Gus Fraser after dinner speaking

The OMTCC end of season dinner took place last night and Gus Fraser was the main speaker, watched by several Cricket Burblers. As you can see above, Burbler Dave McCabe even managed to pick up the Sunday player of the season prize.

Despite being introduced as Andrew(!!), Fraser managed to get into his stride once he began telling stories about his playing career. Changing between Gatting and Tufnell, there were of course a few. While he liked to poke fun at Tufnell, it was his England colleague Darren Gough's concern about the speed he was bowling above his desire for wickets that he really ridiculed. And the fact that Gough told the England players to meet after an Edgbaston Test in a new bar on Broad Street called Al-ba-roan-ie. The players arrived to realise it was called All Bar One.

Years of after dinner speaking haven't made him the slick type that can sometimes give the impression of being out of touch with club cricketers - in fact quite the opposite. He wasn't brilliantly fluent, he related self-depricating stories as they came to him - correcting his own mistakes as he went - and it felt like he was a Stanmore club cricketer who rose to international prominence, rather than someone who was always destined to play for England and who'd forgotten his club cricket days.

Nice when international players who've made a career out of cricket retain that sense of reality...