yesterday (Sunday, 18th September) playing in the traditional end of season game at McGrath Park in Bagenalstown against the Leprechauns. For the uninitiated, the Leps are a team of Cricket Leinster luminaries who drink a great deal of beer and occasionally play a bit of cricket. They are old school cricketers, and the on pitch battle is good humoured but keenly fought.
Yesterday was more than a little rain-affected. Usually, the Leps (who, oddly enough, always seem to win the toss and bat) will dig in for 50, maybe 60 overs, and declare, giving the home team a fighting chance of chasing down the total, albeit with considerably less overs. The precipitation put pay to any such plans yesterday, and whilst we battled gamely on through the ever increasing moisture, the game was halted with 106/5 on the board after 28 overs. It would be nearly four hours before play could resume, and had this been any other game, we would have all given up and gone to the boozer of choice or home.
Four hours is a long time to be sitting in our somewhat spartan pavilion.
Taking a break from spouting my grandiose theories on the nature of existence with a team-mate who chain-smoked and looked around desperately for someone to bail him out whilst I prattled on, I popped into the home dressing room, and found half of my team-mates engrossed in the pile of score books that sit on top of the press in the corner. Our youngest player - a mere 16 - was fascinated by these tales of cricketing yesteryears (some go back to the 1940s), and he sat there, reading out scores and going through batting line-ups. And he was far from alone. Everyone had a book in front of them.
Like I said: we are all of us trainspotters.
The game resumed at around 445pm, with the home team generously given 20 overs to chase down the total. It started well enough, but as the pitch turned into a marsh and the ball got heavier, the going got slower and slower. And the running risks got greater and greater. I had insisted that I bat at eleven, and so certain was I that my dubious prowess would not be required, I changed back into my civvies - something I had never done whilst the game was still continuing.
As the eighth wicket fell - the captain being clean bowled - I ran back into the changing room and re-adorned my muddy whites, and had just about got the pads on when the ninth wicket fell. I went out, somewhat bemused, with 8 required off 5 balls for victory.
I am a limited batsman at the best of times. This was not the best of times. The crease line was but a distant memory, and as I planted my feet, the spikes sank in, and I knew that my feet - hardly balletic on a good day - would not be moving. I took an executive decision to play for a draw - a situation that hardly ever crops up in the amateur game. The Leps soon sussed me out, and all gathered to within fifteen feet of me, knowing full well that I had no intention of running. It was a battle of wills, and I somehow managed to bat out the over and secure the draw.
As I came off the pitch, my team-mates - completely tongue in cheek - celebrated wildly like I was an all-conquering hero. I was clearly anything but, but it was better than losing.
So there we were - 22 players, 2 umpires, 2 scorers, with a few spectators - and all of us had given up a perfectly good Sunday to get wet, muddy, and hang around in an old building with a bunch of predominantly middle-aged and greying men, eating tea for several hours, sandwiched by hitting balls with sticks when the weather allowed, for it to all end up as honours even, which was exactly how we had started.
And I loved it.
Did I mention something about trainspotting?