Ed de Moura Correia

Flamingo since 1984

The tour giant

Contrary to how it often happens with cricket fanatics, Ed’s path to the king of sport came quite by accident. He had been playing football for a few seasons with VOC when Jan Bekker inspired him and his brother Victor’s enthusiasm for cricket. The Saturday after that meeting, Ed arrived on the field, dressed in white shorts, a white T-shirt and shiny Stan Smith tennis shoes. It was the beginning of a lifelong love affair.

At VOC he came under the care of Big Wignall who patiently taught him the basics of, and love for the game. Ed: "I turned out to have talent and was the subject of a bet between VOC icon Wally van Weelde and Martijn Wimmers. The first said that I would make my debut in the first before I was eighteen and the other disagreed. Fortunately for me, Wally was right. The team I ended up in counted illustrious players such as captain Tonny Bakker, René Schoonheim, Rob van Weelde, Jaap van Ouwerkerk and René van Ierschot. You can do a whole lot worse! 

Ross McLellan

In Ed's debut year in the first, no pros were allowed to participate, so West Indian Luther Wiltshire remained on the sidelines. A year later he was allowed to play and, partly due to him things started to go well for the VOC, which won the national title three times. "I still remember a game against VRA in 1978. The synthetic turf wicket played lousy and unpredictable, especially when it was wet in the morning. I made about twenty to the bowling of Peter Swart, but that performance apparently did not impress enough, because the following week I was number eleven. 

At my request I descended to the second. Luckily, Tony Opatha called me back to the first. Off against Bloemendaal, who had secured the services of Australian fastbowler Ross McLellan, who really was very fast, certainly by Dutch standards. He had already thrown some black and blue when I came in. My heart rate rose to astronomical heights. Luckily, I got McLellan's first ball on my bat quite a lot, so I could brave the attacking field and ended up at 59 not out. As Bert van Weelde was in even better shape (103 not out), you can say that after 40 for 5 we achieved an enormous recovery."

After VOC, Ed still played for Bloemendaal (4 years) and HCC (4 years), after which he returned to VOC where he became captain of the second. It was not a happy reunion, because it took the greatest effort to get his team staffed. Sometimes he needed more than sixty players in a season. Things become more pleasant for him afterwards at VRA, where he now takes care of the youth coaching and played in the second. A pleasant end to his active career.

The most beautiful cricket ground

In 1984 Ed becomes a Flamingo member and later also the MCC and The Free Foresters. He toured extensively and saw impressive and picturesque cricket grounds around the world: Arundel, Hagley Hall, J.P. Getty and, perhaps best of all, the more than scenic field of the Marchwiel & Wrexham Cricket Club near the Marchwiel Hall Estate at Wrexham in North Wales. It is privately owned by John Bell, once a leg spinner of some note, but later a little less mobile due to a rather considerable weight gain. "Marchwiel should be imagined as a mix of J.P. Getty's field and Arundel. It has a lovely little pavilion, an arboretum and an opening through the surrounding trees gives a beautiful view of the Welsh hills. There were also beautiful fields at Public Schools such as Wellington College, Repton and Eton. In that respect I have not lacked for anything in my life. A strange location where I played with the Flamingos is Corfu. It was a kind of parking lot in the middle of the city with, when playing, a sign at the entrance would say: Cricket is taking place here. Park at your own risk!'

A tour from the beginning of this century is still etched in Ed's memory. "One of the clubs we played against was The Butterflies. Before reporting to the field, we picked up Maurits van Nierop from the train. He was playing for the MCC Young Professionals at the time and would give us the necessary batting backbone. He had just scored a century for MCC against Essex's Second XI, so that was promising. 

When we started, the tour turned out to have been too tiring for some, because quite a few catching opportunities remained unused, which for a kind of village idiot at the boundary gave rise to a lot of screaming. Staggeringly, he entered the field as number eleven, where he was also very annoying. At first, we let go of our spinners on him, but as he continued to taunt, and after a final gentle warning to his captain, we moved on to the faster work. The village idiot was shocked by this. Can somebody bring my box, he exclaimed! His protection did not help him, because he was out quickly thereafter. Later this strange guy turned out to be an ex-Member of Parliament. Despite our poor fielding, his team only made it to a run of 120, a total that we passed effortlessly through a nice 85 not out from Maurits."

Harry Verspyck

Finally, Ed would like to mention a person with love; and that is scorer Harry Verspyck. In 1996, 75 years of the Flamingos was celebrated by playing at Lord's. Harry was in the old scorer's booth, built into the Grandstand, which was demolished the next day. He was the last scorer to have worked there, a nice claim to fame. "All in all, I can see that things are fortunately different for the Flamingos than in the past. Back then it was more a mixture of a lot of old and a little bit of young, while now there has been an increase in young players. Membership is also no longer reserved for just a few clubs and there are female members who give the club colour. I think that's a very good development."