Songs about the game of Cricket?

Subject: RE: Songs about the game of Cricket?
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 21 Aug 03 - 02:23 AM

G'day David,

Is it any worse than Our Don Bradman ...?

Regard(les)s,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Songs about the game of Cricket?
From: GUEST,DavidfromSydney
Date: 21 Aug 03 - 01:46 AM

There's a song by the Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly called "Bradman". Not one of his best in my view, but then I'n a Pom

David

Subject: RE: Songs about the game of Cricket?
From: GUEST,Elfcall
Date: 20 Aug 03 - 08:52 AM

Further to my previous post - Sid Kipper has done a parody on this calypso too on his 'Rhinestone Ploughboy'cd it is called the 'Bodyline Collapso'.

Elfcall

Subject: RE: Songs about the game of Cricket?
From: Bert
Date: 20 Aug 03 - 12:37 AM

The Spinners did one called the Absentee. It went something like

Sunshine, sunshine a happy day
of to the cricket match I'm away
somebody else can work for me
I'm the happy absentee.....

Subject: RE: Songs about the game of Cricket?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Aug 03 - 07:10 PM

The Cricket Match or The Game of Cricket (from the Trunch Tradition, Henry and Sid Kipper)

As I was walking out one day, the season just beginning,
I met a maid all dressed in white, a-practicing her spinning.
Young Sir, she cried, are you the sort to only stand and watch?
I have both bat and ball says I, then let us have a match.

I won the toss and put her in, I soon got in the groove,
And as the wicket was quite damp, the ball began to move.
I bowled to her balls fast and slow, we were both cricket lovers
And when I once began to tire, she stroked me through the covers.

I pitched it right up in the crease and then around her head.
Forward and backward, both she played, come one, was all she said,
And then come two, I ran her out, her innings was all through.
She said let's change positions now, and I will bowl to you.

Her action really was so smooth, though it was quite chest on,
And when she got the ball to turn, I knew I'd not last long.
So I began to have a thrash, my score did quickly mount
She flicked my bails and cried, How's that, but I was not quite out.

But now this girl increased her pace, I couldn't deal with that.
She thundered in, before I knew, my middle stump was flat.
Well that had been a first class match and now we knew the score
The game was up, our passion spoent, all ending in a drw.

Now as you sportsmen will all know, opponents are a mixture.
Such a good match is bound to become a regular favourite fixture
And so we play, home and away, and afterwards share a tub,
And one day soon, I feel quite sure, I'll get her in the club.

Subject: RE: Songs about the game of Cricket?
From: Dug
Date: 19 Aug 03 - 06:15 PM

John Dengate's very fine song "Song of Childhood" has the following lines:

Bring out the bat and the old cork ball and we'll bowl at an old wooden case.
She;ll jump and she'll turn on the ashphalt road, she'll come at a lively pace,
But barefoot, careless and undismayed, we'll drive and hammer and glance,
Now the ball is lost in the tangled years; my hands couldn't hold the chance.

Subject: RE: Songs about the game of Cricket?
From: GUEST,JohnO'Hagan. (Cockersdale)
Date: 19 Aug 03 - 06:05 PM

Try "Tortoises always come last". Words bt Keith Marsden, Music by Chris Sugden

Subject: RE: Songs about the game of Cricket?
From: boglion
Date: 19 Aug 03 - 02:36 PM

The Kipper Family recorded the definitive Criket Song. I think it was called "The Cricket Song"!!

"When I once began to tire she stroked me through the covers" etc.

Terry

Subject: RE: Songs about the game of Cricket?
From: greg stephens
Date: 19 Aug 03 - 01:44 PM

Glok's just mentioned one of my favourites, the other being the very evocative "Cricketers of Hambledon".

Subject: RE: Songs about the game of Cricket?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 19 Aug 03 - 12:39 PM

The song from the 1950 test match was a Calypso called "Cricket lovely Cricket"
Try here
Giok

Subject: RE: Songs about the game of Cricket?
From: GUEST,John Gray in Oz
Date: 19 Aug 03 - 12:06 PM

We have one, that I guess was recorded in the late 30's, called "Our Don Bradman"

JG/FME

Subject: RE: Songs about the game of Cricket?
From: GUEST,Long Firm Freddie at Work
Date: 19 Aug 03 - 08:46 AM

I used to own the following LP - dunno where it got to, though...

White Hart YET 3003 John Arlott & The Yetties - "The Sound Of Cricket"
Poems read by John Arlott and songs by The Yetties
Side 1: Introduction - Cricket On The Village Green* / Maker Of Bat & Ball - John Small* / The Cricketers Of Hambledon On Windmill Down, 1789 / Stonewall Jack* - The Old Cricketer / Introduction - I Keeps It There Or Thereabout* / Introduction - The Flower Bowler*
Side 2: Fred Grace - The High Catch* / The Master Artful Dodgers - A Tickle O' Me Spinnin' Finger* / Introduction - Four Jolly Bowlers* / Pride Of The County - Harold Gimblett's Hundred* / Ian Botham, Somerset C. C. C. - Somerset* - Beefy's Army* - Closing
* songs by The Yetties 1984

LFF

Subject: RE: Songs about the game of Cricket?
From: GUEST,Strollin' Johnny
Date: 19 Aug 03 - 08:04 AM

Bernard Carney's "Cricket Lovers". Contains numerous cricket terms used in 'double-entendres'. Funny, but not for those who are easily offended.

Subject: RE: Songs about the game of Cricket?
From: red max
Date: 19 Aug 03 - 07:59 AM

In Holroyd's Collection of Yorkshire Ballads there's "The Richmondshire Cricketers' Song" by William Swain. It was written in celebration of the visit of the All England cricketers to Richmond in 1857

Ye cricketers of Richmondshire
Just list to what I say
Don on your cricket toggery
For England comes today
Gird well your loins as on the course
You stand and plaudits meet
Prepare you for the tug of war
The race is to the fleet

Chorus
Then bowl away my jolly boys
With bias, break or spin
And show these noble champions
that Richmondshire can win

There are 5 more verses and a variation on the chorus. I'm afraid I don't know the tune

Subject: RE: Songs about the game of Cricket?
From: GUEST,Elfcall
Date: 19 Aug 03 - 06:41 AM

There was also a calypso type song from the 50's which went approximately

'those two friends of mine
Sonny Ramadin and Alfred Valentine'

Elf

Subject: RE: Songs about the game of Cricket?
From: okthen
Date: 19 Aug 03 - 06:21 AM

A peaceful spot is Piper's Flat. The folk that live around -
They keep themselves by keeping sheep and turning up the ground;
But the climate is erratic, and the consequences are
The struggle with the elements is everlasting war.
We plough, and sow, and harrow-then sit down and pray for rain;
And then we all get flooded out and have to start again.
But the folk are now rejoicing as they ne'er rejoiced before ,
For we've played Molongo cricket, and McDougal topped the score!

Molongo had a head on it, and challenged us to play
A single-innings match for lunch-the losing team to pay.
We were not great guns at cricket, but we couldn't well say no,
So we all began to practice, and we let the reaping go,
We scoured the Flat for ten miles round to muster up our men,
But when the list was totaled we could only number ten.
Then up spoke big Tim Brady: he was always slow to speak
And he said "What price McDougal, who lives down at Cooper's Creek?"

So we sent for old McDougal, and he stated in reply
That he d never played at cricket but he'd half a mind to try.
He couldn't come to practice -he was getting in his hay,
But he guessed he'd show the beggars from Molongo how to play.
Now, McDougal was a Scotchman, and a canny one at that
So he started in to practice with a paling for a bat.
He got Mrs Mac to bowl to him, but she couldn't run at all ,
So he trained his sheep-dog, Pincher, how to scout and fetch the ball.

Now, Pincher was no puppy; he was old, and worn, and gray ;
But he understood McDougal, and-accustomed to obey.
When McDougal cried out "Fetch it!" he would fetch it in a trice,
But, until the word was "Drop it!" he would grip it like a vice.
And each succeeding night they played until the light grew dim:
Sometimes McDougal struck the ball-sometimes the ball struck him.
Each time he struck, the ball would plough a furrow in the ground;
And when he missed, the impetus would turn him three times round.

The fatal day at length arrived - the day that was to see
Molongo bite the dust, or Piper's Flat knocked up a tree!
Molongo's captain won the toss, and sent his men to bat
And they gave some leather-hunting to the men of Piper's Flat.
When the ball sped where McDougal stood, firm planted in his track,
He shut his eyes, and turned him round, and stopped it-with his back!
The highest score was twenty-two, the total sixty-six,
When Brady sent a yorker down that scattered. Johnson's sticks.

Then Piper's Flat went in to bat, for glory and renown,
But, like the grass before the scythe, our wickets tumbled down.
"Nine wickets down for seventeen, with fifty more to win!"
Our captain heaved a heavy sigh, and sent McDougal in.
"Ten pounds to one you'll lose it!" cried a barracker from town ;
But McDougal said, "I'll tak it, mon and planked the money down.
Then he girded up his moleskins in a self-reliant style,
Threw off his hat and boots and faced the bowler with a smile.

He held the bat the wrong side out, and Johnson with a grin
Stepped lightly to the bowling crease, and sent a "wobbler" in;
McDougal spooned it softly back, and Johnson waited there,
But McDougal, crying "Fetch it!" started running like a hare.
Molongo shouted "Victory! He's out as sure as eggs,"
When Pincher started through the crowd, and ran through Johnson's legs.
He seized the ball like lightning; then he ran behind a log,
And McDougal kept on running, while Molongo chased the dog!

They chased him up, they chased him down, they chased him round, and then
He darted through the slip-rail as the scorer shouted "Ten!"
McDougal puffed; Molongo swore; excitement was intense;
As the scorer marked down twenty, Pincher cleared a barbed-wire fence.
"Let us head him!" shrieked Molongo. "Brain the mongrel with a bat!"
"Run it out! Good old McDougal!" yelled the men of Piper's Flat.
And McDougal kept on jogging, and then Pincher doubled back,
And the scorer counted "Forty" as they raced across the track.

McDougal's legs were going fast, Molongo's breath was gone
But still Molongo chased the dog-McDougal struggled on.
When the scorer shouted "Fifty" then they knew the chase could cease;
And McDougal gasped out "Drop it!" as he dropped within his crease.
Then Pincher dropped the ball, and as instinctively he knew
Discretion was the wiser plan, he disappeared from view;
And as Molongo's beaten men exhausted lay around
We raised McDougal shoulder-high, and bore him from the ground.

We bore him to McGinniss's, where lunch was ready laid,
And filled him up with whisky-punch, for which Molongo paid.
We drank his health in bumpers and we cheered him three times three,
And when Molongo got its breath Molongo joined the spree.
And the critics say they never saw a cricket match like that,
When McDougal broke the record in the game at Piper's Flat;
And the folk are jubilating as they never did before;
For we played Molongo cricket-and McDougal topped the score!

Subject: RE: Songs about the game of Cricket?
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 19 Aug 03 - 06:21 AM

There was a book published about twenty years ago titled "A Song For Cricket" sorry I can not remember who the compiler was but the forward was by Tim Rice. It contained poems and songs about the game from village green heroics right up to Roy Harper's "Old Cricketer" which it stated was THE song for cricket.
I'm sure that local libraries would be able to help.

Subject: RE: Songs about the game of Cricket?
From: Hrothgar
Date: 19 Aug 03 - 05:58 AM

There is a poem by Thomas E Spencer called "How Macdougal Topped the Score" which is a popular recitation over here.

Ted Egan has written a couple, I think - "The Tiger and the Don" springs most readily to mind. That one might not be too popular in England with a chorus that goes:

Feast your eyes upon the Tiger and the Don
The Don's the greatest bat of all, and when the Tiger gets the ball
He puts the fear of God into every Englishman.

- about Don Bradman (obviously) and Bill O'Reilly.

Subject: RE: Songs about the game of Cricket?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Aug 03 - 05:52 AM

Therte's a good one that Leslie Haworth write that I think the Spinners recorded. I think it was called The Cricket Match.

Subject: RE: Songs about the game of Cricket?
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 19 Aug 03 - 05:43 AM

When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease by Roy Harper

Subject: RE: Songs about the game of Cricket?
From: fogie
Date: 19 Aug 03 - 05:14 AM

The kippers did a long song about cricket a la game of all fours, which someone will find for you I'm sure. It's risque to say the least- not for the sunday school outing.

Subject: Songs about the game of Cricket?
From: The Shambles
Date: 19 Aug 03 - 05:12 AM

Can you help? I am trying to think of some songs about the finest of all ball games - Cricket.