The Marsh Gibbon Cricket Club legend that is Julian Chambers reeled in another milestone against Middleton Cheney on 20th July 2019, as he passed 7,000 runs for the Originals.
His MGCC career, which shows no signs of concluding anytime soon, started in his teens before Marsh even joined the OCA in 1987, when he would turn out for the Midweek and Sunday teams playing in the Aylesbury leagues.
Back then he would open the bowling alongside ‘Bolshman’ Rawlings and under the tutelage of the likes of O.T. Stringer, Smithy, Eagles, Baz Leonard, Watko, Bobby S. and the rest (of that drunken motley crew) he became a mainstay – that is when he could escape his farm duties to play!
Now, with over 450 MGCC appearances in the OCA, not to mention the hundreds of midweek, Sunday and friendly games, he is bringing through chip off the old block ‘Cobby’ to follow in the old mans footsteps.
Jules captained the side for 3 years (91-93) when we played in the Senior Section of the OCA and also helped form the basis of the Square of today helping/doing the match deck preparation.
Surely, his most memorable games came with the ball when in 1989 at a time without bowling restrictions, he bowled 22 overs straight off against Buckland and took 6 wickets for 70 runs! (By the way, his run up back then was about 20 metres long and so in that one spell he sprinted over 2.5 kilometres!) These were just some of the 344 wickets taken at only 17 runs each so far.
Another great performance came in 2001 when Jules notched up an unbeaten 108 (including 7×4 and 3 maximums) as he lead us to 200 to win at home to Minster Lovell. In that same year he averaged 54 runs and won the Batting Cup, as he also did 3 years later when he totalled 434 runs off the willow. Add that to his two Bowling Cup awards of 1997 and the Millennial year and you have the archetypal Cricketer (Oh yes, he can field too!)
In a nutshell, there isn’t anything he hasn’t done, or achieved, for the Club and we hope he continues to grace The Recreation Ground for many years to come – 8,000 runs and 400 wickets are in range!