Many have come to Rome seeking spiritual guidance: Thomas à Becket, Lord Byron, Lionel Richie. I came for a different purpose: to defend a papal cricket trophy. I am not Catholic. And until last year I had never played cricket before.

It all started, as many great British stories do, with a pub: the Three Stags in Kennington. My friend Tom had invited me to what he described as a ‘Cricket Club Party’. As I headed upstairs, the barman’s quizzical look when I mentioned I was there for ‘the party’ should have given me cause for concern. As I came in through the doors, I was greeted by what appeared to be the end of a Sunday lunch and a collection of six individuals for whom the collective age would have been a record-setting Test score. The only exception was Tom (28) who excitedly rushed over to tell me how delighted he was that I was here for the ‘Emeriti Cricket AGM’.

I was hustled to the table and squeezed in between two elderly gentlemen, one of whom was halfway through a roast beef lunch and the other whom I managed to immediately offend with a joke about the north. While the chairman or president or some other functionary (I missed his intro as I was still apologising for the joke) began to outline the history of the club and its great outreach work with Catholic schools, I realised I was in unfamiliar waters. When the roast beef gentleman asked about my Catholic credentials, I said that I went to school in the shadow of a Catholic church. That would technically have been true if the church had been slightly larger and the shadow slightly longer. Thankfully, we were interrupted by a vote to ratify the upcoming season’s schedule, including a match against the Vatican XI at Douai........

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