Male or female, young or old - Bad Stuff can happen to you in The Archers. Discuss the perils of Ambridge life here.

[PseudoBadger]

Not exactly upbeat at the moment is it

At the risk of sounding like someone who gives a toss (full toss?) about the cricket team, surely a solution would be to merge with another village side? Ambridge can't be the only village afflicted by an aging cohort, more weekend working, the distractions of musical theatre and Judy Garland movies...?

Lizzie's a hothead, isn't she? Barring Kenton? I hope when she's cooled down a bit, she'll take a look at why poor old Freddy would go to such lengths to conceal a sodding exam result from her.

WTF are so many of the ambridge men down on having women in the team? I think they mentioned Bert and Will in particular.... well, if thats Bert Fry, I'm a bit surprised; Will much less so in which case I hope Nic is the salvation of the team. And the Button girls - I reckon the more sexist blokes are agin them because they don't take crap quietly, and aren't 'ladylike'... remembering (rather fondly) the graffiti on Rob's car.

At archers academies there was a lot of appreciation for the Button girls, so it's not just us. I was wondering about Nic too.

I do hope that if the cricket team does fold, the blokes don't then turn round and blame it on the women for not joining.

Lizzie barring Kenton isn't such a surprise - she refused to speak to David for years because of him pushing Nigel off the roof. (This may be an alternative fact, but it is basically what she was thinking.)

She wasn't totally wrong about Kenton being a bad influence, either - coming up with a crazy scheme, rather than pointing out things will be better in the long run if Freddie just comes clean.

"he does deserve someone fabulous. It is a credit to the writers, actually, (reluctant though I am to be nice to them) that they do manage to retain our sympathies for flawed, ridiculous, lovely Lillian despite her, ahem, ways."

Actually, she has completely lost my sympathy over this particular triangle. I'm Team Miranda. (A very small team. Probably just me)

I don't like Lillian at all in this sl. And I don't see why Justin deserves someone fabulous. This sl is just the age old cliche and it's all a bit pathetic.

Why does Justin stay with Miranda? Is it just because he's a coward? That's not a particularly attractive trait.

At least with the Brian siobhan affair it was writtten accepting it was a horrible act. It was very well done I thought. This sl is almost written as comedy.

"This sl is almost written as comedy."

It is being written as comedy.

Yes - I suppose I put almost because it's clearly been written by the kitchen writer!

Maybe Peggy will find out and give her an earful. Would be good to hear someone who doesn't have the 'oh isn't Lillian a riot' attitude to it

And there's poor blooody Miranda wandering round like a lost soul knowing that everyone knows what's going on, but that's OK, she's a comedy snob, so she deserves everything she's getting. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck.

I can't stand the nasal twang of the Harrison actor. At least it does distinguish him from the other northern voices, but only just.I was surprised too at Bert being at a cricket club meeting. It must be decades since he played, though Iimagine he is one of the old codgers who appears for any village event. As for Will,didn't his mother do rather well in the single wicket? Nice too. But I might have made that last bit up.

Yes, I think Clarrie did win the single wicket once. It did occur to me that maybe Harrison made a mistake of focussing on teens/twenties.

Isn't Bert an umpire?

That seems likely, or scorer.

Going back to the theme of 'Harrison is a rubbish captain', did you notice Shula mention that Alistair had tried to introduce female players before and it had gone down like a lead balloon. If Harrison had canvassed opinion then he would have known that, and who the main nay-sayers would be.

Yes - and all Harrison and fallon could say was that she was being negative.

I feel sorry for Harrison, if I recall correctly he didn't particularly want to be captain in the first place did he? He's doing the best he can. (A bit like when PTA committees get slated for not doing everything just 'right' when they may not have the skillset within the volunteers).

Agree though that rather than keeping it a secret it might have been better to do canvassing and persuading beforehand to ensure he got some vocal support from influential people.

But he's being really martyrish about the whole thing. Either take it on and live with it or drop out. if the cricket team is that important to anyone they will step up and if it's not then let it die a death and turn the pavilion into a youth club

if it's not then let it die a death and turn the pavilion into a youth club

More likely, plough it all up and replace with a few hundred 'executive' houses.

Ridiculous as it is in this day and age, does anyone else think that this is precisely the sort of thing that shouldn't be dropped on people with no warning? Softly softly catchy monkey and all that!

Yes, he should have rounded up support before, planted loads of New members and made sure he got the vote he wanted. I have never ever done this on a committee honestly.

Delurking just to agree with how terrible Harrison is at getting people on side.

First (previous meetings) he should have been stoking up the worry about the future of the team. Going round everyone, especially potential trouble makers, saying 'I don't know what we're going to do', talking about folding. Then say 'of course, other teams are going mixed, so they're able to continue but we in Ambridge will need to fold'. And then finally going round everyone saying 'oh my goodness, how unexpected, people have been suggesting we go mixed like other villages do. Of course, we do see real talent in the single wicket, but I'd never really thought about it...'.

Absolutely, make them think it's their idea!