I distrust a man that says “when”. If he’s got to be careful not to drink too much, it’s because he’s not to be trusted when he does.
Those familiar with The Maltese Falcon, will know it is a film noir about a detective dealing with unscrupulous adventurers seeking a jewel encrusted falcon statuette that was offered as a tribute to the emperor, but lost to pirates. Look a little deeper and the movie is about corruption and greed, with the falcon symbolising Sam Spade’s quest for the truth. I am not sure the Quokkas touring party contains too many unscrupulous members, but we certainly seek the truth on every trip. The truth as to who can survive on the least amount of sleep, who can consume their own bodyweight in beer and calamari, and who can force themselves to play two games of cricket in 30-degree heat when lazing by the pool seems a damn sight more appealing.
Did we discover those truths in Malta? Let’s find out.
Thursday
Skip warmed up for the tour with a late-night drinking session courtesy of The Sunday Times, but nevertheless he seemed keen to get maximum value from the executive lounge, which coincidently ran out of beer. Seagull also severely depleted their stocks of brownies. At this point I discovered Binman would not be joining us. Tugboat was absent too, something about a honeymoon. The wheelhouse missed one more than the other. Seagull and Skip decided to provide Binman with regular updates. About 500 mundane WhatsApp text and voice messages informed the aging former cricketer as to the contents of meals, toilet requirements and the colour of the interior of each taxi. This will have given him a real flavour of what he was missing. Useful information, such as what was happening in the games of cricket seemed to be absent. What goes on on tour, stays on tour.
Professor, aka “Northern Highlights”, joined us in the airport lounge with a haircut not too dissimilar to Ched from Weird Science. This was corrected at the first opportunity by tour debutant Sean, now known as the `Maltese Barber’, with his beard trimmer. With angles smoothed over, our now Matthew Modine lookalike was ready for action, especially the military kind.
We were slightly disappointed not to be sharing a flight with Liam Gallagher, who would be entertaining the locals during a four-night extravaganza. Not everyone can afford EasyJet’s baggage tariffs these days I suppose. We landed safely and grabbed a Bolt to our villa. Despite the tour manager’s best efforts, the Quokkas residence was in St Julians, which thankfully meant we wouldn’t need to commute from the neighbouring island Gozo. The Thompson Twins, Radio John and Paolo One Shot had arrived early, taking the opportunity to consume curry and stalk ladies that had the misfortune of crossing their paths. I do wonder about middle-aged women attracted to men in football shirts, but fair play, Radio got a telephone number. Whether it was that of the local Chinese restaurant, I am not sure.
Preparation is everything, so a drinking session until 4am utilising Skip’s birthdays gifts and duty free gave us just the start to the tour we needed.
With the Quokkas becoming ever more sustainable, there was no printed tour guide this year. There was no digital tour guide either mind you, so let me fill you in on the details. Malta literally translates to `the place of honey’ and gets on average 300 days of sunshine a year. The Republic of Malta is the world’s tenth smallest country, but eight most densely populated. Its proximity to both Europe and Africa has given it geostrategic importance, with every man and his dog invading it since 5900 BC. As you will probably be aware, it’s the birthplace of footballers Michael Mifsud and Paul Tisdale and has become a popular filming location for TV and movies. The beautiful capital city and UNISCO Heritage site Valletta has provided a beautiful backdrop to the likes of Munich, Captain Philips and Gladiator. During the filming of the latter, Ollie Reed died, apparently having challenged Todd to a drinking match.
Friday
Arriving on Thursday evening gave us time to visit the capital, eat ice-cream in the Upper Barrakka with a backdrop of the grand harbour, before attempting to consume Oliver Reed’s last order at The Pub. We failed, but you can’t be an international cricketer and drink like Oliver Read (Ed: unless you are David Boon of course), so we ventured out to find sustenance. Our selected restaurateur must have read my Salix match report and served us wild rabbit. This was enjoyed by almost everyone, except Skip, who, after a `quiet’ night at the Sunday Times Best Company awards dinner was now recreating a previous trip to India. I’m not sure he will come off his long run up tomorrow.
Suitably lubricated, we `enjoyed’ some street jazz before taking in the sights and sounds of St Julians’ finest nightclubs. Except for some of the Birmingham Quokkas, who became extras in the latest Bollywood movie being shot on the island.
Saturday
Marsa CC 165-9 (Tory Dave 3-32, Radio John 2-20) beat Quokkas CC 154-9 (Driver 28 n/o, Seagull 27, Faggie 26)
During the taxi ride to the fabulous Marsa Sports Club, home to the Maltese international cricket ground, we managed to convince Paolo that there were goalkeepers in the game of polo. There were some seeds of doubt when we started to discuss whether side on or facing forward was the best starting position for goaltenders.
For once, the Quokkas arrived on time, and it was Marsa Cricket Club captain, Jonny, hurrying up his players for a team photo before the European Week of Sport - Main National Event 2024 could commence. Skip took the opportunity to present caps to Egg and Faggie the Yak for reaching hundred appearances.
Despite the glorious sunshine, a torrential downpour the previous day had made the outfield incredibly slow, making boundaries almost impossible (Ed: only four were scored in our entire innings. There may have been a few more in theirs though). Some of the finest and `well hit’ shots you will see all earned the same score of one run. With soaring temperatures, running 165 singles was not going to be fun.
Having learned our lesson the hard way in Estonia, despite the burning sun, Skip decided to put our opponents into bat. Faggie and Ali opened the bowling and took a pair of wickets in their combined nine overs. (Ed: It might have been one more if Skip hadn’t deserted his first slip post). For some reason the scorer chose not to apply wides and no-balls to the bowlers (Ed: Paolo will be pleased), so their figures look even better in the book. Evil Tory Dave also bowled well. His figures in the scorebook are not legible, but three wickets for about 32 runs is probably not far off. As is often the case, the shittest deliveries were the ones that got the wickets. Radio John got a couple of wickets of his own thanks to a failed reserve sweep from a well-set batsman and a good catch from Faggie. Hard to say if they were from his best or worst deliveries.
It’s worth noting that Paolo played for our opponents and did a great job (intentionally or otherwise) of slowing the scoring rate down, ruined only when Seagull foolishly ran him out.
The highlight of the innings would have been a tremendous catch at gully by Egg, until Sean took a quite sublime catch at mid-off, which saw him dive full length to his right and pluck the hardest hit straight drive you will ever see clean out of the air. Amazing.
A notable mention should go to Faggie, who almost replicated the catch at Merstham, but this time had no Showman to pass the ball to. Driver, Yak, Egg, Professor and Sean all toiled under the midday heat, but only Rashid managed to add another wicket. There was some catch avoidance by Professor, which was blamed on the new oversized Quokkas bucket hat bocking his view. With hat removed, he ran out of excuses and was forced to take one in the deep.
Over a lovely tea we discussed the omnipresent advertising campaign for Berger Flexible Roof Compound, the freakishly small size of Drivers toenails and the acceptable number of texts on Tinder before sending a dick pic. I am not sure what filter was used for Ali’s photo of the Quokkas taking tea, but half of us looked as though they were had consumed one too many ecstasy tablets, with the others in the middle of a seizure. I digress.
Ali and Radio opened the batting. Radio was lucky not to be out first ball. His luck ran out second ball. Ali managed to get one of those elusive boundaries before being out, caught, obviously. Faggie and Rashid settled the ship, and we made steady progress. Just as Rashid started to open up, scoring a maximum and then a four, he mistimed a ball to mid-off. Prof looked solid, until he was out. Faggie played some nice shots, but was out trying to push things along.
After an early boundary, Seagull ran about 60 singles, some of which came off his own bat. When he was stumped trying to hit over the top, and Sean failed to trouble the scorers, this left Driver and the Egg with an awful lot of work to do (Ed: about 38 off the last 5 overs). With the opening bowler back on, Egg nudged the ball around excellently and then Driver took up the mantle hitting a massive six to get us back on track. Unfortunately, despite their best efforts we fell a dozen runs short, but it was an excellent effort all the same.
The “Best Brummie on Tour” competition had got off to a great start, with Skip failing to trouble the scorers, Ali and Rashid getting runs and Radio two wickets. With a prize of an unofficial 2019/20 Hargreaves Aston Villa shirt and signed photo of Dion Dublin for fourth place, this was not the competition to get behind early in. In the evening, we dined at a very nice Lebanese restaurant, with mixed grills followed by a walk around the harbour and a few cocktails in a sheesha bar. Here Skip explained the `pacer’, which is a drink devised by Scaff that is meant to be unenjoyable, thus slowing the pace down a fraction to prevent any drinking casualties.
Sunday
Marsa CC 190-7 (Evil Tory Dave 4-25, Yak 2-19, Sean 1-13) beat Quokkas CC 91-9 (Driver/Seagull 12, Prof/Rashid 11)
It was another early start for the Quokkas, but we are old heads at this, so we went to bed at 4am to ensure we were fresh. And we had to be, as this time we were facing several Maltese internationals at the Malta International cricket ground for a T20 game. (Ed: Sounds like that might be another international cap to go on the CV).
It was very hot day, but wisely Skip put our hosts into bat. I could go into detail about the next 20 overs, but basically, we started badly, tailed off in the middle and the less said about the end the better. For example, Rashid opened and went for 17 from his solitary over. Prof went for 29 from his three and most of the other bowlers went for about eight an over with very little in the way of chances except for the five or six dropped catches. The last six overs went for 66 runs. That sounds bad. And it was.
But there was some hope, with undoubted star of the show, Evil Tory Dave, bowling as well as he ever has and taking four excellent wickets. With him stretching ahead as the Quokkas leading wicket taker and a five-for beckoning, Skip quite rightly took him off. In the field, the highlight of the innings was Yak’s work on the boundary, taking two lovely catches in the deep. Niall also took a catch. Yeah, I know, unbelievable Jeff. Never has a man looked less likely to grab a ball and do so. He also managed three deliveries before taking himself off, something about not feeling it.
In reply, what we needed was a fast start. What we got was two runs from the first three overs. Not totally surprising seeing as we were facing two of Malta’s best players. Coming in off their long run ups, they conceded just 17 runs from their combined eight overs. Skip, looking fit and refreshed after taking his annual dry day, almost saw one of the deliveries. Driver faired a little better, hitting one of just six team boundaries during our innings. Both were bowled. Let’s just say that Evil Tory Dave is still waiting for his maiden half century. He and pretty much everyone played some nice shots for very little reward, but all were unable to get the scoreboard really moving. That is until Rashid and Ali came in at the end and smashed 16 from the last over. All in all, it was a very good effort from the Quokkas, but I am not sure reversing the batting order will catch on in international cricket. You never know.
Afterwards, over a few beers, we ordered pretty much everything from the Marsa Sports Club menu and some of us collected our European Week of Sport Main National Event 20024 trophies. Not the Driver though. The truth is, he must try harder next time if he wants to win best batsman. Simply not enough effort from him.
With Radio and Niall eying up the club chairman’s wife and other middle aged tennis players, it was time to venture into St Julian’s for the end of tour dinner, fines and some karaoke. In between the Oasis back catalogue being murdered by a group from Hume, The Yak gave us a simply wonderful rendition of Tennessee Whiskey, which brought the house down. A tremendous end to the tour and yet another fantastic season of Quokkas cricket.
Seagull
So, what would you little maniacs like to do next?