Farewell to a true village cricketer - Malcolm Lee

Sadly the club has just lost one of its great characters, Malcom Lee. Poignantly, he visited the club a couple of Sundays ago, both to say goodbye to a place he loved (“Heaven on Earth” in his words) and to show the place off to his extended family.

Malcolm was the epitome of the spirit of village cricket.  He took up the game relatively late in life, and over the course of some 20 seasons never managed to score more than 76 runs in a year or take more than 12 wickets – but that wasn’t the point for Malcolm.  Rather, he loved the company of his fellow players, and his oft-repeated mantra was that he wanted to spend two and half hours stood in a field with his mates.  Anything else – runs, wickets, catches – was a bonus.

While a few eyes would no doubt roll, Malcolm never got tired of his favourite joke, which was taking guard left-handed and only switching to his normal right-hand stance after the fielders had moved.  Such was his apparent joy that the opposition always took it in good spirits (and I’m sure one or two regular opponents went along with it even when the knew what was coming).

Malcolm’s last game for the club was in 2014 against Old Sectonians, in which he didn’t bat and his one over went for 7 runs. But he loved it! Malcom was never overly worried about his own performances, but took great pride in seeing the club’s youngsters play and achieve.  On that day, much to Malcolm’s obvious delight, Sarah scored 90 not out in a team that included Lee, Mark W, Josh S and Josh E.

We shall miss him and we shall miss the affection he had for the club.

Malcom Lee on his last visit to the club - July 2023