Home > Tales from the Meadows > The Postman Always Delivers

Si Marsh is a local sporting legend. A goalkeeper of some renown, Marshy has also enjoyed a fantastic cricketing career, notably at Walshaw before joining TSJ back in the 2000s. He's also a postman. Rarely seen without his shorts, Marshy enjoys a good prank and unquestionably has the best array of jokes in the business. If you've never heard it, please do ask him to recount his "purple, purple" classic. I promise it won't take long!

Anyway, Si's postal connections once brought him into direct opposition with another local postie, East Lancs Paper Mill's Frannie Daly. A cricketer of rare ability, Frannie was a top guy and a very classy batsman. However he never seemed to enjoy his visits to Crompton Meadows, and one lovely summer day a decade and a half ago proved no exception. ELPM in those days were a very competitive side, often challenging for trophies with ourselves and our mutual "friends" from Rochdale Catholic Club. Getting Frannie's wicket was usually a priority, and on this day he was proving a bit of a thorn in our side - not scoring many runs but defending his wicket well.

Enter Marshy. Now those who have witnessed Si bowl know that he's deadly accurate, almost impossible to slog and certainly likely to hit the stumps more than most. So it came as little surprise that Frannie, bogged down and clearly desperate to get the scoreboard moving, aimed a huge swipe at the wrong delivery and was pinned clean in front, one of the most obvious LBW decisions you could ask for. Rarely one to give batsmen a send off, preferring to let his bowling do the talking, Si decided to make a rare exception for his postal colleague.

"And *THAT* is why I drive the van".

Quite possibly the greatest send off of all time. The postman always delivers!

While we're on the subject of chatter at the wicket, Marshy was also on the receiving end of perhaps the best comeback I've witnessed on the field. Fast forward a couple of years, towards the end of of our North Manchester Cricket League days, and another home game, this time against Elton Vale. Now these lads were good fun - a predominantly Asian side, they often changed players in wholesale fashion year after year so you never quite knew who was going to turn up or what standard they'd be performing at. One thing was pretty consistent, few of their batsmen would ever die wondering, they did like to play the big shots regardless of the conditions!

On this occasion, we again see Marshy bowling from the pavilion end and being his usual miserly self. The Elton Vale openers were having a good swish and swipe at everything, with limited success, and this was starting to hack our hero off. After one particularly violent hoick and miss, Marshy walked down to the batsman and shouted, "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?" to general amusement. The batter stayed silent, though there was definitely some chirping and a few sniggers from those of us behind the stumps.

Next ball, the batsman played an identical shot but this time connected, the ball disappearing over "cow corner" like it had been fired from a cannon. It cleared the lines and landed somewhere close to Cormar Carpets. You can imagine Marshy's reaction - absolutely beetroot, hands on hips, fuming! This was pretty damn funny in itself, but then came the moment to top it all off. The non-striker walked up behind the irate bowler, tapped him on the shoulder and in very broken English delivered the coup de grace: "THAT ... WAS ... A SIX!"

Now that was "first class".