Dances With Chazzwazzers

“So the thing is, err Bumble, you see, um, would you be kind enough, I mean would you mind awfully, having a photo with me. Please. My dad’s a big fan, my sister-in-law thinks you’re brill…”

“Shoooot ooopp.”

“Right oh. Sorry, very sorry.”

Gareth, good on ‘im, takes the photo.

David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd. The man who’s done everything in the game, county and international cricketer, first class umpire, county and international coach, author. All with varying degrees of success yet it is in his current role as commentator where he is best known. Cult hero, legend, national treasure.
Take your pick of the apt accolades. Bumble’s distinctive Lancastrian accent has enhanced many a cricket match down the years, his infectious enthusiasm for the sport he has served so well spilling out into his commentaries along with his brilliant and bewildering bons mots.

I hold the gentleman in the highest esteem. I was nervous about meeting him. Which is why I couldn’t stop gibbering away like an idiot when I bumped into him on Saturday night.

You know that verbal diarrhoea you instantly develop when you see a jaw-droppingly good looking lass across the room and tumble ill-advisedly into conversation with when your turn to get the round in coincides. Granted I’d had one or two, but, by now, I was rabbiting for England.

You know when the verbal diarrhoea you’re experiencing looks like it could become terminal? Yeah, that happened too.

“So, um, Mr Lloyd, Bumble, err, let me tell you my theory that it is Bedfordshire and not Yorkshire or indeed that fine Red Rose county across the Pennines that is the cradle of English cricket….”

“Shoooot ooopp.”

Thankfully, Gareth or Barney or the band’s new song filled in the hole that was opening up in front of me.

“Brown Sugar by the Rooollin’ Stooones. Ah looov that. Get ’em to do Brown Sugar.”

I volunteered to persuade the band to do it. Alas they didn’t really know it. Or Angie.

“Roooobbish!”

I was having a ‘mare. So espying some charming sort out of the corner of my eye, I sensed my chance to make a break from my self imposed cast-iron cage of embarrassment. I followed her to the dance floor where I promptly proceeded to rip it up in that giraffe-tripping-acid crossed with Stephen Merchant with-his-spine-recently-removed way that sadly for me (and comically for everyone else) befalls someone of my lanky stature when faced with the trials and tribulations of disco dancing. She was loving it. I was loving it.

So, apparently, was Bumble. Stood crouching like Arthur Fagg in his pomp and tapping away like a young Lonnie Donegan, the great man had made his way towards the edge of the dance floor and was hollering and barracking my efforts, that characteristic love of life writ large across those famously dour-or-delighted features.

They say you should never meet your heroes. Roooobbish!

David Lloyd. Thank you. Top man.