An Evening with the ROvers
On Wednesday 16 May, decked out in delightfully jazzy attire, the Rovers kickstarted their 2018 season in glorious fashion with a much overdue pre-season dinner at Lord's.
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Attended by 50 - including past and present Rovers, the Headmaster, current cricketing schoolboys, the Director of Cricket and the Director of Sport – the evening provided the perfect backdrop to (i) celebrate Mason’s cricketing achievements to date, especially his Ashes appearance in the winter, and (ii) provide the young Rovers with the opportunity to meet their older counterparts and share Rovers related stories (such as the 2014 “Miracle at Monkton” – still widely regarded as one of the greatest escapes in cricketing history).
Mason carried out a very entertaining Q&A with fellow OL and Rover, Will Macpherson (Gibbs’ 2004-2009), who is the current Cricket Correspondent for the Evening Standard. Topics covered included: how Mason felt coming in to bowl his first delivery at the SCG; the current ball tampering saga; who was the better Lancing captain to play under – E.Clarke or H.Loughton; and, most importantly, what do players eat during a test match. Many thanks must go to both Will and Mason for agreeing to do this – all were in agreement that it worked extraordinarily well!
Current thoughts are that, whilst dinner at Lords will most likely not be an annual event, it was a highly memorable evening and acted as the perfect way to bring in the Rovers cricket season. As such, next year we will very much aim to host another pre-season event. Obviously it is still very early days but rumours have gently begun to circulating of a possible tour abroad…
