Lord's, We're Coming Home!
- Graham Webb
- 1 hour ago
- 7 min read
Nobody panic, but in this most extraordinary of summers little Blackheath, with it’s quirky tree-in-the-middle village cricket ground, it’s “This Way, That Way” road sign, its 200 residents, and its “No not that Blackheath, you’re in the wrong county you idiot!” instructions to delivery drivers, has reached the national final of our nation’s summer sport. Our team is going to play at the home of world cricket, Lord’s!
It’s been quite some journey to get there, and being drawn away from home so often has meant that we’ve had to do it the hard way. On 2nd August yet another hot and sunny Sunday dawned, once again dozens of Blackheath alarm clocks rang out and dozens of sleepy players and supporters roused themselves for yet another long journey to play a distant village opponent. The only person who didn’t wake up it seems was the coach driver, whose arrival at the rendezvous point half an hour late raised the tension levels just that bit higher!
Goatacre in Wiltshire is one of the legendary names in the National Village Cup. Like Blackheath it’s a tiny settlement with a big cricketing heart. A genuine, friendly, well-run, passionate champion of a village cricket club. Like us they were there when this competition started way back in the 1970s, and like us they have regularly made it through the group stages and into the national rounds ever since. Unlike us they have reached a number of semi-finals and finals before and have gone on to win the whole competition on two previous occasions. It’s a very small cricket ground, made to seem all the more claustrophobic by the hundreds of spectators who squeezed into the narrow gap between the boundary rope and the walls and fences that enclose it, surrounding the players in a noisy cauldron and creating an electric atmosphere. Our skipper Pete Melhuish won the toss and chose to bat on what was an inevitably dry, but clearly well prepared playing surface.
Regular opening pair Matt Jackson and Luca Lacosta once again got us underway and Lacosta signalled his intentions early with a crunching straight six in the second over of the day. But this was the semi-final, the top quality of the Goatacre bowling attack was soon apparent, and by the end of the fourth over both of our openers had departed trying to force the early pace, leaving us at 15 for 2. Enter Rob Greenway, past captain of successful Blackheath junior sides and most recently 1st XI captain at Tonbridge, one of the great cricketing schools, partnered by skipper Pete Melhuish with his contrasting street fighter batting style. What followed was a tense 20-over battle as Goatacre made maximum use of their dry turning wicket with four classy spinners, while Greenway and Melhuish defended stoically, rotated the strike effectively with quick singles, and on the very rare occasions when a bowler strayed, got full value with some glorious pulls and reverse sweeps.
When Melhuish finally edged one behind for 27 Blackheath had recovered to 85-3, but with well over half of the 40 overs already gone, and with such short boundaries, a challenging total (perhaps 220 plus?) seemed a distant prospect. And that prospect receded still further when his brother, the in-form Will Melhuish, was trapped LBW for 2 a few balls later. The pressure was really on. A few more overs flew by and now with only a dozen of them left and only 100 on the board opinions on the boundary were that we would be lucky to get to 175 in our 40 overs. We hoped this might, somehow, be defendable, but that seemed optimistic.
A fielding side that has taken 4 wickets and strangled the run rate can be forgiven for thinking the job is almost done, but with this Blackheath side the class just keeps coming and Goatacre would soon realise the game was anything but won. Like Rob Greenway and several others in this side, our wicketkeeper/no.6 batsman James Fortescue has come through age group cricket at Blackheath, represented Surrey, and recently left another major cricketing school, in his case Cranleigh. Between them, Greenway and Fortescue switched into full T20 mode, the dot balls turned to singles, the ones into sprinted twos, and the ball started regularly to be dispatched over the rope for 4s and 6s. If this was a tense arm-wrestle then this pair simply refused to be pushed back and started to force the opponent’s hand.
Greenway finally holed out for 77, having anchored the main part of our innings, leaving us 165-5. With around five overs still left the optimists among our supporters now believed that maybe, just maybe, we could get near to 200. Enter Tom Vickers, one of our most prolific top order batters of recent years but in this side taking the Ben Stokes all-rounder slot down at number 7. In 11 balls he hit three huge sixes and departed with 20 to his name. And when I say “the” Ben Stokes slot, that should have read “one of the”, because he was followed to the crease by fellow seam bowler Archie Freeth who finished off the Blackheath innings with a furious 22 not out from 12 balls. We stormed into the tea interval with a total of 223 for 6, the magnificent Fortescue having made 53 not out from 41 balls including 7 fours.
At tea the pundits of Goatacre, a very friendly crowd, reckoned our score was decent but nothing special. “We can get those”, they said. Game on.
With our regular opening bowler Benji Arengo-Jones having sadly broken a finger this week, and now a mere spectator, the new ball was taken by teenager Oscar Gilliam. As usual, his height and pace immediately had the batters fending the ball off, and it wasn’t long before Goatacre “main man” Jack Haines drove loosely outside off stump, with Matt Jackson brilliantly taking the chance at slip as the ball screamed past his left shoulder. Meanwhile Tom Vickers bowled an impeccable line and length from the other end, being rewarded when Goatacre skipper Wilkins clipped one in the air to deep midwicket, to be superbly caught low down by a running diving Danny Harrison. 29 for 2 rapidly became 30 for 3 as Gilliam was far too quick for Aruva, splattering his stumps, and then it was 37 for 4 as Gilliam again had Horton feeling for one outside his off stump, edged to keeper Fortescue.
The signs were good, but on such a small ground against a mighty side where, we were told, even number 11 had scored a century the previous week, there was still much work to do. Goatacre started to recover and 37-4 quickly became 65-4. On a wicket that favoured the slow bowlers they had four very classy spinners, but we’ve only got one, and he is a 17 year old boy. This is a national semi-final. Pressure. So, while one end was being kept tight with some controlled and experienced seam bowling from Archie Freeth, at the other end the moment had arrived to throw the ball to young left-arm spinner Sam Behn…
…and as has now become commonplace, it took him just four deliveries to make his mark. Bang. Miles LBW for 17. And it didn’t stop there. 20 balls later the next three batters were also scalps in the rapidly expanding Behn collection and the match was to all intents and purposes over. With the score on only 96 and only 24 overs into the Goatacre innings it fell to the ever-dependable Danny Harrison to deliver the coup de grace, forcing last man Kenny to send an attempted pull high into the sky, to be caught coolly and calmly by… Sam Behn.
Game over. Next stop Lord’s.
The final is on Sunday 6th September. Yesterday we had a small army of travelling supporters who were loud and proud in their support of the team, but for the final let’s turn those dozens into hundreds and really put our little village club on the map. Full details about tickets, travel and timings will be published on this website as soon as we know them.
We haven’t yet won the Cup, there’s still another match to play, but already this is without doubt the greatest moment in our club’s history, and what makes it so special is that the story is a Blackheath one through and through. Nine of the team that won at Goatacre came up through our junior section. When our current junior section first started in April 2000, the very first practice session was attended by a 5-year old boy holding his mother’s hand by the name of Peter Melhuish, today’s 1st XI captain. And also at that session, looking on approvingly, was the “father of the club” John Macdonald, an old man who had lived and breathed Blackheath cricket his entire long life, had coached our boys many years earlier, and always desperately wanted us to get to Lord’s. He sadly died right there in the MCC pavilion during the Ashes Test of 2005 before ever seeing his own club realise his ultimate ambition. Hopefully he was watching yesterday. And let’s not forget Billie Hockley, who lived in the village for all 101 of her years, was always a spectator at home games and always travelled away to our Village Cup matches to follow her beloved team, but died just a few weeks ago. The cushion that Pete is holding in the photo at the top of this report bears a picture of her. No doubt she enjoyed another of her Blackheath cricketing days out, and no doubt she’ll be with us again at Lord’s in a few weeks’ time.
Finally, let's spare a thought for skipper Pete's gorgeous fiancee Izzy, who very thoughtfully agreed to wait for her wedding in North Wales until the first Saturday in September so as not to clash with the league cricket season, only to find that her future husband is now due in North London the following bl**dy morning for what might be the greatest moment of his cricketing career!!
And before any of that Pete has another very important matter to attend to, because today, Monday, is the first day of Blackheath Cricket Week, we're hosting "the other Blackheath" from Kent, and this evening's meal in the pavilion will be Chicken Laksa, cooked by... Pete. For details of all this week's matches, and the food and hospitality available to spectators and visitors every day, please read this article https://www.blackheathcricket.com/post/cricket-week-2026
All photographs by kind permission of Simon Jones