In tune with the Barmy Army

Centurion: Back in May, on one of those chilly late afternoons they euphemistically call ``a balmy spring day'' in England, running in to some of the more jolly members of the Barmy Army was more accidental than incidental.

Alec Stewart's Team England had just been given a solid World Cup thumping by South Africa at The Oval and at a pub not far from the ground they were literally drowning their sorrows. It was not a happy evening.

Planned celebration had long been discarded and the burnt out wreck of a car, soon to be towed away, began to resemble England's forlorn hopes and hours of misery. Certainly it was not a time for gloating, or ``we told you so'' as a number of South Africans at the pub joined their new-found Barmy Army pals in saluting ``future victories''.

One wearing his Team England shirt with his regulation Barmy Army hat was Dave.

He had cheered months earlier when Darren Gough took a hat-trick in far off Melbourne and cried when the big screen showed Michael Slater being run out but the umpire deciding in favour of the batsmen.

Dave is not one of the your average Barmy Army members. He was not part of Mike Shaw's ``Tax Dodgers on Tour'' group we ran into at St George's Park. They represent the other face of the BA: boozy, bawdy and rowdy; some may be accountants, or pencil pushers of another school; and even members of the medical fraternity.

It was Bob Marley, the West Indian reggae singer and song writer whose rich Caribbean spice can be found in the lyrics he penned for the song ``I don't like cricket . . . I love it . . .''. Just the sort of tribute David Rudder's ``Rally Round the West Indies'' deserved and which was more in tune than Brian Lara's team last summer.

In the same way some of the BA have come up with a catchy number they are using for this Team England tour of South Africa. Dave was not around to sing it in the dying stages on the game on Monday. He is hoping to make it for the Millennium Test in Cape Town. But a few other guys have presented what they feel is the right sort of ``anthem'' or ``parody anthem'' for this series and is sung to the tune ``The do run, run, the do run run.''

My name is Allan Donald And I should have run, Run, run, Allan, run, run, run; Zulu called a single But I stood still Run, run Allan, run, run, run Ooh! I had a panic attack Ooh! And then I dropped my bat, Ooh! We could have won Ooh! If I had only run Run, run Allan, run, run, run

Somehow the ghost of Edgbaston still returns to haunt some . . .