If you are ever at one of those dinner parties where the company is competing to slag off the iniquities of the British Empire, counter with the two words: ‘Corfu’ and ‘cricket’.
Although never an actual colony (but rather a British protectorate), Corfu and the Corfiots are that rare thing – unashamedly Anglophile. There are several good reasons for this, not least including the British creation of the island’s celebrated university and Corfu town’s water and sewerage system.
But for some, the protectorate’s greatest gift was cricket. This year Corfu will be celebrating the bicentenary of the coming of the game to the jewel of the Ionian Sea – making Greece one of only four countries in the world to have played the game for that long.
It was a spontaneous match between a Royal Navy team and hastily assembled English opposition that started it all off in April 1823. The contest was played out on the Spianada, a tree- and café-lined grass sward between the palace and the splendid Venetian castle that guards the port.
The mystified locals were intrigued, at first dubbing the game ‘Play’ as that, after all, was what the umpires said to commence the match. But soon after, the first all-Greek match took place between two teams unembarrassedly entitled The Rich vs The Poor (which, thinking about it, is no sillier than those English games between The Gentlemen vs The Players).
The mystified locals were intrigued, at first dubbing the game ‘Play’ as that, after all, was what the umpires said to commence the match
Today, Greece’s ‘Mr Cricket’ is a jolly, smiling retired bank manager, Iosif ‘Atis’ Nikitas. For 17 years the president of the Hellenic Cricket Federation, he is now its unpaid globe-trotting ambassador and CEO.
With pride, Mr Nikitas says that cricket terminology is fully integrated into Corfiot life. ‘When we go to the shops and return home,’ he laughs, ‘we call that a “run” – another example of going and coming back.’
Mr Nikitas’s family is fully dedicated to the game. While he travels the cricketing world, drumming up teams to tour the island, his son heads the secretariat. Today there are 15 Greek cricket clubs, 11 of which are in Corfu. Compared with the UK, the women’s game seems to be much better developed, with Mrs Athena Nikitas (when not on ‘runs’ to the shops) herself captaining a powerful team of players. ‘When I married her she had to promise never to stop me spending my weekends playing cricket,’ Mr Nikitas recalls.
Over drinks at the Corfu Palace Hotel, we are joined by the manager, Alex Anemogiannis, who just happens to run the Byron Cricket Club. Then Olga, a passing young waitress, drops by to say hello to Mr Nikitas. ‘She’s a very good opening batsman and bowler,’ he tells me conspiratorially.
There is much jovial anecdotage about the celebrated 1978 tour by the Lord’s Taverners – a team that included John Cleese, Nicholas Parsons, Willie Rushton, Ken Barrington and Roy Kinnear. ‘I remember John Cleese taking a 40-metre run-up before bowling a very slow ball,’ laughs Mr Nikitas. ‘We all cracked up.’
The Taverners’ tour, immortalised in the film Mad Dogs and Cricketers, massively revived the game which had by then shrunk to four clubs. Mr Nikitas also reminisces about a Greek team tour he led to Pakistan, which few tour now due to terrorist threats. ‘They said “You are a very brave man”,’ he recalls. ‘“Only you and Alexander the Great came here.”’
Today, there is a regular programme of touring teams from the UK and beyond. Covid permitting, around 2,000 players attend up to 17 tournaments a year.
Later Mr Nikitas takes me to his HQ – not quite Lord’s but a delightful loft in an airport warehouse, stuffed with memorabilia and silverware. On the wall are old sepia photos of past teams and players and curling, neatly framed press cuttings.
I particularly like an account of a 1992 tour in the Cricketer: ‘Greece won the unofficial wooden spoon. The most colourful side, their running between wickets was appalling, their reluctance to accept umpires’ decisions sometimes excessive, and their fielding on some occasions bad, on others breathtaking.
‘They gave an indication of their catching prowess at the opening ceremony when a pigeon flew into the assembly hall and one of the Greeks, with customary flamboyance, lunged skyward and plucked it, one-handed from the air.’
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