Glayzer gutted – no question about it
IT was one of those times when asking a sportsman how he felt seemed ridiculous, insulting even.
“Look at my face,” the Ormskirk captain, Matt Glayzer, might have said. “Then think of a better question.”
We were standing on the Chelmsford outfield quite early on Sunday evening. Ormskirk had just lost to Wanstead and Snaresbrook by 12 runs in the final of the Royal London Club Championship.
It had been a very good, close game. A low-scoring encounter played on a greenish September pitch. A game dominated by bowlers. A match played between two of the very best club sides in the country. 159 plays 147.
But the only thing on Glayzer’s mind was that Ormskirk had got the 147. The same was true of his players. You could see it in their spent expressions when they went up to collect their medals. Moments like that are the flip side of dancing about and spraying champagne.
Every sportsman, if they stick at their game long enough, knows that such occasions come along. They also find out that knowing is not the same as coping. In time Glayzer and his players will be able to ponder the many good things that came out of Sunday’s cricket. They will remember the fine slow left-arm bowling of Tom Hartley and his wonder catch off Scott Lees early in the game which ended Wanstead’s brisk start.
They will remember the absurdly mature batting of Mikey Jones, whose 40 runs off 67 balls held Ormskirk’s reply together when it seemed possible it might fall apart. And they will remember Glayzer’s own innings of 34 which took his side to within 14 runs of victory.
14 runs. Three big hits. Bloody hell.
Whatever happened on Sunday it has been a great year for Ormskirk. They have won their Liverpool Competition’s first, second and third team championships. They have shared the Lancashire Cup with Lowerhouse and, bizarrely if understandably, they will contest the semi-final of the 2017 Ray Digman Trophy in April 2018.
In the same month they may well play their first game in next year’s Royal London Club Championship. As Glayzer watched Wanstead’s players pose for their pictures with the trophy on Sunday, he remembered that the Essex club had lost the 2012 final to York. And now look at them.
He acknowledged the importance of the loss of four early wickets and then spoke of the pride he felt at being skipper of Ormskirk in a year when so much had gone well for the club. Except this.
Glayzer also knows that his team is not yet at their peak and that there are young players at Brook Lane who will be capable of challenging for first-team places before long. Judged by some criteria, Ormskirk are the strongest club in the Liverpool Gin Liverpool Competition. And that really does matter more than the result of a single game, however important. But it didn’t feel that way on a golden Sunday evening at Chelmsford. If you don’t believe me, just ask Matt Glayzer. Actually, on second thoughts, don’t.