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I Wanna Tell You a Story

Oh yes I'm the great pretender
Pretending I'm doing well
My need is such I pretend too much
I'm lonely but no one can tell

Oh yes I'm the great pretender
Adrift in a world of my own
I play the game but to my real shame
You've left me to dream all alone
Words from the 1956 No.1 hit by The Platters

Continuing our trawl through the fantasy-land of BSK's emails, we came upon this gem. He was invited to speak at the Cricketers Club of London's Last Tuesday in the Month luncheon and, to whet the appetite of the assembled masses (the smallest attendance ever) he offered up these bons mots so that everyone would realise they were dealing with a serious player

From: "Barrie Stuart-King" barrie.stuart-king@club-cricket.com
To: name withheld
Subject: August LTITM BS-K Biog Notes
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 12:24:13 +0100
Dear *****
Copy as requested. Hack about and edit as you wish.
Barrie
BARRIE STUART-KING

Biographical Notes

Barrie currently wears two hats. He is the full-time Chief Executive of the Club Cricket Conference - an organisation that provides a wide range of support services to - and look after - a membership of almost 1500 recreational cricket clubs throughout the South of England and who have the foresight and good taste to use exclusively the Cricketers Club as their venue for all Meetings.

He is also Chairman of the Association of Cricket Umpires & Scorers that has a membership of 9,000 and, since he was elected in 2000, have emulated the foresight and good taste of the CCC and also hold all their meetings in the Cricketers Club. Indeed, Barrie sees both the CCC and ACU&S as major investors in both the CC and the oddly-named Tony Joyce Holiday and Benefits Fund!

When are you going to settle your gargantuan lunchtime debts at the CCL, Barrie?

As Chief Executive of the CCC, he has not exactly endeared himself to the ECB by his trenchant attacks on what he and his colleagues consider to be the unacceptable and unaccountable domination of the 18 First Class County Clubs - the ECB First Class Forum - over all aspects of Cricket; in particular their absolute control of the game's fnding and their failure to support adequately the non-professional section of the game. Barrie has been instrumental in the formation of the National Association of Clubs & League Cricket Conferences, a joint-venture between the CCC, the Leagues Cricket Conference and the Midlands club Cricket Conference, designed to integrate their activities under one umbrella. When formally launched in October, the NACLCC will provide wide-ranging support and representation services to some almost 4,000 recreational clubs. It will also become the powerful representative voice of club cricket in England & Wales

Such a powerful voice, indeed, that it vanished off the face of the earth without ever trading - although that last bit is a matter of conjecture.

(Note: Barrie has requested that Members here present not be advised that Charlie Puckett is a member of the CCC; it's something they wish to keep quiet.)

So quiet in fact that they promoted him to the position of Vice-President just four months later - just another example of the perspicacity of our fallen leader.

As Chairman of the ACU&S, he is well-known for his uncompromising stance that ALL Umpires - at all levels - should to be qualified through formal training, examinations, regularly assessments and a national/ international grading system; but, most particularly the First Class List and the ICC Elite 8/11. He also holds firm views about the role of technology in support of Umpires. Barrie is a practising Umpire, standing principally in the Surrey Championship Premier League, but also in national knockout and other competitions including the Evening Standard.

His views on technology to support umpires? Sign them up to equipment they cannot afford to pay for and lie to them constantly.

(Note: Barrie has asked that it not be broadcast that Charlie Puckett is also a member of the ACU&S; it's not something one really wants to admit in such august company).

As a qualified electrical engineer and prior to his total immersion in cricket, Barrie was, for 24 years, a Projects Manager, later Projects Director, for several high-value SCADA - Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition Systems projects - on major off-shore oil and gas production and onshore pipeline distribution projects in India, China, Iraq-Turkey, the United States, UK (Morecambe Bay Gas Field) et al.

Name them, Barrie, name them. We are quite certain that even a shy, retiring type such as Barrie S. King (as he was known then - in fact, as he was known when he first registered with London Region) would have given the names of his former companies - if only to shut us up - if they ever existed. As an aside, the gentleman who started the Morecombe Bay project for British Gas went seamlessly from there to becoming Chief Executive of British Gas: still, Barrie went on to become Chief Executive of the Club Cricket Conference so there is a sort of symmetry there, somewhere.

He admits that his biggest mistake in life was resigning from the Fleet Air Arm in 1966 just as Healey announced the scrapping of the carriers. However, always passionate about the Ark Royal, when she was paid off for scrapping he mounted a 2-year campaign to save her and put her at Greenwich. His Project team included Admiral Sir Raymond Lygo (her ex-captain and, at the time, MD of British Aerospace Missiles Division), Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Smeeton; the Earl of Kimberley and many others. They raised US$60 million but were thwarted by the sheer deviousness of the MoD, a Department of Government that Barrie, to this day, holds to be the most morally corrupt and incompetent.

So that's The Times saying $13 million, another article saying $100 million and now a happy medium of $60 million. Must have been some career - born in August 1943; resigned from the Fleet Air Arm just 23 years later before he could quite make it to Admiral of the Fleet; qualified as an electrical engineer and gained the necessary experience to ensure companies fell over themselves to headhunt him; Chief Executive of the Club Cricket Conference for 4 years; unemployed for 18 months, as per an email in our possession (we keep telling you we have these emails - believe it!); and now unemployed (as far as is known) since 18th March 2005. And he's still only 63!! Surely somebody can offer him a role - Fire, Auto and Marine, perhaps?

Incidentally, Barrie, sources at Staines Rugby Club ask us to get you to tell us about your career afloat in the Sunbury Sea Scouts as Lord High Admiral - we're on the case!

Shortly after this, Weetabix offered him £200,000 to put together a top-class coaching team - headed by Alan Davies, then the England 'B' Coach - who, over a period of two years based in the United States, would teach rugby to the American Military. The deal included the provision of a 3-storey condo in Palm Harbour Florida, (near Clearwater Beach) and long hauls down Pacific Highway 1 in a 52' fully-fitted Winnebago coaching (7- day programmes) to the US Army, Navy, Coast-Guard, Marine Corps, Airforce and several of the major Universities, eg. UCL. But that's another story!

Enquiries are on-going but the Department of Defense seem to know little about him. This last part rings more true - friendly fire; scatter-gun approach; shoot first, ask questions later; lack of meaningful intelligence - it all begins to make sense BUT who taught whom?

Barrie writes all this and forgets to mention his life-long friendship with a six-foot high white rabbit called Harvey!