The Night Friday The 13th Struck Chipping Sodbury Cricket Club
Article Date: 18th October 2006
paraskavedekatriaphobia
Well there it is - paraskavedekatriaphobia - the fear of Friday the 13th. If only a certain 10 CSCC members actually had that phobia, then maybe they would have known what was around the corner.
For those in the know, last Friday the 13th (October 2006) was the evening of the Bristol and District Annual League Dinner and Awards evening at BAWA, Filton. At 6.15pm on Friday evening 10 of us met up in the Squire in Chipping Sodbury High Street. Everyone was suited and booted, all looking mightily smart. Mightily.
Very soon we got underway, got in the minibus (hired for the evening) and drove off. Soon we would be drinking and eating the night away at the league dinner and also seeing the 3rds and 2nds picking up their championship awards!!
As we started to get out of Yate I handed the evening's tickets out to everyone, which most of us just put inside our suit pockets. Benno though was different. He decided to read it. I mean come on Benno, what's the point of that!! Crazy.
"I don't want to worry anyone", Benno chortled, "but it says on the ticket Friday 20th October".
No one was really surprised by what he said, I mean there's usually one joking comment about the date on the ticket being wrong, but Benno was being deadly honest. Deadly I tell ya.
Anyway after a bit of chatting, a call to the Reynolds household and a lot of silence, we decided to go back to Chipping Sodbury and get drunk. It was indeed the wrong night. Yep, we went to the league dinner a week early!! Nightmare!!!
So we got drunk, some went home, some went for a curry and got drunk and some just got drunk.
"I think I would have drunk less if we went to the dinner." said Mark the next morning as he struggled with a hell of a hangover. About 4 from the Friday night had turned up to work on the square at the club. Mad people!! but great people!
So how on this little earth did we get the wrong date? Well the tickets had been in the Reynolds household for just over a week and it hadn't been picked up on....whoops.....but it had been on literature sent to CSCC. So where did the Friday the 13th date that had been on the fixture list all season come from? Who knows? All I know is that this week, same place, different time - 10 members of Chipping Sodbury Cricket Club will be meeting at the Squire, ready for an evening of drink, food and awards.
Hopefully it will go a bit smoother this time. Hopefully. At least this time there will be no place for paraskavedekatriaphobia.
