The Royalist - The Cheeky Cricketers Who Stumped The Queen

The Cheeky Cricketers Who Stumped The Queen

Written by Joanne Leyland

Sunday, 07 January 2007

Page 4 of 4

In 1991, the Queen showed her kind nature again when, with rain having stopped play, she invited the England and West Indies teams to Buckingham Palace where they enjoyed cups of tea and Battenburg cake with the monarch and her cricket-mad Private Secretary, Sir Robert Fellowes.

On this occasion another famous cricketer was particularly enamoured with the Queen, although thankfully it was for far more respectful reasons than was Rodney Hogg.

England batsman Graham Gooch invited his father along to the Palace, but Alf Gooch was upset that his wife was unable to make the royal meeting.

The Queen had an idea: if Rose couldn't get to the Palace for tea and cake, then, as the Queen told Alf: "Well, you'll have to take her a slice of cake."

Despite being surrounded by aides eager to cater to her every whim, the Queen promptly cut a piece of cake and wrapped it in a napkin before handing it over to a beaming Alf for his absent wife.

Considering the humiliating 5-0 whitewash suffered by the current England team on their Ashes campaign Down Under, this may be the right time for Palace aides to invite Andrew Flintoff and his team mates to the big house at the end of The Mall for some tea and china cups full of sympathy from the Queen.

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Name: Fran	Comment: --It certainly wasn't a sensible or diplomatic move, for him to be so close yet not show his face (didn't his plane stop-off in Sydney-- He had a 2 hour stopover I believe. I think, considering how popular Diana was (and how unpopular Charles seems to be) here, it would have been a good idea for Wills to show his mug here!

Name: Joanne

Comment:
Hi Fran.Thanks for your comment.Maybe that's why we were trounced - the England players (even Paul Collingwood with, as Shane Warne said, his MBE for hitting 7 runs in the previous Ashes!) were weighed down with their MBEs etc.

Perhaps the Queen should reward the Australian cricketers as it'd probably be the only way we can win again

Also, I agree with you re. William and Australia. I don't understand why the royal officials didn't plan for him to stop off in at least one location in Australia during his trip to New Zealand. It certainly wasn't a sensible or diplomatic move, for him to be so close yet not show his face (didn't his plane stop-off in Sydney?)

Joanne

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Name: Fran

Comment:
It has bugged me that William hasn't come out to Australia since he was a child. Australia is one of the biggest members of the Commonwealth and with our support of HM the Queen (Australia did vote against a republic and to keep her as head of state), it seems rather rude that he didn't come either during his Gap Year or subsequent time off after uni.
Another thing, does anyone find it incredibly strange that English sporting teams have honours bestowed on them whenever they win? Look at it this way, if it happened to the Australian Cricket Team everytime they won, the boys would be laden with medals and the like.

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Name: James S. Foster	Comment: What an interesting feature and insight into the character of the Queen. Living in Perth after coming here from England - and being of a certain age - I well remember that earlier royal tour of Australia. Those certainly were halcyon days for the royal family. I blame the Murdoch press. Thank you for this fascinating article and Happy New Year to everyone at The Royalist.

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