Page 8 - Demo

A DUTCHMAN AND THE XL CLUB
Duco Ohm reminisces.
A s a 12 year old, I played soccer and due
to my height was invited to join either the baseball club ABC or the cricket club ACC in Amsterdam. I choose cricket and ACC.
I was ‘given’ 2 years for free but was obliged to wear white clothing and shoes. I have now been a member for just 70 years and have thoroughly enjoyed a life-time of cricket.
It started with regular matches in the youth and senior leagues in Holland and I played two years in the top league before picking up a job in the hardwood timber trade that sent me as a 22 year old to Sapele in Nigeria in 1959
where I arrived the day before their independence.
Life, especially the climate, was tough in the Niger delta but around 17.00 hrs life changed as the British (Unilever Timber) had a well-orga- nized club where one could play snooker, tennis, golf, soccer,
rugby, bingo and of course cricket.
I didn’t tell them that I played in the Netherlands and asked if I could participate. I remarked that bowling looked simple and could I have a try . . . . 5 wickets and a place in the team was the result of my rst match. We played clubs from other cities in the area and occasionally against the crew of the ships loading our timber.
she started scoring with the help of two kind ladies. She enjoyed scoring (and me playing) and contin- ued to do so for many years to come.
Unfortunately the company then sent me in 1962 to the former French Congo–no more cricket but jeu de boules and tennis.
In November 1963 we left Africa and returned to the Netherlands. I started playing club cricket again and Lideke scored. She became very experienced and was invited to score during international tournaments in Holland. Later she obtained ICC status and did some tournaments abroad.
At my 40th birthday my club – the Hilversumsche CC at that time – decided that I was too old for the rst and second XIs and so I decided to go back to ACC in Amsterdam and play for their veterans team on Saturdays. This meant I was with the guys I played with 25 years earlier.
Two important things happened in 1977: I started umpiring and I joined the Dutch Forty Club Still
In the late May of 1961 I went on
leave, met a lovely girl called Lideke
who was the daughter of good
friends of my parents, dated her a
couple of times and then I dared
to ask her to marry me. She accepted, had to say goodbye to her ancé and did so on a Saturday morning in July and asked me to pick her up. I told her I had to go and play cricket which was no problem. That was her rst connection with cricket. We got married on the 18th of August and left already for Nigeria on the 26th !
Our very rst Sunday in Nigeria, cricket was on and Lideke joined me to the club. I introduced her to
the members and to her surprise she was passed the score book and - with no experience at all –
Duco and Lideke
Going Strong (SGS). With SGS I played in many Triangular Tournaments and at a later stage acted as an umpire. Needless to say Lideke was always in control of the score book.
Umpiring became my main hobby and I have been in the middle for about 700 o cial matches, and many, many more friendlies. Highlights in my career have been umpiring as an o cial ICC umpire in the ICC tournaments in the Netherlands, Kenya, Malaysia and Namibia.
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