Tales from the Front Line

Luke Fletcher

Description

For over a decade Luke Fletcher has been a firm fan favourite at Trent Bridge. This 6'6" gentle giant never gives less than 100 per cent for Nottinghamshire, but a laugh and a joke are never far from his lips. In Tales from the Front Line, 'Fletch' serves up laughs aplenty as he takes us on an anecdotal journey through our summer game.

Sujets

• Críquet
• Cricket

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing
• Date de parution: 12 octobre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785317989
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2020
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Luke Fletcher with Dave Bracegirdle, 2020
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Any oversight will be rectified in future editions at the earliest opportunity by the publisher.
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A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 9781785316876
eBook ISBN 9781785317989
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Contents
Foreword
Introduction
1. In The Beginning
2. Having A Hoot
3. Into The System
4. Troublemakers
5. From Heroes To Teammates
6. You Thick T**t
7. What A Bonus
8. Making My Mark Down Under
9. Doing It For The Bucks
10. Stop That Bus
11. Warm Hearts, Hot Tongue
12. Mind That Car
13. Windows Of Opportunity
14. The Great BT
15. Through Thick And Thin
16. Lord s Final 2017
17. Contrasting Emotions
18. Sick Of Jeremy Kyle
19. Derby Days
20. Cold, North-East Tears
21. Superman
22. Never Seen Anything Like It
23. Second Time Lucky
24. Shrek?
25. Fragments
26. Don t Wanna Play No More
27. The Follow-Through
28. Down By The Toilets
29. Simple Game
30. Taunton Torments
31. Smacked Like A Fish
32. It s Always Uphill
33. Yeah, No Worries Fletch!
34. Gangly And Bony
35. A Cacophony Of Boos
36. Celebrations
37. Clean Hitting
38. County Cap
39. Mooresy
40. Coach Pick
41. A Trip To Holland
42. The Dublin Rain Card
43. Dan The Man
44. Dancing On Ice
45. Big Merv
46. Cashmere Calamity
47. The Fletch XI
48. Favourite Foes
49. And Now
50. Stats
Acknowledgements
Photograph credits
Foreword by Freddie Flintoff
I APPRECIATE being asked to write a few words for Fletch because he is genuinely one of my favourite cricketers.
The first time I spoke to him was when he was a young lad doing a 12th man stint for England a few years back.
You get wrapped up in your own bubble on those occasions but in him I saw somebody that was a lad after my own heart.
I could tell he was whole-hearted, loved his cricket and would be fun to be around.
Every team needs a character, someone who will make you laugh and will lift the dressing room when it s feeling a bit down.
When I played, Darren Gough filled that role and I see Fletch as being someone in the same mould.
It s easy just to see the fun side of things though because Fletch is someone who is not just a character, he s also a very good bowler who doesn t get the credit he deserves.
I remember watching him bowl for Notts at Liverpool one year and thinking, This guy s brilliant.

He s a bit of an old-school bowler but I ve watched him many times on television and been impressed, he s got a yorker on tap, one or two other varieties and is the type of character to define a team.
Modern sport can be so sterile, so it s refreshing to see someone like Fletch who gives the impression that every day he s playing for Nottinghamshire is the best day of his life.
I understand what his teammates see in him and why he has such a large following of fans. It s because his enthusiasm is infectious.
Hopefully he has a few more years left in the tank but when he does finish playing he ll look back on his career with such pride at what he s done.
Some of the best days of my life were at Lancashire and I know he ll also look back and say, How good was that?
Introduction
HELLO. THE odds are that you ve never heard of me before and have picked this book up by mistake.
If that is the case, then I d better introduce myself. I m just a fairly normal bloke from Nottingham who has been extremely lucky in life.
Born into a loving, working-class family, I ve been incredibly fortunate to spend more than a decade in professional sport.
As you will see, things could have been very different for me. I was never the brightest academically and I certainly had no plans to waste my life in a boring 9-5 office job.
Hard graft was never going to be an issue and I certainly had no qualms about working in a fast food restaurant until fate lent a hand and gave me an opportunity to play cricket for a living.
Even more importantly, to me at least, I ve been able to do it while representing my own little corner of the world.
From the very first time that I pulled on a Nottinghamshire sweater I have been proud to wear the colours and represent them. I d also like to think folks would agree that I ve given everything I could to help them be successful.
There have been occasions, of course, where it s not gone as well as I would have liked but - hey-ho, that s sport, I suppose.
I should tell you at this point that I m quite a big lad, comfortably qualifying for the gentle giant category at 6ft 6in tall and weighing 100kg (on a good day!).
While that hardly fits the stereotype of a modern-day athlete, I m reminded of a quote from the legendary former Yorkshire and England fast bowler Fred Trueman:
To be a fast bowler you need a big heart and a big backside.
That s that box ticked then!
While I ve often had the knack of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, I try and live life with a smile on my face and usually manage to have a laugh and a joke about it, often at my own expense.
And I should also point out that not all of the stories you will read here paint me in a good light. There have been times when I know I ve perhaps crossed the line and had a fair amount of making up to do.
Still, it s all part of life s rich pattern.
I d rarely considered that my tales might one day warrant being put on to pages for others to enjoy but the coronavirus epidemic that swept the world halted so many things, including professional sport.
People, including me, needed a focus in their lives, so it has been nice to reminisce and recall a few favourite moments.
I hope you all enjoy Tales From The Front Line .
1
In The Beginning
AS BEFITS a finely tuned athlete, I made my entry into the world just as the opening ceremony of the 1988 Seoul Olympics was concluding.
Alan and Jane Fletcher s new arrival was a big lad, nudging 9lb at birth. He was almost a tenner, my dad kept repeating as his mates took him out to wet the baby s head.
The number one record in the charts that week was He Ain t Heavy, He s My Brother , something appropriate for my elder sibling to utter.
Tom is two years older than me, and Mum and Dad kept things at regular intervals because a third son, Sam, followed a further two years after I arrived.
Dad worked as a coal miner at Annesley Colliery, disappearing underground to graft in some of the toughest conditions known to man.
His shift work and long hours of absence left Mum with the challenge of rearing three permanently hungry lads.
My earliest memories were always of the three of us playing together, either in the garden or on the street. Our neighbourhood seemingly had lots of youngsters all around the same age, all sharing the same hobbies and interests and all getting into the usual scrapes that kids of that age seem to attract.
It was usually football that kept us occupied, playing matches between ourselves until it was time for tea. The summer months were taken up with the occasional game of cricket, apart from the really hot days when we d have massive water-fights. The Fletcher boys were usually more than a match for anyone that dared to take us on.
Football began to take over my life. I regularly played in goal and joined my local side, Bulwell Rangers, at an early age, playing matches at weekends, with one evening a week set aside for training.
Cantrell Primary, a five-minute walk away, was my first school and I really enjoyed my time there, particularly as there was always lots of sport to play - either organised or among ourselves.
Ralph Surman was one of my early teachers and we still keep in touch now.
* * *
Ralph Surman: Luke started in my vertically grouped infant class of 1992-93. The class contained those reaching their sixth and seventh birthdays, in a mixed ability setting.
He was larger than his contemporaries and could be mistaken for a Year Two child when you saw them all together.
Luke was very popular and was well liked by all the other children. He was very calm and relaxed and undertook schoolwork at his own pace.
He learnt to read very quickly and was competent in basic maths. I wouldn t say he was enthusiastic to undertake written tasks but was more than capable. One feature was always the great support he received from his parents with his studies. They were lovely.
Our school concert in 1993 was based on Elvis Presley, and I always remember Luke playing My Teddy Bear . He wore pyjamas and carried his own teddy bear under his arm while dancing to the classic Elvis number.
* * *
I also had a teacher called Mr Osborne and during my time with him I was given a very strong life lesson. He believed in rewarding his pupils whenever they did something well, so had a pack of strawberry bon-bons on a shelf.
The teacher would dish one out to anyone who d done outstanding work in his classroom. I liked strawberry bonbons but there was a pretty slim chance of me earning one the conventional way.
One breaktime I hung around in the classroom until everyone else had gone out to play and climbed on a chair to reach them.
I was just helping myself to a load of the tasty confectionery when Mr Osborne