The Five Friendly Teams You Meet In Hell

This may seem like the post of a bitter man lashing out in retirement, after years of biting his tongue and remaining diplomatic at all times, in a bid to make his job run more smoothly and improve the harmoniousness of his and his team mates' weekends. It might seem like that, because that's what it is. But it's also slightly amusing, I hope.

1. The Ringermen XI

Some time ago, something strange happened. The Ringermen, formerly a nondescript, pretty clueless outfit, had a rather good player join them. Even stranger - given the gaping chasm between his ability and theirs - he stuck around. Of course, this is friendly cricket, so we're talking relatively good. The kind of batsman who will take a ton off most friendly attacks (on astroturf), who might have played a few county games at youth level (he really talks them up) - that sort of thing.

But the presence of this player utterly changed The Ringermen's outlook on the game. Suddenly, they could compete with all those teams who had so mercilessly smashed them over the years. The hunter had become the hunted. Now The Ringermen were, at a stroke, a proper team. But they began to lose something. In the past they had been thrashed mercilessly, but they could take away one key victory, every time - unlike those oppo bastards, they had played in the right spirit.

Now they won games - but for some reason it didn't quite feel right. When one of you is scoring all your runs and the other ten are contributing the square root of bugger all, I guess the moral high ground can seem a little hard to attain.

Which is why the Ringermen take defeat so very, very badly. If there's one thing they want, it's the chance to get back on their high horse. A bad decision or a batsman declining to walk will be met with the kind of furious outburst you'd normally hear after running over someone's dog. Despite this, their key player is remarkably safe when they umpire - in fact it's a bit of a struggle for them to give him out when he's bowled. It's obvious why: once he goes, the whole pack of cards comes crashing down, with even more alacrity than it did before he joined.

And the greatest irony of all is that these self-deluding fuckers weren't even very sporting in the first place. You see, when you're not very good, cheating can only take you so far: that's all. A couple of them will even have the cheek to say things like "You wouldn't get that in a league match" when they see things they don't like, as if a couple of games for Shepton Mallet's Sixth XI counts as anything of the sort.

Tactics? Get the one good guy out (play on his arrogance if you can - short balls work a treat), watch the rest crumble.
Examples? Sure. PXXXXXX CC.

2. The Administrators XI

Beware The Administrators. For these are quite possibly the biggest arseholes of the lot. They are vaguely sociopathic middle-aged men of a certain indefinably petty sector of the British middle class. Their team is comprised of five or six of them (they've known each other since Uni), and five or six guys who are quite good at cricket. Rather like The Ringermen, the first five or six love to think they're playing the game in the right spirit. Which for them, equates to letting the other half of the team do all the batting and bowling, while they steadfastly umpire incredibly unfairly, occasionally holding out for a draw with the bat if it doesn't quite go to plan, and scouring the Internet for match reports that don't cast them in an entirely positive light.

At the same time they've got no problem with letting their good players bounce the shit out of a child or clobber unbeaten hundreds off a small girl's bowling. And on the rare occasion they deign to drink with the opposition after the game, they'll talk at length about how well the team played - as if their only contribution to the game wasn't to give one of their good players not out after they middled one to slip before dropping three catches.

They'd love to think they were the fun loving chaps of 20 years ago, these men, but they're not, now - they're a bunch of grumpy twats. Of course they'll never say anything about your team to your face: they'll save it for a snarky email a week or two later. Because really, that's the kind of admin they do best.

Tactics: Try to ape theirs. If you've got a guy who bats and bowls better than one of your bowlers, then I'm sorry, but he gets tossed the cherry for this game. Try to get their top order out bowled or caught in front of the wicket, because it ain't happening any other way.
Examples? Of course. SXXXX CC

3. The Pseuds XI

It all went wrong for The Pseuds captain when Oxford University turned him down. Since then, he's always had a little bit of a chip on his shoulder. He knows it's a terrible weakness, but he just can't help it. He just wants people to think he's clever. He does everything he can to propagate the fact. His match reports weigh in at several thousand words, full of in-jokes that he just knows his team mates love.But his narrow vision - the same one that the tutors noticed at his interview, sadly - betrays him. The statistics surrounding the professional game of cricket that interest so many hold little joy for him, but the efforts of his team and its rivals - now they are endlessly fascinating.

He spends his time obsessively pouring over the reports and scorecards of other teams, thinking up tactics for how they can be defeated. Oh, so the number four got out to an off spinner did he? How interesting. And he loves attempting to read into the politics of it all - has there been a falling out between two of their opponents? How very interesting. Must bear that in mind.

But of course the problem is that for all this abstruse, intricate effort, he's not very good at cricket; and nor is his team. So if another team keeps beating them, there must be something amiss. How could he be outsmarted again and again? Are they simply a bunch of cheats? Must be. Ability can't come into it - for The Pseuds' captain, cricket is fundamentally an intellectual endeavour.

Once he's run out of ideas, all that research and endeavour starts to take a more disturbing path. Never mind the cricket - they've slighted us! It's right there, in a forum entry on 23rd March! The utter bastards! Soon, all-out war is declared - online (of course). No, The Pseuds will NOT be playing you this year. No time to discuss, we've got new opponents, who once lost to one of our opponents in 2008 and seem to be weak against left arm bowlers.

Tactics: You're on to a loser whatever you do, so you may as well start intellectually intimidating them from the word go. Start quoting Nietzsche at them between balls.
Examples? Why not - The GXXXX OX WXXX LXXXXX.

4. The Decrepits

Pity the Decrepits, for they are simply a bunch of very old men, who were never very good in the first place. Beating them isn't so much a victory as a mercy killing. It's hard to say how they ended up on your list - maybe you were quite bad when you started out, maybe you thought they were another team when you set up the fixture. The problem posed by these guys is quite unlike the other two. It's a question of conscience. The Decrepits will gamely let you savage their awful bowling past their stationary fielders, who will slowly turn and retrieve it from the boundary 30 minutes later. They will take guard against your most fearsome bowlers with nary a murmur of complaint. The question is - how much of this can you take - never mind them.

The Decrepits don't have the same insecurities as the previous two teams - my God, how can they have anything other than moral superiority given what you're doing to them? They won't react well to any kind of banter - but then, they don't appear to be enjoying themselves at any point. And in many cases they aren't. For each of them is in their own personal hell, wedded to a stupid game they can't play and are far too old to take part in. Yet still, something keeps calling them back, week, after week, after week. They may have the odd player who isn't old and/or dreadful. Try not to get him out. He's essentially doing care in the community work.

Tactics: Drop them immediately from your fixture list, for no game will leave a worse taste in your mouth.
Examples: Ok. The RXXX XXX


5. The Thugs

It's telling that you come across this lot so rarely. Pretty simple equation - this lot are the school bullies. They'll cheat every way they can, threaten the umpire, sledge the batsman, do anything it takes, really. They've read all those Christmas books about sledging and think their own efforts must be given an airing: "You're rubbish", they shout, a retarded grin plastered across their dribbling lips. This, of course, despite the fact that most professionals actually wouldn't dream of doing half the things they do, because they don't need to.

Get on top of them - with bat or ball - and they go very quiet. Sledge them yourself and they've got nothing..But pit them against an inferior or intimidated team and these sickening Neanderthals, these dribbling, imbecilic fucking cunts- will have a field day.

Tactics: Beat them. Hard. And let them know while you're doing it. Very, very occasionally, there's a team who only understands one type of language.
Examples: The now-defunct Lamb, of east London.