Sadly, back at base, there was no formal acknowledgement of his exploits in the south of Derbyshire as the VK Vodka Kick Award for Chesterfield’s Man of the Match is restricted to action at Queen’s Park and does not include battles in far-off places.

But immediately following the presentation of the Award for the Denby game to Ray Karim by Club President Jim Brailsford, there was an announcement of a Special Award in recognition of the Club’s new Premier best bowling return.

The Special Award took the form of a bottle of VK Pure Vodka. Recipient Tim Kirk is pictured alongside his wife Nikki with son Barney keeping tight hold of the famous blue bottle – even though club captain and vodka connoisseur David “Grizzly” Adams was away in a distant land.

Tim Kirk pictured at Chesterfield with wife Nikki and son Barney

Generous sponsors VK Vodka Kick have been assured that this extension of the scheme to cover new Club bests in the Premier League is unlikely to result in many beneficiaries. This is especially the case amongst batsmen who need to score an awesome 207 to beat Blackie’s best against Alvaston & Boulton last year.

That said, well-informed sources are confident that Chesterfield’s Somerset star will be putting in an appearance for his home-town team at some stage during the course of the season. Probably not next game, although Captain Grizz returns for the trip to Quarndon and Tim Kirk reverts to Captain of Vice.

Concluding the chronicles of Captain (for the day) Kirk, he was last seen setting off home with Nikki, Barney and the bottle of blue. So, no late night “Beam me up, Nikki” phone calls from Heathcoates Wine Bar to be logged this week.