POULTON CRICKET CLUB

In 1953 there was the "Stanley Matthews Final", in 1981 there were "Botham's Ashes", and, in keeping with great sporting tradition, in 1999, a Poultonite joined this list of illustrious names in what became known as "Greenie's Game". The following report appeared in the Gloucestershire Echo in 1999;

Poulton batsman Mark Greener slammed 186 not out in 123 minutes on Saturday and was still on the losing side.

His team lost their 100% record in Division 5 of the 3-D County League - by 2 runs to Old Patesians at Eagle Star.

Greener opened the Poulton innings and they needed to overhaul Old Patesians' 242 for 6, of which Bill Jamieson made 104.

Greener hit 16 sixes and 13 fours and scored 26 off one over, 28 off another and more than 20 off three more.

He was dropped three times, once behind the wicket when he was in the 20's and then off successive balls on the boundary when he had passed 70.

Fours and sixes abounded as Greener tried to get out so that he could go to watch his small daughter dancing in her school's ballet.

When he finally holed out, he had made 186 of 233 and left his team-mates to score 10 in 10 overs with four wickets left. They failed, collapsing to 240 all out.

Eddie Brunsdon, who had taken Greener's vital wicket, was hit for 30 off his first two overs but cleaned up Poulton to finish with figures of 7-1-35-5.

Greener's innings overshadowed a fine century by Jamieson, his first major innings since he joined the Pats when Eagle Star withdrew from the league at the start of the season.

He and Graham Lawrence, who made 54, put on 132 for the third wicket, and Jamieson said afterwards: "Amazing. I've played in a lot of matches during the last 20 years or so, but I've never seen an innings like Greener's before.

"The Poulton players left the ground wondering who was going to be to one to break the sad news to Greener, who rushed off before the end."



In a postscript to the match, several of the Poulton players who played that fateful day also appeared in a friendly at Avening & Cherington the next day. Still reeling from the previous day's events, there was much conjecture as to the possible fall-out from those extraordinary events.

Some believed that Andy James (who had been absent from the side that day) would resign the club captaincy when he found out the result that had seriously derailed their promotion assault! Others predicted that Greenie would never play for the club again, unable to put his trust in teammates who displayed such bewildering incompetencies!

Of course, none of these things happened. But Poulton did miss out on promotion by the narrowest of margins that summer and it wouldn't be until the end of the following summer that Poulton would finally start their climb up through the County League divisions...



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