Early on in the Second World War, ensuring the RAF’s bombs were hitting their target effectively became a serious problem, with huge numbers missing their target.  To overcome this, Bomber Command created a new group whose task it was to fly ahead of the Wellingtons and Lancasters and drop flares on the chosen targets. The name given to this Squadron was Path Finder Force.

Crews from this squadron kept in touch after the war and in 1948, sitting in a pub in Worthing, Flight Lieutenant Harvey Etherton and his mates decided to form a cricket team which they called Pathfinder (never Pathfinders).

Scrambled 

The team is still going to this day and on Sunday 31^st May The Mighty Greys descended from the A27 high road and landed on Goring Rec, following the courageous act of Alex “Algy” Fenton in marking out the path from the road to the ground with cans of Heineken dropped from his bag with military precision. 

Chocks Away

Richard Lenton had sportingly parachuted himself in to help Pathfinder make up numbers and was rewarded for this by Louis, producing his own bouncing bomb which rose viciously to strike Richard under his helmet and on his jaw, knocking him over in the process. He battled on until Louis clean bowled him for 18.  At the other end, and with the commemorations just a week away, the appropriately named D Day (aka “Ginger”) took a caught and bowled, swiftly followed by an LBW.  

“He’s Bought It, Captain”

Pathfinder CC were in trouble on a treacherous grass runway of a pitch, with Ian and Dom helping themselves to a few, and Louis conducting his own aerial battle with the gusting wind to take a steepler in the deep and Tom an excellent catch taxiing forward from behind the stumps before your correspondent took his 300^th wicket for the club (PSM), caught at short midwicket by Jerry diving forwards.  After some brief resistance from Mr Carley Smith, Pathfinder had crashed and burned for 83 off 30 overs.

A Gentle Landing

In reply, TMGs openers Biff Line and Jerry “Bigg Les” Brasher, batting together at the top of the order for the 287th time* batted carefully to get the score to 75, before Biff was abruptly ejected for 41. After Alex’s kite was pranged, Duncan and Jerry then navigated the Greys home to victory within 18 overs.  

The victorious team then retired to the Bull to down a few Spitfires.  

* I made this stat up, but it isn’t that far from the truth.  

Statto’s report
This week we were back to winning ways with a crushing victory over Pathways despite the best efforts of Rich Lenton who topped scored for the opposition.
A good week for the bowlers – especially a certain S Shadow Esq. who bagged his first wickets of the season to take him over 300 lifetime wickets, take a bow El Tel. Elsewhere in the bowling DD stays well clear despite EO picking up his best figures for the season 3 for 27. In the batting with only 83 to chase Jezza and Biff did most of the heavy lifting Biff top scoring (41) and in the table he leapfrogs Dom to take the lead. In the catching Tommy Nicks denied the chance to bat has to make do with going one clear of the chasing pack. Also, special mention to Louis who I believe picked up his first catch for the Greys, not sure if that is a case of buttery mitts or spending a lot of time at fine leg…
Lifetimes covered above so let’s look forward to next week…it’s CCWCC…can’t remember what that stands for but I’m think they’re from up North somewhere…Surrey?