Out to the west of Newcastle upon Tyne lies a village called Walbottle. Its name comes from the Old English Botl, meaning building, and its close proximity to Hadrian’s Wall. See also Harbottle, Shilbottle, Lorbottle and Bothal for some more examples.
It’s a quiet, unassuming village of around 570 or so people. There’s 2 pubs there at either end of the village: The Engine Inn and The Percy Arms down the hill towards the Tyne. There’s a primary school and a post office and semi detached houses made of sandstone. It is sandwiched between the 2 larger settlements of Denton to the East and Throckley to the West. Throughout history however, Walbottle has played an important part in the surrounding area’s development.
Lord Armstrong, the industrialist credited with the widespread transformation of Newcastle during the 19th century and the inventor of modern artillery, was born in Walbottle, at Walbottle hall. William Wilson, pioneer of early steam locomotives and the railways across Germany was also born here. If you are one of the 5 or 6 people who actually supported city back in the early 1900s, your eighth highest goalscorer of all time Thomas Browell was born in Walbottle too.
Most recently, and most significantly though, its academy hosted Mallards Cricket Club. A collection of 11 cricketers of varying age, abilities and arrival times hungry for some mid-week, well mannered cricket.
Starting promptly at 18:10pm the 18 overs began with Benwell & Walbottle batting, Mallards opening bowlers of Sai and Ankush looking to contain runs on a wicket so far to the left hand side of the playing field that all leg side fielding positions became ‘deep’ by default. No wickets taken during the first 6 overs, but some fine bowling and good effort in the field restricted the batting side to only 21 runs.
Then came the breakthrough. Jamie Park taking a fine catch at square leg, seemingly clapping the ball out of the air at full stretch before letting it fall gently into his awaiting palms lit a fire under the Mallards field and set the tone for the rest of the innings in which the batting side posted 110 runs from the full 18 overs.
Other highlights included a tidy and well deserved wicket maiden from Dave Cox, a spectacular diving stop from Khaled at fine leg and some fantastic late order bowling from Uday to take 2 wickets at just the right time.
The scene was set and the batters were ready for the chase. Swapping to the pink ball due to some poor light, Mallards’ openers Matt and Ankush got off to a fine start against some incredibly promising young bowlers from Benwell & Walbottle. Matt bowled on 14, Ankush retiring on 30 number 3 batsman Sai caught behind on 27. Giving the team a fantastic foundation of 94 runs from the first 11 overs. E. Xtras continued their fine form for Mallards too contributing a handy 19 runs towards the total.
Wrapping things up Jamie Sackville and Khaled Latif channeled their inner Graham Gooch & Allan Lamb to wrap things up well within the prescribed 18 overs despite grumblings from Skipper Mark due to some admittedly lazy running between the stumps.
The weather was ideal, the fielding superb and the beer afterwards cold and refreshing. Your match reporter went home a very satisfied man.
JS