Flowers send us down the (D)rain

Beefy Roberts reports from Chelmsford on our last away day of the season. As he has left most of the match reporting to the messageboard we get an good overall view of his day as the home team closed on a semi final place. Read on...

Well,season draws to a close as Kimmy and myself get the train to Chelmsford for the last away game this term.We both knew we couldn't go any further in this competition but still wanted to be there,more enjoyable than sitting at home watching on Sky.
Report is about ground things tonight,the game will probably be covered well enough by others on our site.
Terry is on our train also going to the game,so that's the Middle 3 then.
At the county ground,we noted from the scorecard that 2 of our ECB 3 are grounded,but hang on,whats this???...........Here we go again,we see that Bopara and Cook are playing,but no Moggy for us,just what the bloody hell is going on ECB? The Essexshire connection again,let our boys play,sod anyone else.
Also,on the scorecard we were shown by Don Shelly that the Middle have a new signing bowling for us,yep,you heard it here first folks,we have TOBY ROLAND SMITH playing for us tonight.
A few of our lads are having a quick warm up playing head/foot/volleyball for about 10 Min's,as the rest of the team join,the hard warming up starts all being put through their paces.
As our lads come off after the warm ups,a young lad asks Shaggy for his autograph,shaggy carrying bats,pads,helmet,gloves still manages to do it for him,as does Ace carrying all the same gear.
The Middle won the toss and have decided to bat.
The game has started(see match thread for full details),and i get chatting to an Essexshire member and i ask him about Billy G,himself and a couple of his mates just look,shake their heads and say he is in the seconds nothing else said,i just left it at that,let my imagination do the rest.
Another Essexshire mentioned about Dwayne Bravo,he said that all the supporters thought it was so wrong paying him(£10,000 he mentioned) for just finals day,left them with bad taste in their mouths.
Again,please refer to the match thread for all the up to date information.
We lose a wicket or two,as Ace goes in,some of the Essexshire folks shout to him,see you here next season,what have they heard??
I got to the pavilion,a comfort break,to warm up and also get refreshments,to my amazement there are 4 lads sitting at a table watching the game live on sky,i can never understand why they do this.
Match highlights are still on the main match thread.
The shadows get longer,pavilion not in the sun,it is getting a bit nippy now,Kimmy said am i cold? no,im fine i said,take a coat next time i think!
Ace is out for 12,see you next year they shout at him again.
Its a slow batting display,Bergie comes in,and we notice he only needs 7 runs to reach his milestone of 500 one day runs,he gets to,and past this and we applaud him for doing so,the Middle reach 100 off 23 overs,the Middle 2 in the pavilion applaud this as well,all others just look and stare at us!
Its announced on the tannoy,the CB40 trophy will be on display at the interval,Kimmy and myself say take a look,you wont see it again(neither will we this season)
Shaggy comes in,with calls of ' old man' from the polite Essexshire followers,i think,come on Shaggy show them what you can do,sadly didn't last long.
Match highlights on the main thread.
The temp  drops,am i cold? i get asked,nope i say,thinking I'm bloody freezing but not saying anything! Kimmy manages to borrow a sweatshirt from Mark O'neill to stay warm,and she carries on drinking black coffee i just stay on the pint.
At the interval,we chat to a couple of Essexshire who really want to get to Lords for the final,as they love the place they say you cant beat it for a cricket ground,we just agree with them,well sort of anyway!
Our lads come out to field,and the Essexshire eagle mascot is prancing around the field,entertaining the faithful,Finny walks towards the boundary and the eagle decided to run after Finny and gives him a huge push in the back and startles Finny,that is just NOT on,could of caused an injury typical behaviour from this stupid bird? Even rod hulls emu wouldn't do that!
Match highlights on the main thread.
The two Essexshire England players come and Cook goes to cheers from us both,and,after Bopara goes we do the same.
Poor Tom,he gets a volley of abuse for his drop and the baying mob stay on his back for most of the game.
We are both chatting to Mark O'Neill who introduces Ben,his son,to us both.At this point my pen was put down as we chat about all things cricket and Mark has to dash to do team things,we continue to chat to Ben for the rest of the game.It would of been rude to carry on whilst having a good chat with Ben,was great to meet him and hope to again before he goes back home.
So,the rest of the evening is on the main game thread.