Pre-History

INTRODUCTION
The Popped Collars, as the "Popped Stats" blog recognises them, began playing in season 2009/10. But they were not a new team that simply came into existence at that point - rather they were the continuation of a team that had already been playing for several years. On the blog we record many of the statistics and stories of the Popped Collars, but only in their current incarnation; only from the time when we began to studiously collect the scorecards and stats, and from the time that the blog came into existence.

But what if we want to look back in time - before the detailed statistics, before this blog, before the collared shirts and the awesome logo? Some detective-work is required. I have begun doing some of that work, and I will share what I have found on this page.

I have not looked through everything that is available to me, and I have not yet asked for everyone else's input, so I will continue to update this page whenever I get around to finding more information. And if anyone else has any further sources, stories, evidence or memories of this team pre-September-2009, do let us know so it can be added to this historical record.


SOURCES
I have gathered information from 4 main places....
1. Old communications: including emails, text messages and Facebook posts.
2. The Wayback Machine website, which stores old versions of web pages (in particular, I'm looking at their various snapshots of the NICC website).
3. My large and erratic collection of old scorecards which includes a number from pre-Popped Collars teams.
4. My memory.

One day, if I feel inclined, I may go through this page and put links to references, and/or upload files showing where I got each bit of info from. But I probably won't.


THE BEGINNING
As far as I can tell, the team first played in the 2004/05 season (meaning that at the time of writing, it has existed for 10 years, or 20 seasons, in total). I believe the team was started by Simon Trevitt, and was mostly made up of engineering students from the ANU (along with others Simon knew). The only 2 people who remain from that original team are Sanjit and Gareth. Xavier was also an umpire at the time the team started, and was the next of today's players to join.

The team began life with the name Blue Metal Boarders. If anyone knows the meaning behind this name, I'd be interested to know. In the first season, the team played on Monday nights, at Lyneham, in "C Grade".


THE FIRST TEN SEASONS
The following table is a summary of all the main points I've been able to dig up on those early years

	Year	Team Name	Venue	Day	Grade	Shirts	Captain/ Manager
1	2004/05	Blue Metal Boarders	Lyneham	Monday	C	Blue*	Simon*
2	2005	Blue Metal Boarders	Lyneham	Monday		Blue*	Simon*
3	2005/06	Sticky Wicket*	Lyneham	Monday*			?
4	2006	Sticky Wicket	Lyneham	Monday			?
5	2006/07	Rather Be Jousting	Lyneham	Monday*	B (top)		Xavier*
6	2007	7 Easy Points	Lyneham	Monday	A*	Striped	Xavier*
7	2007/08	Not A-Grade	Lyneham	Tuesday			Xavier*
8	2008	No A-Grade	Lyneham	Tuesday			Xavier*
9	2008/09	Unclassified	(Both)	Monday		Purple	Xavier*
10	2009	Wake Up Jeff	Weston	Monday		Purple	X & Brad*

Anything marked with a * in the table are things that I have no hard evidence for, so I'm either relying on my own memory, or it's a value that seems a safe assumption given other information in the table. For example, the team name Not A-Grade was chosen in protest to being placed in the top grade when we were clearly not good enough, so I assume we were in A-Grade in the preceding seasons.

Speaking of legendary, here is a reminder of what the striped shirts of 2007 looked like...

Presumably the look on my face is a reaction to having to wear the shirt. Although, if memory serves me correctly, I was the one who selected and bought the shirts (and I think I specifically chose them because they were the most unattractive I could find).

PLAYERS OVER THE YEARS
It would be good to be able to track when each of our players joined the team, and how they were recruited (which existing player/s did they know beforehand). I haven't been able to do that myself, but I'm sure each individual person can give some information about themselves.

The earliest scorecard I have is undated, but is from the days of "Sticky Wicket", so probably from sometime in 2006. The players in that most ancient of games were:
Sanjit, Xavier, Brad (still playing)
Simon (original organiser/captain)
Geoff, Andy, Rob (former regular players)
Raif (probably a sub, possibly Xavier's housemate at the time)


NOTABLE EVENTS
Here's a list of random dates and events to do with the team that I've managed to find in old emails and online chats.

18 December 2006 - Everyone on the team wore Santa hats for this match.

February 2007 - The team played not only played two consecutive tied games, but both games had an identical score (99-99). One of the matches was on Feb 12, the other was probably Feb 5, but may have been Feb 19.

9 July 2007 - The oldest dated scorecard I have. Players were (in batting order) Xavier, Geoff, Gareth, Sanjit, Andy, Rian, Rob, Brad.


LATEST UPDATES
Following is a list of the latest updates made, and information added, to this page.

12/11/14 - Finally found evidence of the team being called "Rather Be Jousting". It seems to be an orphaned page from the NICC website, eternally stuck as it was on 12 May 2007.