Hollymount Park East, Woonona, Australia.
Whitewashed walls, disorganised storage area, a broken bike in the shower. There is no place like your home from home.
I generally put myself down near the end on the inside wall. Proximity to a corner is key, and here there is no danger of being splashed by the shower, as the only thing I’ve seen in it in over 17 days of cricket here is that bike.
The chewed seat speaks to a vandal with tools only strong enough to puncture rubber, pleather, and foam, as the frame of the bike is in one piece. Owner unknown. Future uncertain. Where do you even recycle bikes?
There is one self reflection window, or mirror, that allows any player brave enough to look in and ask the more important questions, like why do I play cricket? and am I really the worst player that guy has ever seen? I sit a little too close to this for comfort.
Acoustics are mixed. The abandoned slips cradle helps the skipper get his message across. There is a lack of a bin, drum, or similar for rowdy banging during the club song, so the harsh reverb of claps can sting the ears off the stone walls.
On the way in “Hardness Butchers” is scrawled in a red so faded it has become pink. These are the insecurities of a team long since gone from the shed. The legacy of this XI is still to be determined, the current front runner being the irregular markings on the wall that bely the inconsistent strikes of an enthusiastic, yet horribly out of cadence, celebrant. Home, no place like it.
Once more we raise our glasses…
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