The Rounders Match

There wasn't intended to be a rounders match.  We were just taking the motorhome for its annual MOT and service, but then the parents and sister were all going to watch my youngest niece play in a rounders tournament and suggested we go, too.  We agreed, with the caveat that if the garage phoned to say the motor home was ready, we would head off.  As it turned out, they didn't ring until much later in the day.

My brother had said that the afternoon's matches were due to start at 1:30, and it was not much past that when the cavalcade arrived, the wheelchair rolled down the slope, and we joined my brother and his wife and the other assorted parents to watch the match.

The school is in a wonderful setting, nestled into the Downs, very beautiful and probably totally lost on the children! This was the finals of some kind of tournament, and the school had already lost one match that morning, so were in the playoff for the Bronze medal.

When we arrived, the match was just starting, and the visiting school was batting.  My brother was explaining the rules to my parents, and exactly why the girl in question had or had not run.  It is well over half a century since I last played rounders, and I was glad to be reminded of the rules.  I'm always impressed how anybody manages to hit that very hard ball with such a narrow bat (for American readers, about the same size and weight as a baseball ball and bat); I never could. 

Visiting school was finally out for 4 1/2 rounders, and then Our School went into bat.  The niece didn't particularly cover herself with glory, but played competently enough.  The last girl left in, though, managed to score three rounders single-handed, to massive cheers from her cohorts and the assembled parents, and the half-time score was 9-4.5. 

After a break for drinks and reapplying of suncream (both unheard of during matches when I was a girl - you got a segment of orange to suck if you were lucky, as it was thought that if you drank during exertion you would feel sick, and the importance of proper hydration hadn't yet been realised; as for sunscreen, I don't think it had even been invented!), it was time for the second innings.  All was going well when, just at the end, disaster struck - there was a serious collision which resulted in a girl on our side's being hit very hard on the back of her head with a bat.  The poor child who had done it trotted over to apologise profusely - it had been a total accident, everybody agreed on that - but the child was out of the match, and the substitute had already been substituted once as she had a strained and obviously painful leg.  The team was badly shaken by this, and although they vowed to go and win it "for her", they couldn't get past it, and, sadly, it was all over very quickly with only 2 or 3 of the 8 rounders they had needed to win being scored.  Great was the disappointment, and a fair few tears were shed - adrenaline crash, mostly, I suspect.  I know the feeling all too well.

But, despite the disappointing result, it was an enjoyable way to spend a warm summer afternoon.

Photo: Maggie Wright