It's back to 1980 and Ireland's first competitive match in the Gillette Cup against a star-studded Middlesex side that contained nine Test players which is the favourite match for Ian Johnston.

'Jonty' played his club cricket in the NCU with Woodvale, going on to make 15 appearances for Ireland between 1979 and 1983. He coached and managed a succession of Irish youth sides, and also filled a variety of roles with the senior side including analyst. He is an integral member of the CricketEurope team, where his photographs, articles and audio interviews at all levels add to the rich tapestry of the website.

It was a chance meeting thirty eight years after they faced each other in Ireland first 'competitive' fixture at the ban-tampering Test Match in Capetown that caused Ian Johnston and Vintcent van der Bijl to relive what so easily could have been a 'finest hour' contender and which prompts the following recollection.

Things were different in 1980 - not only are there no colour photographs of the match there appear to be no black & white ones either!

The match was in the Gillette Cup, rebranded as the NatWest Trophy the following year and was a 60 match with both lunch and tea intervals scheduled.

Billed as a one-day match there were in fact three days allocated to complete it - as I said things were different then.

Preparation was as minimal as was usual then, fly to London the day before the game, a couple of hours at the Indoor School with bowling machines wound up to maximum in anticipation of the barrage to come.

That most generous of Presidents JS Pollock hosted a dinner at the Cricketers' Club which helped lighten the atmosphere in which 'black humour' abounded, and the evening ended with his promise that a victory would see us all back the next night for the party to continue.

The Middlesex lineup was a stellar one, nine Test payers, a 10th who had played ODIs and Van Der Bijl who had been selected for the ill-fated D'Olivera tour and would have played subsequently but for South Africa's exclusion.

On arrival we saw that the pitch being prepared was well 'up' the square with a short boundary on the Grandstand side, it was 'Only Ireland' after all. Mike Brearley arrived at the middle and ordered the game to be moved to a pitch that had only seen one session's play in three days of a washed out Varsity Match and which was one-up from the Test strip.

With John Elder taking ill after the previous night's dinner there was one late change to the Irish line up, Alan (Milky Bar) Hughes flying in arriving at the hotel at 3.00am. In the event he could have had an extra hour in bed as there was a 50 minute delay as to allow some damp patches to dry - perfect batting conditions?

Ireland win the toss and against everyone's expectations skipper Monteith decide to bat first! At seven for two after four overs with Michael Reith and Ginger O'Brien gone, it was a tremendous partnership of 68 between Jack Short and Ivan Anderson that steadied the ship taking on the pace of Wayne (The Diamond) Daniel and the spin of John Emburey, only for both to fall to the little medium pace 'wobblers' of Mike Gatting.

Deryck Harrison and I nudged singles and the occasional two at less that two an over till with the score at 99/4 and 13 overs remaining Demott's patience was exhausted. With a wave of his bat he signalled for the acceleration and 99/4 became 102 all out!

Van der Bijl had taken 4-0 in 11 balls and finished with 5-12 in 10.4 overs as six wickets fell for only 3 runs.

The Middlesex reply got off to a slow start against Simon Corlett and Alan Hughes and it was 17/1 when Michael Halliday replaced Hughes at the Pavilion end. He had immediate success with Ginger catching Clive Radley at leg slip, quickly followed that by bowling Gatting and had Roland Butcher caught at short mid-wicket.

67/5 was as good as it got for us, Halliday had bowled his 12 overs and taken 4-22, and limped off to receive treatment having been hit on the foot while batting. At the other end Monteith went wicketless and Halliday's replacement Ivan Anderson's off-spin also proved to no avail. A missed stumping off Graeme Barlow and some hard hitting from van der Bijl saw a relieved Middlesex get home by 5 wickets - so near and yet so far.

It was to be seventeen years before Ireland won a competitive match in the 1997 Benson & Hedges victory over the same opponents.

1980 was Vincent Adriaan Peter van der Bijl's only season in county cricket in which he was named as one of Wisden's 'Five Cricketers of the Year'. Middlesex dominated the season winning both the Gillette Cup and the county Championship.