Trigger McCord: Cricket Umpire

By Michael Riley

Marty 'Trigger' McCord, is a 12-year-old boy who loves cricket and hates being bullied by Harley Stevens, the star of his school and club cricket teams. Marty lives for the weekend when he can play cricket, watch his Dad's team play cricket and watch cricket on TV. It is his escape from the bullying he lives with at school.

A chance to he

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scorp Media Pty Ltd
• Release date: Aug 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781922588203

Michael Riley

Michael Riley is Professor of Organisational Behaviour at the School of Management Studies for the Service Sector University of Surrey, Guildford UK. His work over two decades centres upon the labour aspects of tourism and he has written extensively on human resource management and labour market issues.

Book preview

TMC_front.jpg

Michael Riley

Trigger McCord: Cricket Umpire

© Michael Riley 2022

Cover and internal design by Impressum, Newcastle NSW

www.impressum.com.au

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entryAuthor: Riley, Michael

Title: Trigger McCord Cricket Umpire / Michael Riley

ISBN: 978-1-922588-19-7 (print)

978-1-922588-20-3 (ebook)

for cricket lovers of all ages and abilities. There will always be a place for you in our great game.

Chapter 1

It was ‘Moose’ Muston’s hard head that caused my broken arm. It happened while playing a game of British Bulldog during the school lunchbreak. I was in the middle of the playground trying to catch anyone running past. Moose made his way deliberately towards me and ducked his head like a snorting, runaway bull. When he ploughed into my right forearm, I heard the snap. It was like the sound of a broken twig. The pain took a few seconds after that to arrive. When it did, I dropped to the grass like a sack of potatoes. My first thought though was whether I’d get into trouble from Mum that night for getting grass stains on my shorts. Then reality kicked in. This hu rts. A lot!

Up until then, it was a normal Wednesday lunchtime at Thacker Primary School where I’m in my last term of grade six. I had my twelfth birthday two months ago. I’m good at English, OK at maths, terrible at science and not really interested in anything else other than cricket, daydreaming and staying out of the way of that bully Harley Stevens. Given he is taller, stronger and meaner than I am, it is a daily battle to steer clear of a boy who I’m sure gets no greater fun in his life than picking on me. I still don’t know why I’m his target, rather than anyone else in my class or cricket team. And it’s getting worse. As is how I feel about it each day.

When I collapsed in pain seconds after my arm collided with Muston’s head, I held off crying as long as I could. Partly because I wanted to be brave in front of our cricket coach, Mr Morris, who was on playground duty, but mainly to stop Stevens and his support crew from enjoying my pain. I also didn’t need my younger sister Kellie and her grade three posse to be fussing around. That would have given Stevens another reason to laugh at me. Luckily, Kellie and her little friends were usually on the other side of the playground near the play equipment.

As the pain increased, I took a look at my arm. A quick glance only, as the bend in the arm told the story of why I was in agony. Besides, a shadow had appeared above me, blocking the hot, early afternoon sun. I didn’t have to guess who it was. I winced as I looked up and saw the sneering look of a boy who, for the umpteenth time that day already, was flicking the long blond locks out of his eyes to ensure he got a better look at the damage. Through the tears that were now welling, I also saw his eyes widen like a kid who woke up on Christmas Day to a roomful of presents. It was the same look I’d seen many times prior whenever misfortune came my way. Usually, it was at its most intense when another of his fast deliveries with a cricket ball whizzed past my bat or thundered into my pads during school cricket practice, or if he caught me unawares with a sucker punch to the stomach as he walked past me in the playground while I wasn’t looking.

‘You sook, Pulla,’ Stevens said with disdain. I hated him calling me Pulla. And the more I told him that or showed him my displeasure through a scowl on my face, the more he used it.

‘Move away, please, Harley.’ The reassuring voice of Mr Morris meant help was at hand, for both my arm and my pride.

‘Hmmm, that looks nasty, Marty,’ Mr Morris said as he helped me to my feet. I took one look at the bow in my forearm and soon understood why I was in the most pain I could remember. ‘Let’s get you to the office and we’ll take it from there.’

I walked slowly through the school playground, the centre of attention now for half the school’s students who focused on me. Many had gathered as if forming a guard of honour but the uncaring looks of many and the silly comments from a handful told me this was no congratulatory send-off. If I could have run to the school office without pain, I would have gladly done so. My damaged arm was cradled by Mr Morris as I half tiptoed in pain across the bumpy turf, trying not to glance at or listen to the group of kids a few steps behind and milling around Stevens as he laughed and told jokes at my expense.

‘Guess we might finally win a game this Friday now we can bring a new opening batsman into the team,’ I heard Stevens call out, accompanied by laughter from several of the boys gathered with him. Mr Morris turned and gave him a glare that said ‘move away now’. Stevens retreated in the direction of the school canteen, no doubt thinking up new insults for anyone whose path he crossed along the way.

***

‘You’ll be in plaster for about six to eight weeks,’ the hospital doctor said. I looked at my parents for a reaction and saw pity in Mum’s eyes and a raise of the eyebrows from Dad. I knew what he was thinking. Same as me. There goes any chance of me playing pre-Christmas with my Under 12 Saturday morning cricket team. Like our school team, we had a real chance of winning this season’s Under 12 title. I wanted to be a part of it as much as possible. What my ears were hearing was I would not return until the new year. By that time, there would only be three matches left before the grand final, if we made it. The school cricket season had even less time to run. Once we broke up for Christmas holidays, that was it.

I’d been struggling to score runs in our first two games of the interschool season but Mr Morris had seemed pretty pleased with my ability to take the shine off the new ball, even if I struggled to score runs in more than singles and the occasional two. I wasn’t the strongest or biggest boy in grade six and I held out hope that I’d eventually grow stronger and taller so I could match strength and ability with the likes of Stevens. There seemed to be bigger boys lining up against me in opposition teams now that we all got closer to becoming high school kids. We had nearly a full term of matches remaining before the summer school holidays and were early joint leaders of the competition, so there was a lot to play for and pride at stake in hopefully becoming the first grade six team in five years from Thacker Primary to win the interschool cricket competition.

The Mustangs are my club cricket team and we’ve so far only lost one game all season, to our arch rivals Railways. Not that I’m the star of the team or anything, but, like I do for the school team, I open the batting, and as Dad says of my role, and echoing Mr Morris, ‘Taking the shine off the new ball and keeping wickets in hand for the middle order to chase runs is an important role.’ Deep down, I know Dad is being kind. I’m aware of my limitations and lack of strength. I stare at it in the mirror each morning. Although he knows I love cricket more than anything else and I did second top score with 21 early in the season against Shamrocks, hitting three fours with nice leg glances that day. Even Stevens gave me a begrudging pat on the back after that innings, but I’m not convinced it wasn’t because Dad was watching to see if my teammates lived up to our motto of ‘Team spirit first and last’. That meant words or actions of encouragement at all times, although Stevens had to be reminded of it at least once a game.

The car trip home from hospital was one of mixed emotions for me. Mum did her best to focus on the positives from how she saw it. ‘You’ll have all the kids wanting to sign and draw on your cast. We’ll have to get you some lessons in being left-handed,’ she joked, while peering over at me sitting glumly in the back seat. She was my mum just being herself. I liked her concern and attempt to take my mind off how she knew I was feeling, but I was thinking about how I’d miss the one thing I really cared about—playing cricket.

I gazed over the front seat in Dad’s direction. He’d been quiet since we’d left hospital. He knew I loved cricket, probably more than he did himself and that was saying something. I could sense him thinking about what to say, or was he thinking about how much the Saturday morning team would miss me or who would step up to open the batting in my absence or …?

‘It’s a good chance to be a good clubman now, Marty,’ Dad said, without further explanation. He often made statements like this out of the blue. Like he’d been thinking and thinking about the right thing to say in a situation and eventually just blurting something out when he thought it was close enough to the perfect thing to say.

‘I thought I was already?’ I replied. If the pain of the broken arm, combined with another dose of Stevens’ sledging when I was first injured wasn’t enough, Dad had somehow given me another reason to feel down.

Dad must have sensed I’d taken it as an insult. He caught my eye in the rear-view mirror and quickly made amends. ‘Of course you are. I meant, you can use the rest of the season to really take it to the next level and still feel like a part of the team.’

I felt a bit better, but not much. Really, I was just disappointed. Cricket was my world and no matter how few runs I scored for school or club, there was nothing like donning the pads and helmet and taking that new shine off the ball each Friday and Saturday over summer. The smell of freshly cut grass surrounding an artificial turf wicket and the feel of a cricket bat in my hands always brought a smile to my face. Most nights I’d drift off to sleep dreaming of a day in the future where I was finally strong enough and good enough to open the batting for Australia; I wanted to be the new Jake Parsons. Dad had convinced me that I’d fill out in my teenage years and I’d seen stories online of how lifting weights had turned scrawny kids into beasts. I had another incentive too. Filling out and getting stronger would give me the confidence to stand up to Harley Stevens. At least in my dreams!

***

I have to admit, there were a couple of upsides of having a broken arm. Pizza and ice cream. And for the first time in ages, my older brother Chris and younger sister Kellie had nice things to say to me the night we got back from hospital.

‘Maybe break your other arm and we can have pizza more often,’ Chris said. He was like a slightly kinder version of my nemesis Stevens. And older too. He’d recently turned seventeen and as Mum often told him, had the teenage attitude to go with it. I didn’t understand what she meant. All I knew was that Chris switched moods as often as I changed my clothes, and that was at least three times a week.

I didn’t mind my big brother though. He was pretty cool; well, he looked cool, and as he was taller than me and had started to put on some size through his daily weights program, it gave me hope I’d follow in his footsteps when I reached that age. For now, that was too far away.

‘If you can’t feed yourself properly, maybe leave your pizza to me,’ Chris said, without even a hint he was joking. Ping. His phone now had his attention, as it did for most of his waking hours, and he glanced up to see if Mum and Dad were anywhere close by the dining table. He was in luck. They were out front talking to our next-door neighbour, Ron Kinsella. Chris grinned and jumped up from his chair at the dining table, making a hasty retreat, but not before reaching over and grabbing a piece of ham and pineapple