Hail, Dented Shield, once Cricket’s Lord Protector,
Proud Vanguard of the Hobbesian Private Sector!
Accustomed then from May till mid-September
To quell all onslaughts on the “Master’s” member,
You fought heroically day by day
To guard his Orbs and Sceptre in the fray.
From Hove to Hastings, Leeds to Lord’s you strove
To tame the Thunderbolts of many a ‘Jove’:
But Fate has summoned, Heaven oped her portals,
Allowing Hobbs to join the Game’s Immortals.
Redundant Veterans find Life a Briar,
Since he who touched the Heights can rise no higher.
This You have found, for now, in sad decline,
Instead of Hobbs’s Relics, you guard mine.
10th June 1979
Note:
The origins of this improper little piece lay in the practical joke played on me on the occasion of my 40th birthday in March 1979. My old friend Desmond Miller (OCP/OC), then President of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, gave me a most touching present in the shape of a cricketer’s box which he claimed to have bought at an auction of Cricketana in London on 18th September 1978:- “Lot No.67. Cricketer’s Guard used by Sir John Berry (Jack) Hobbs c.1923. Certified as genuine and authentic.” I showed it around to my friends as if it were a Stradivarius or a newly discovered sonnet by Shakespeare. I had me doots...but entered into the spirit of the jest with an Ode in heroic couplets, a suitable vehicle for satirical send- ups. David Frith, the noted cricket writer confirmed I had been had, but enjoyed the verses! For some time I caused quite a sensation by showing off ‘Jack Hobbs’s Box’ on The Leprechauns annual tour to Carlow and Kilkenny, with the great John Hill authoritatively vouching for the authenticity of the Box! I sent the piece to Brian Johnston who replied that he would read it out during a rainy session -if his nerve held!
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