A Brief History of the Informatics Cricket Club
We thought we should come up with a history of the Informatics cricket team, so Bill (whose memory is clearly far superior to mine - I only remember my unparalled sequence of 4 ducks, spanning a year and a half) provided this contribution to history...
- In 1999 I answered a call from Gordon Brebner to play for the then DCS cricket team against University Staff. With myself, John Lee, Maybe Geoffrey Lee and Joe Calder, it was already starting to look like an Informatics team. One thing I do remember is that it had just about the worst kit in the world. Apparently Gordon used to borrow it from a staff club team for one or two games a summer. The staff club team then folded and Gordon inherited the kit.
My memory of 2000 is a bit hazy. As far as I recall Gordon was away and I got volunteered to organise a team. I think we did manage to play a game or two, but no records of the scores still exist.
- 2001 and 2002 saw an influx of keen students and an increase in the number of matches, although poor weather led to a number of cancellations. 2001 even saw a victory against Eccentric Flamingoes When a good stand between Bill and Padraic Monaghan followed by 10no from Toby saw us overhaul a modest 68 for 6. Against the same opponents in - - 2002, we nearly did it again, despite batting first and only getting 49 all out with only 8 players, a spirited bowling performance saw us take 6 quick wickets and making them sweat before they steadied themselves and won the match with no further loss.
- 2003 has seen us make a lot of progress. We now have managed to replace 'the worst kit in the world', won comprehensively against Physics (E=MCC), held a number of practice sessions (previously unheard of), and got enough people interested in playing to hold two Students v The Rest games. The weather has even been kind to us! We even now have a web site!
- 2004 saw a lot of the summer washed out due to rain and general weather-unpleasantness. On the administration side of things, Toby became official treasurer of the team (i.e. looks after the money).
- 2005 has seen fierce competition for places, with a good mix of regulars and new players being brought in by Bill's recruitment policy of spamming Informatic mailing lists. Also, the school has kindly donated Informatics t-shirts, meaning we look like a proper team occasionally. We're now looking financially more stable, with all our debts paid off and a small profit possibly being returned. On the pitch, sadly, we've been pretty crap this year, but look to be improving now.

In July 2005, we received the following email from Gordon Brebner, which tells the story of how Computer Science cricket started...

Subject:  Informatics cricket
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2005 22:43:14 -0700
From: Gordon Brebner
To: Bill

Hi Bill,

I just accidently stumbled across the Informatics Cricket Team web
site here in my living room in sunny California, and was delighted to
see it as reminder of the old times.

I thought you might be interested to roll back the history to the very
beginning, because I can reveal that this year is the 21st birthday,
Computer Science cricket having started back in 1984.  Rob Procter and
I began it, and I vaguely remember our excitement when we borrowed the
infamous Kings Building Union cricket kit one afternoon (in far better
nick in those days than as it gradually degenerated over subsequent
years - after being abandoned by the staff cricket club, it then
passed to me for storage during renovation of KB Union and never
returned).  We immediately took it down to Peffermill, where we had a
knockabout.  Anyway, I have just fetched the hallowed scorebooks from
upstairs here, and can tell you that the first match was a Staff vs
Students game on 4 July 1984 at Peffermill, which the students won by
5 wickets.  The first external game was on 8 August, against
Chemistry, who we played a lot in the first few years.  On that
occasion, they won by 66 runs in a 25-over match - they were pretty
good.  To fast forward, the last scorecard I have here was from 16
July 1998, against the University staff cricket club, who won by 14
runs.  This brings you neatly to your beginning in 1999.

I keep a cricket ball in my cube at work, as a reminder of the past
and my fantasies of winkling out the opposition with devious slow left
arm, that never quite came off as the boundaries accumulated.

Best wishes, and there in spirit,
Gordon.