Weekesy's benefit dinner

By Janet Davis
November 3 2002

2002 was the benefit year of a great servant to Middlesex CCC. In 1990 an emerging player broke into the Midlesex side and stayed there for 12 years. He has been through highs and lows but one thing about Weekesy has never changed. That haircut! This is Janet Davis's review of his benefit dinner

On Wednesday 30th October, there was a benefit dinner at Lords. As I had limited time I took taxis each way. The traffic was horrendous as the weather was bad. Even Paul was late.

We had a mini tour before the dinner starting with the home dressing room. The smell of stale sweat still lingered. It was quite eerie. The players balcony is much smaller than it seems either on TV or from the stands. Despite the rain I stood on the balcony looking out on the pitch. Apparently they have removed 20,000 tons of soil from the outfield (this was shipped
to Regents Park). The Cricket table is about a foot higher than the ground. Porous material is being laid, layer by layer. New turf is being grown in Lincolnshire and they hope to have it in place by the end of this month.

The tour then went to the media centre. This was necessary for the staging of the world cup in 1999, as the facilities above the Warner Stand were inadequate. They did not like any of the original bids, then they had the current design submitted. The next problem they came across was that no-one had built anything like it. Then a ship builder from the South of England said 'it is a ship's hull on it's side' and duly built it. Abseilers clean the windows twice a year.

There is room for 120 journalists and each televisor (eg Channel 4) has it's own broadcasting room. We then went to the museum.

The dinner started a little late (scheduled to start at 8.00pm). It was quite well attended, with just Simon Cook and 'Ace' Shah supporting Paul. Ace flys to Australia in a month's time for the ODI's. I wished Ace good luck. I also had a brief word with Cookie who is coaching at the Cricket school for the winter.

During the dinner there was an auction and some raffle prizes. Point of interest Ace paid £300.00 for a signed picture of the 1999 Australians
when they won the world cup (signed by Warne and S Waugh). My immediate though was, is he going to take it to Oz and make a profit? Simon Hughes then gave an entertaining speech as the evening ended.