Darters is one of the club's longest serving members. His stewardship of the 2s was a credit to both himself and the club for many seasons. He is from the Mike Brearley school of captaincy in that he often shuns orthodoxy in exchange for adventure and intuition.

Darters' batting skills are somewhat enigmatic and again demonstrate his love of the unorthodox. He appears to have mastered the reverse pull and the reverse sweep but I have never seen him play their conventional counterparts.

His bowling can at best be described as unusual. However, he boasts an impressive strike rate and is adept at sweeping up some of the less gifted tail ends on his annual outing as a bowler.

Inter alia Darters main attributes are his understanding of the importance of placing village events in a historical context and his firm right wing political views. He has a love of Lady Thatcher that is second only to my own; he has little sympathy with beggars, the infirm and the north. In many ways Ian was the Lord Liverpool of the 2s; capable of balancing and uniting a variety of firebrands under his subtle leadership. I only hope that he does not have a severe cerebral haemorrhage and drop dead like Lord Liverpool on one of his many, unexplained, trips to Leamington Spa.