The Crabbies loving Club Captain. It’s a little known fact that, in the year of 1894 our Kev (who had just turned 20 at the time) played against the famous writer Rudyard Kipling. Kev gave Mr Kips a gentle outswinger to warm himself up – Kips stretching more than Kev in his later years on the physio table – until he steamed in from his five pace trundle and bowled Rudyard with a corking in-swinger on just the second ball of the innings. When Rudyard had returned to the pavilion and was asked how he had got out the writer muttered that it had “swung like a banana” – inspiring Kipling to base Kev on The Jungle Book’s very own King Louie, the King of the swingers.
King Louie is now the proud leader of the Woodham Wolves. Kev, the Alpha, is not one to back down from any challenge – so much so that controversy was sparked after his marriage to Louise who now found herself in a pickle. Marriage was supposed to signal the end of Kev’s cricket career and plans to retire had been formed in a proposed contract of sorts, where watching the boxset of countryfile and trips out to boot sales were on the agenda for married life. But Kev, taking the contract his new wife had drawn up and, in true wolf fashion, chewed it to pieces, picking up his Yorkshire tea box and setting off for pheasant fortress.
Sadly now, in the Autumn of his cricket career (if he was 20 in 1894 he is over 140 years old – crikey!) it appears that our skipper has a touch of forgetfulness about him. In a recent game against Havering CC, after finishing his over, the skip launched the ball over to the other side of the field as Cam, confused as ever, proceeded to retrieve it. This momentary lapse of reason has also been evident in the skip who is quite confused as to whether he is a batsman or a bowler. At this club you can’t have both and so have to choose – which makes it difficult for our Kev who has a HS of 142* with the bat and decent figures of 5-20 with the ball. Nifty. Thank god his fielding ability is below village standard or we might of lost our beloved skip – snapped up by some Premier division Club. Alas, the leader of the pack is a true role model, and with the respect and backing from all of his men they would follow him out to a badly cut wicket on any day of the season.