Cricket
The ubiqitous Mr Hanky described the quintessentially English game of cricket so eloquently in a previous post that I could barely add a shred of justice in detailing further, suffice to say that to me at the age of eleven, it gave off the air of the bastard spawn of an evil magician, what with its averages, run-rates, economy rates, overs bowled, wicket maidens, etc. Indeed some of its Esperanto-like terminology (long-leg, tickle to the slips, wafting outside off stump, stroking through the covers, et al) had me wondering whether cricket commentators doubled-up as pen writers for Forum and Knave.

So anyway, in our first summer term at 'big school', we began to play 'summer' sports. Running, jumping and rounders were all safely negotiated. I had to admit tennis wasn't my forte, but I gamely tried - but cricket, God, boring old cricket - here was a game that got right on my f*cking old wick!

I had no interest in the game (see first paragraph) and to be quite honest the game really f*cking annoyed me. Especially as the kids' programmes would be curtailed every other week during the summer holidays as these were the days when the Beeb (BBC) still had the televisual rights to screening England Test matches. Yaw-f*cking-uwn.

So, anyroadup, it was soon realised by the PE teacher in charge that there was a divide in his set - those who were good at the leather-and-willow pastime and those who were not, and yours truly neatly slotted into the latter grouping. Let's face it, when batting, all I wanted to do was to smash the bloody ball as far as I bleeding well could (the basic idea of the game from a batsman's POV) and when bowling I just wanted to smash the bloody stumps out of the ground (the basic goal for the bowler). However, more than not I would adopt the air of a Dutch windmill when batting, miss the ball by a country mile and be dismissed either stumped or bowled. When bowling, not having been able to master the fundamentals of running and releasing the ball while in motion, I frequently launched the ball a full 10 feet above the batsmen's heads, aficionados would term this a 'beamer', but the recipient would need a step ladder to even get anywhere near one of my deliveries, which contained no danger whatsoever to life or limb.

So fortunately, us 'dubbers' (to use a colloquialism) were usually (and thankfully) left to our own devices during PE lessons.

Until one lesson. Now, I was slowly starting to get the hang of this archaic Victorian relic of a game, and was batting when Teach came over to see how we were getting on. I'd realised that you didn't have to belt the bollocks out of every ball you faced, you could just bide your time and hit the bad ones (what with there being six balls in an over, tended to be between four and six per over) and was progressing nicely - something like 23 not out. Looking to impress Teach with my new-found batting prowess, I decided I'd launch the next delivery from the bowler into the stands, West Indian-style. So, lame kid tosses another dolly down, I dance down the wicket, calypso-style, like a latter-day Mark Ramprakash, heave the old bat....and miss completely. Fuck-a-rucka! thinks I. Here loseth my chance to further my sporting prowess with the command of a sport which I had no interest in. So, as the ball sailed past me, I swivelled on a sixpence, thrust my bat at the stumps, clattering them in all directions, managing to break one of them clean in two in the process and yelling "I'M IN....!!"

I span round slowly and caught Teach's gaze. He just shook his head slowly, turned around and went back to the cool kids. Next summer we had the option of cricket or softball, so I took the lesser of two evils...
(SonoraAeroClub "OH SWEET HELEN OF BALLS!", Fri 20 Nov 2009, 16:30, 3 replies)

Strictly speaking
Your "beamer" would actually have been a wide.
(Vice Admiral Sir Charles Cockbrush KCB MBE DSO, who is finding it increasingly difficult to log into b3ta.com wants to duck your aunt and kick your puppy, Fri 20 Nov 2009, 16:41, closed)

Rustled!
Damn - you got me. I should know now I am fully versed in the intricacies and eccentricities of the game. I couldn't be arsed to go into detail though - beamer sounds so much more...menacing...
(SonoraAeroClub "OH SWEET HELEN OF BALLS!", Fri 20 Nov 2009, 16:48, closed)

Paragraph 4
"miss the ball by a country mile"

presumably with the emphasis on the first five letters of the word?
( The Lone Groover has mal des nuts., Fri 20 Nov 2009, 22:05, closed)