This sporting life...

Nub News editor Philip Evans shares some of his favourite sporting memories

Sports has had a huge influence on my life and whilst I'm of an age when I unable to indulge anymore, life would be very dull for me without my sporting memories and the many friends I have made watching and participating in sport.

I was also fortunate, for a period in my career, in working in sports publishing, which enabled me to travel widely and meet many of my sporting heroes, some of whom were actually quite nice people.

For my sins (or was it poor taste?) I spent five years as a vice-president of Tottenham Hotspur on account of the fact that the company I was managing was a major sponsor at White Hart Lane. As you can imagine, my fellow Manchester United fans were not impressed at all.

As a kid, I was sport mad, mainly football and cricket, but I also enjoyed tennis and table tennis. My best mate Stuart Broom and I would spend many hours during our school holidays playing tennis on the old hard courts at the Woodmead Halls.

I played cricket for Dorset Schools Under 15s and table tennis for Dorset Boys' Club.

At primary school I was captain of the school team and made it into the first XI at grammar school by the second form.

But I never developed into a brilliant footballer or cricketer that my early promise might have suggested.

However, I enjoyed playing football for both Axminster Town and my home club Lyme Regis, as well as cricket for Uplyme and Lyme Regis, and I have many happy and amusing memories of battles on the field of play.

One of the highlights of my footballing days was scoring the winning goal when Axminster Town Reserves won the Perry Street Division Two Cup on Chard Town's ground, a volley from the edge of the box from an inch-perfect corner from the great Skip Willey.

One of my great disappointments was not scoring a century at cricket. I nearly did but was thwarted in my ambition in unusual circumstances.

I was playing my last competitive game of cricket for Uplyme 2nds at the age of 55, having been asked to make up the numbers. My previous highest score was 74, scored at Tipton St John.

In my farewell appearance at Uplyme, I had managed a quick single but in doing so I had to dive into the crease to avoid being run out. I was around15 stone at the time and it was bit like a Sunderland flying boat coming into land!

In doing so, I thought I had pulled a groin muscle and as I had scored around 40 runs I was anxious to get a half century in my swan song. So I told the umpire I would face just one more over and then retire.

But in that last over I hit another 18 runs and decided I would stay at the crease to see if I could beat my previous best.

It transpired that I managed to stay in for a few more overs and got myself on 94, within touching distance of that elusive ton, by which time I was having big difficulty running between the wickets so I thought I would throw my trusted Jumbo at the next ball.

Unusually for me, I hit the ball and saw it flying towards the boundary but, out of the blue came this blonde-headed youngster who pulled of a brilliant flying one-handed catch to win the applause of the crowd but which sent me trudging back to the pavilion inconsolable that I would never get that century.

And what made it worse was the player who caught me was no less than Steve Batey, now chairman of Uplyme and Lyme Regis CC and a brilliant all-round cricketer, who was just 15 at the time.

Cricket, of course, is a great leveller. No matter how good you think you are, if you play cricket for years it will bring you down to earth with a bump.

It happened a number of times to me with dropped catches, the most embarrassing being when I kicked the ball over the boundary, having dropped a catch in a cup final, an act with gave our opponents a one-run victory.

It was no wonder no one spoke to me in the dressing room afterwards. Usually after every game we would enjoy a few beers but on this occasion I packed my kit bag and slopped off home to sulk.

Those of us of a certain age love getting together and swapping a few memories.

Can I recommend you to read Andrew's Moulding latest 'Moulding's Memories' on the Axminster Nub News website, where in his latest episode he writes about his footballing days. And he has a great story about the incomparable Barry Doble when they played together for Axminster Reserves.

One final cricketing story. I was keeping wicket for Uplyme 2nds at Portland. My old mucker John Stamp, recently appointed station officer at Charmouth Fire Station, was in the slips. Pete Kirkman was bowling as lively as ever. One of his quicker balls skimmed the batsmen on the way through to my gloves.

Just as Pete was to release his next ball a flame shot out of the batsman's pocket. The previous deliver had ignited a box of matches in the batsmen's pocket. Fireman Stamp rushed to his help and extinguished the flames.

And I sold the story to the Sun under the headline 'Batsman retires - on fire!' And that's how he went down in the scorebook.