Over the next ten weeks we will be looking back over ten great UCC games of the past twenty five years. The first of these takes us back to 2004 and a League Cup third round tie between UCC and Ilford.

Upminster, who were competing in Division Two of the SNEL at that time, had enjoyed a much improved season in cup competitions compared to their previous campaigns. They had progressed to the third round of the National Cup thanks to fine wins over Tring Park and Asians, and in the League Cup had overcome Chelmsford and Hutton to reach the third round. Ilford were sitting in mid table in the Premier Division table at the time and arrived at Upminster Park with a powerful side, including a young Varun Chopra and star batsman Gurdeeep Kandola. Upminster were not quite at full strength, and were missing legendary overseas all round Lorne Sprigg. This did however mean a place in the team for Rob Tuffee, a regular in the Club’s 2nd and 3rd XIs over many previous campaigns.

Ilford won the toss and decided to bat first, and Chopra got the visitors off to a good start. However, as Tuffee recalls, Upminster’s Mike Rath felt they should have dismissed him early on “Chopra absolutely smashed one past me at point, in the air, early on but I didn’t even have time to move. Grapes (Rath) saw it differently though and gave me a bit of a volley. Brocky (Paul Brockman) had to step in and tell Grapes to calm down.” Chopra made 67 and Kandola made 72 as Ilford headed towards a big score, but Upminster foughtback “I managed to get Chopra and then they had a couple of run outs and we got back in it” continued Tuffee, “but then a guy came in for the last few overs and scored a quick 40 odd, and they got up to 253-7, which off of 45 overs in those days was a good score. In all honesty, I think most of us thought it was 30 or 40 to many.”

Brockman and youngster Jason McNally got the Upminster reply off to a good start, but when they fell things started to fall apart, “We had a pretty good batting line up on paper that day, and a few people got starts at the top of the order, but nobody stayed in long enough to hold it together, and before we knew it we were 140-8 and the game looked pretty much done.” said Tuffee. At this point Tuffee himself joined Danny Tyler at the crease, the two having played together numerous times for Upminster’s junior sides and lower elevens over the years. “I strolled out and second ball looped one straight to mid on, but Harminder Sagoo managed to drop it. After that I settled down and both Bert (Tyler) and myself were batting well. They made a lot of bowling changes and Bert just kept telling me to keep my head and wait for the right balls to hit while keeping out the good stuff.”

Before long the Upminster total had raced past the 200 mark and Tyler had brought up an excellent half century. A number of Upminster members who had been watching and readied themselves to depart half hour before were now sensing a remarkable turn around. Ilford were clearly rattled as Tuffee remembers well, “A few of their lads started arguing with one another, and it didn’t seem like anyone wanted to bowl. I think that’s when we both thought we had a chance. By now we were seeing it well and Bert made sure we were running well. I remember having to lean on my bat to grab my breath between overs. We were up with the run rate so realized we just needed to keep our heads at that stage.” Ilford’s ill discipline with the ball was assisting Upminster, they bowled 33 wides during the innings, and before long just three were needed with an over and a bit still remaining, “The opening bowler had come back on, but he put one in the right slot and I hit him through mid on, down to where the nets are for four, and we had won by two wickets. I recall Bert jumping on me and then looking over to the Pav to see Ollie (captain Ollie Peck) doing his famous darts player fist pump and Jazzy (number eleven Jeff Mack) jumping up and down in his pads. John Nash came into the changing room after to say well done to us and fortunately had a couple of well earned beers for me and Bert!!”

Upminster’s win took them through to face Brentwood in the quarter final, but unfortunately there was to be no repeat of the heroics from the Ilford game as Brentwood cruised through to the semi finals.

(Scorecard)

Photo is from 2004 Benefit Match, with Tuffee and Tyler in front row first and second on left