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Burnt to Ashes Traditional Cache

Hidden : 10/20/2010
Difficulty:
2 out of 5
Terrain:
2 out of 5

Size: Size:   small (small)

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Geocache Description:

Anyone for cricket or football or hockey or swimming or athletics or anything else that takes your fancy.
Come to Stirling's sporting centre.


This is a brand new cache available to be found and logged again.
It replaces the original Ashes cache which has been muggled twice.

Cricket is very simple. It is played between two sides - one out and the other in.
The side that’s in goes in and the side that’s out goes out and tries to get each man in the side that’s in, out.
When the side that’s in is out, then the side that’s been out goes in and the side that’s been in goes out, and tries to get the side coming in out.
Each man in the side that’s in goes in until he’s out.
When both sides have been in and out, including the not-outs, that’s the end of the game.

The Ashes may not be what you think either.

It is one of international cricket's most celebrated rivalries and dates back to 1882.

The series is named after a satirical obituary published in a British newspaper, The Sporting Times, in 1882 after a match at The Oval in which Australia beat England on an English ground for the first time. The obituary stated that English cricket had died, and the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.

The English media dubbed the next English tour to Australia (1882–83) as the quest to regain The Ashes.

During that tour a small terracotta urn was presented to England captain Ivo Bligh by a group of Melbourne women. The contents of the urn are reputed to be the ashes of an item of cricket equipment, possibly a bail, ball or stump.

Some Aborigines hold that The Ashes are those of King Cole, a cricketer who toured England in 1868. The Dowager Countess of Darnley claimed recently that her mother-in-law, Bligh's wife Florence Morphy, said that they were the remains of a lady's veil.

The urn is made of terracotta and is about six inches (150 mm) tall and may originally have been a perfume jar.



The urn is erroneously believed by some to be the trophy of the Ashes series, but it has never been formally adopted as such and Bligh always considered it to be a personal gift.

Replicas of the urn are often held aloft by victorious teams as a symbol of their victory in an Ashes series, but the actual urn has never been presented or displayed as a trophy in this way. Whichever side holds the Ashes, the urn normally remains in the Marylebone Cricket Club Museum at Lord's since being presented to the MCC by Bligh's widow upon his death.

Since the 1998–99 Ashes series, a Waterford Crystal representation of the Ashes urn has been presented to the winners of an Ashes series as the official trophy of that series.

Stirling Cricket Club relocated from their original home in June 2007 and although cricket is is not seen as a traditional sport in Scotland with "crowds" at a minimum it is hoped that this new site will attract more people to come and have a day out.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Orgjrra Unjgubea naq srapr.

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)