Here's the oddest thing. Last night I handed in my resignation as fixtures secretary. I'd been wondering about it throughout last year, as job and other things started to bear down on me, & once I made my mind up I felt pretty relieved - thank God I won't have to do that next Winter: now I can worry about all the other shite I have to worry about.
But as I typed my last fixtures email, I suddenly wondered if I was doing the right thing and out of the blue, I had a massive shock: I realised I didn't want to quit the job at all.
Fixtures secretaries are, by their nature, a weird bunch. I know I'm no different. I grumble a lot. Barely a month goes by on here without some mention of a useless council officer or twat of an opposition administrator. We all do this: after a game you'll generally find me and the opposition fixture secretary tucked away in the corner of the beer garden, moaning about the cunt who does the fixtures for XXXCC. The very next week the cunt from XXXCC and I will be in the corner of a different pub, slagging off the guy I was talking to the week before. He's really two-faced, apparently.
Our own team mates annoy us, because they don't seem to appreciate the work they do. They moan when a pitch isn't good. They moan when a pitch is too far away from East London. They moan when it's too far from West London. They moan if a game's on a Saturday. Or a Sunday. Or on a couple of memorable occasions, when it's rained off: no, really.
When they get in a sledging fight with someone or argue with an umpire they don't seem to realise that their little moment has suddenly made the next communication a hundred times more awkward, because in the eyes of the opposition "that guy who said he'd ram a stump up our wicketkeeper's arse" just become synonymous with the team as a whole. Everyone gets that, but it's just impossible for everyone to behave all the time. We're blokes, after all. The only way you can guarantee you'll behave is, well, spending a winter planning fixtures. And even that doesn't always work. Especially if their keeper won't shut up.
It makes you hate everyone in the world of cricket, your own team, local government, national government by extension, and above all yourself for choosing to take such a stupid job. Don't all sign up at once.
Ah, but. But but but. It's great. And here's why: you're making something. You're making a great big thing: a year of fun, and however soppy this sounds, that's very rewarding. How could it not be? You get to a good ground with beer on tap, have a laugh, smack a ball around with your mates and you know that if it wasn't for you the whole thing might not have happened. When you're doing the job you're caught up in what you're doing, so you never get the chance to step back and think about why you're doing it.
So the season's not even started and already there's a bit of a shock: I knew I had to quit my job, but I never really imagined I wouldn't want to.
Right that's enough of that, let's see how I'm going to bring up my 300 this season.
But as I typed my last fixtures email, I suddenly wondered if I was doing the right thing and out of the blue, I had a massive shock: I realised I didn't want to quit the job at all.
Fixtures secretaries are, by their nature, a weird bunch. I know I'm no different. I grumble a lot. Barely a month goes by on here without some mention of a useless council officer or twat of an opposition administrator. We all do this: after a game you'll generally find me and the opposition fixture secretary tucked away in the corner of the beer garden, moaning about the cunt who does the fixtures for XXXCC. The very next week the cunt from XXXCC and I will be in the corner of a different pub, slagging off the guy I was talking to the week before. He's really two-faced, apparently.
Our own team mates annoy us, because they don't seem to appreciate the work they do. They moan when a pitch isn't good. They moan when a pitch is too far away from East London. They moan when it's too far from West London. They moan if a game's on a Saturday. Or a Sunday. Or on a couple of memorable occasions, when it's rained off: no, really.
When they get in a sledging fight with someone or argue with an umpire they don't seem to realise that their little moment has suddenly made the next communication a hundred times more awkward, because in the eyes of the opposition "that guy who said he'd ram a stump up our wicketkeeper's arse" just become synonymous with the team as a whole. Everyone gets that, but it's just impossible for everyone to behave all the time. We're blokes, after all. The only way you can guarantee you'll behave is, well, spending a winter planning fixtures. And even that doesn't always work. Especially if their keeper won't shut up.
It makes you hate everyone in the world of cricket, your own team, local government, national government by extension, and above all yourself for choosing to take such a stupid job. Don't all sign up at once.
Ah, but. But but but. It's great. And here's why: you're making something. You're making a great big thing: a year of fun, and however soppy this sounds, that's very rewarding. How could it not be? You get to a good ground with beer on tap, have a laugh, smack a ball around with your mates and you know that if it wasn't for you the whole thing might not have happened. When you're doing the job you're caught up in what you're doing, so you never get the chance to step back and think about why you're doing it.
So the season's not even started and already there's a bit of a shock: I knew I had to quit my job, but I never really imagined I wouldn't want to.
Right that's enough of that, let's see how I'm going to bring up my 300 this season.
No comments:
Post a Comment