Address to an Umpire

Fantasy Bob has continued his world famous research into the unpublished cricketing works of Robert Burns.

He reproduces his most recent find below - but he has not discovered why Burns should have suppressed this fine work.

After all he used the opening lines again in his celebrated Address to the Devil.  That poem was written in 1785, a year which marked a decline in the fortunes of the dominant Hambledon Club as cricket spread throughout the country.

However in this, undated, original draft Burns targets a devil of a different sort, as he presents an ironic, but heartfelt, celebration of the challenges facing the umpire in lower league cricket with which Burns seems to have been fully familiar.

Address to an Umpire

O thou! whatever title suit thee,—
Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie!

Thou art ne'er a thing o’ beauty

Nor yet inspiring

Thou maun do your cricketing duty

By Umpiring

In upper grades th’ umpire’s appointed

Wi' sponsors’ logos weel anointed

But in low’r leagues we’re disappointed

Thou'rt just a player

Thy knowledge of the laws disjointed

And peculiar

Whiles aifter tea thou felt like rest

But mercy be thou'rt cruelly pressed

The skipper says there's no chiel else

Prepared tae stand

The juniors couldna tak' the stress

But thou art the man

What could be simpler than to count six

It disnae need Higher Mathematics

But every over's full o' tricks

Tae complicate

No balls, dead balls, wides. Thy count is fix'd

By guestimate

The LB law's a real damnation

Each chiel has his interpretation

But can he gie an explanation

O' a decision

Withoot causing consternation

Or derision?

'Not out,' we hear thee sagely cry

'It's missing leg; it's ower high;

The ball has hit the batsman's thigh;

No stump wad be hit;

An' onywye, the sun was in my eye

I didna see it

There's places in this noble land

Where billies deem LB's been banned

So have the years passed since the man

Has raised the finger

Though bowlers scream their fraught demand

The batters linger

A loud appeal for caught behind

Thou must be deef, thou must be blind

Could thou hear, nor see, nor call tae mind

A deviation?

Thon batter's no a walkin' kind

It's ruination

Fegs! Low'r league players we a' suffer

At the whims o' sic a duffer

But we shouldna tak the huff for

There's no reason

We'll get the smoother and the rougher

O'er the season

Ah umpires! Thou must be respectit

I pay thee tribute thou'rt so neglectit

It ill becomes those at the wicket

To yell and doubt thee

For there would be nae bonny cricket

Were we withoot thee