The Platypods CC
To be a Platypod is not only to be a cricketer. In many cases, indeed, those who have donned the blue and gold gores in recent times have not been cricketers at all – our number has comprised scholarly, bookish fellows (P.Leggitt), tight-head props with biceps the size of beach balls (P.R.Maitland) and eccentric foreigners (Reedy’s Dutch mate in the red tracksuit bottoms who had ‘played a bit of baseball’). No, to be a Platypod is to embrace all that is finest about amateur sport. To strive, to compete, to be ceaselessly amused – this is the Platypod’s way and the extent of his indifference to fielding practice is matched only by the enthusiasm with which he elbows his way to the bar.
The Summer of 2009 sees a new chapter being written in the storied annals of Platypoddery. For the first time, the Pods are leaving the home comforts of leafy Surrey and seeking new worlds to conquer. A band of nineteen intrepid warriors will march under the blue and gold standard to the dark and misty land of Somerset. A forbidding place, hitherto unversed in the lore of the Platypod. A land of fertile orchards. A land of strong cheese and stronger cider. A land of sloping pitches and puzzling place names. Somerset!
Here, on this very website, the intrepid explorer can familiarise himself with the names of those who will be known in years to come simply as ‘The Nineteen’. He can find out their preferred companion in an icy bath. He can discover their foibles and their fears. He can read of their exploits on the fields of Surrey. He can, in short, discover something of what it means to be a Platypod.
