THE KING AND I (BB02)

For some reason, I never much liked the sentence “I am a ___,” no matter which word or phrase completed it (and I’m sure people at Moddershall CC that know me have a few choice – mainly profane – options to hand, but I’m talking about careers or other forms of identity). It always seemed so fixed, so final, so definitive, and I had always liked eluding definition. Whatever you say I am, that’s what I’m not, as Arctic Monkeys put it. The other day, while trudging through a conversation’s introductory small-talk, someone I’d known for two gulps of lager asked me what I did (I presume he meant for a job). “I’m a cricket writer,” I said, without much thought. No sooner had it left my mouth, however, than I wanted to qualify it, de-glamourise it, be accurate – “It’s not regular work and I’m barely making ends meet”; “I’m freelancing at a time when journalism as a whole is struggling to pay the bills, what with all the free content on the web”; “I’m a chancer, a bum”; “I’m constantly having to think of ideas, pitching them to stressed editors, badgering stressed editors, annoying stressed editors, looking for other editors”. It feels like hard work, alright, but not like a job.  

Old friends at Moddershall may also say that if there was one thing I was expert at, it was avoiding work. At times, I’ve followed that famous maxim of Mark Twain: why put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after that. But it’s not true that I’m work-shy; I’m merely trying to avoid work that I dislike doing – which, given that I dislike most of it, is proving quite difficult. A real effort, in fact; pretty much a job.

Anyway, in January 2011, having finally submitted my PhD thesis (ten years, much extenuation) and while waiting for the viva voce exam (a two-hour interview with internal and external examiners, the latter an expert, to ensure you haven’t copy-pasted it off t’internet), I got involved as sports editor with a Nottingham magazine, Leftlion, my sole purpose being to wile away some time watching Notts from the comfort of the press box before the July Judgement Day arrived (it arrived the following January after Professor Beasley-Murray, University of Vancouver, also decided he didn’t like work, and went AWOL). Oh, and the odd free lunch.

That summer, I watched two days of the season opener against Hampshire and perhaps spent another dozen days down there, the highlight being seeing Trescothick make an imperious 80-odd in the same game that Kieswetter and Hales both made big, though less impressive, hundreds. While the standard was high, it was, apart from the T20 games, all snoozily low-key. Blasting Dizzy Rascal’s ‘Bonkers’ over the PA system (mandatory at T20) at a ‘Champo’ game might truthfully describe the few hundred sloppily shaven, biscuit crumb-covered men dotted about the ground, just out of range for small-talk with any other living soul whatsoever, but would, on balance, probably have been a little incongruous. 

view from press box at Trent Bridge

In any case, I grasped that this county reporting malarkey was a perfectly pleasant way to make a living (several hacks think Trent Bridge’s press box the best in the country, due to its perfect viewing angle and, crucially, having the canteen right behind it), even if it lacked real big-stage excitement. Last year, however, I got to feel what cricket writing could really be like as I covered the England versus West Indies Test down by the Trent for Spin magazine. 

After two days of sedate pre-game press conferences with coaches, skippers and the Duracell enthusiasm of Sky Sports’ Tim Abrahams, the game, at last, was upon us. I awoke as excited as if playing a title-decider or cup final. Nottingham basked beneath some late-May sun – it had rained for a week either side of this six-day period – and I, King Slugabed, eagerly caught tram and bus across the city, walked over the bridge through the buzz and swell of slowly lubricating supporters (even before 10am), had my ECB accreditation swiped, then went up to find my seat, fire up the laptop and, well, get some complementary food. Nom, nom.

The chalk-and-cheese difference in the bleachers from County Championship to Test was replicated within the press’s inner sanctum: where a county game might have ten there (the broadsheets, cricinfo, press officers for the two teams, OPTA), here around 70 of the 92 seats were taken. There were the Oxbridge-educated ex-internationals: Mike Atherton and Ed Smith (Times), Derek Pringle and Steve James (Telegraph), Mike Selvey and Vic Marks (Guardian); there were the correspondents, Peter Hayter, Stephen Brenkley, Paul Newman, the red-toppers John Etheridge and Dean Wilson; a couple of Caribbean scribes; reporters from press agencies (AP, AFP, Reuters) and websites and the other magazines; owlish Wisden editor Lawrence Booth; ECB employees; sponsors reps; plastic zebras; a scorer with a microphone, helpfully dispensing statistics. TVs were on and a masseuse right behind me soothed the probably-already-quite-relaxed muscles of MCJ Nicholas as he whispered his probably-minor stresses to her.

Notts had provided stewards to ensure there was no movement within (or traffic in and out of) the press box when the bowler was operating from our end, Radcliffe Road (which was, y’know, roughly half the time…). The lugubrious Pringle, keen to avail his massive heft of the masseuse’s kneading skills, tried to beetle along the row between deliveries, only to be admonished by some sergeant-majorly volunteer who set about explaining why the hacks couldn’t move. “Yes, thanks, I get it,” Pringle fired back, tersely. “I did play the odd game, you know. Here and there.” 

Derek Pringle bowls at whatsisname

Nasser Hussain would bob in between commentary stints, open his laptop, keeping himself to himself; Bumble occasionally shuffled in to sit next to his ghost writer, feeding him opinions and generally grinning (apropos of drawing breath); Mikey Holding dropped in now and then; Beefy remained up above somewhere. The canteen was full of people I had spent idle days watching when I ought to have been researching Peronist Argentina: Mark Butcher, relaxed as a pussycat, playing finger drums on the table; Alec Stewart carefully unfolding his napkin, neat and tidy as ever; Michael Vaughan, asking if he could borrow the salt and pepper. Aggers, Tuffers, Wardy, Simon Hughes buzzed through.

It was, I guess, an intimidating experience. Your eyes cast around for friendly faces, looking – hoping – for small-talk. I had an ice-breaking device (no, not an ice-pick) or two, however, inasmuch as I’d been collating questionnaires from cricket writers, which gave me an excuse to approach the seemingly more approachable characters. Amiable men I’d seen on the county beat – Andy Wilson and George Dobell – struck up conversation over lunch. I soon got into the swing (although the ‘work’ is much more intense, as the game seems to skip by) and was even able to steal 10 minutes with the doyen of Caribbean broadcasters, Tony Cozier, asking him why West Indies had so many players of Indian descent. While people are too busy to spend too much time away from their computers or microphones to chit-chat, I was, by and large, welcomed. I was even asked to do a Two Chucks 20-second slot on cricinfo after a close-of-play ‘presser’.

Fortunately, Spin also asked me to cover the (rain-ruined) Edgbaston Test, in which, you may recall, former Leek professional Tino Best broke the world record for highest Test score by a number 11, coming within five runs of a hundred. It was here that my other ice-breaker – a project about Minor Counties cricket’s acts of giantkilling – afforded me the chance to chat with Geoffrey Boycott, twice part of a Yorkshire team downed by amateurs: Durham (pre-first-class) and Shropshire. He very generously gave me 25 minutes of his time and, listening respectfully to my questions, was far from the strident, shouty curmudgeon he can occasionally be on TMS. Nor did he make any excuses about poor pitches or dodgy umpiring. “No, no. We were just rubbish”.

Yet perhaps the highlight of it all came amidst the long Edgbaston rain breaks. Having stockpiled my plate at the buffet, I found an empty seat next to an unattended, equally full plate. A mouthful or two of pasta later the inimitable figure of Sir Vivian Isaac Alexander Richards sidled up and sat down beside me. 60 years old and still with the figure of a middleweight boxer, he happily indulged my questions (I was being self-consciously blasé and casual about shooting the breeze with arguably the greatest batsman of the modern era). I got round to Tino, mentioned I’d faced him, said he didn’t get me out. Viv didn’t look particularly impressed. I told him I was a little afraid, mainly because Tino seemed capable at any moment of bowling a beamer off 19 yards, and I asked whether he himself – despite the gum-chewing gunslinger’s swagger, no helmet required – had ever been afraid. He finished what he was chewing. “Man, you face individuals like Jeff Thomson, Dennis Lillee, those guys, you going to be a bit afraid. But if you let them see it, oh boy, you’re a dead man. You gotta walk out there proud, in a fashion that says ‘I am Vivian Richards’, you know what I mean?”

I knew what he meant. I knew because I had played over a hundred Tests before my thirteenth birthday and, more often than not, had walked into bat saying to myself “I am Vivian Richards” (which must be why my default release shot was to try, with scant success, whipping length balls over mid-wicket).

Walk out there proud. Yeah.

This was my second offering for ‘Barnfields Buzz’, Moddershall CC’s newsletter. The first is here. Once again, the column appears to be twice as long as it should be. Next time, I promise…

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THE GRASS ISN'T ALWAYS GREENER... (BB01)

The upcoming season will be NSSCL’s fourth as an ‘open league’ for player payments, the fourth since the league’s management gave up the ghost / bravely faced up to the way the wind was blowing / abrogated its duties (delete as you see fit). I felt – and indeed wrote – at the time that the move might slowly corrode clubs’ identities by provoking increased player traffic (perhaps for the simple status of being paid) and diverting hard-earned revenues away from facilities, equipment and the basic administrative costs of running a club. Time will tell how it all pans out – I only played one year under the system – but in particular I felt that it could have a negative, destabilising effect on young cricketers, whose egos would no doubt be regularly massaged by rival captains seeking to strengthen yet unable to afford the going rate for proven players.

Of course, it was already becoming harder and harder to recruit top overseas talent: the encroachment of international cricket schedules on the English summer, then the T20 boom, meant that players from certain countries were less and less available, while fears surrounding international terrorism led to more stringent border controls and thus made visas harder to come by. So, clubs were already looking for local talent where once they’d shopped abroad.

On the face of it, this was a shame, since pitting your wits against international players is without question one of the treasures of club cricket. Then again, Moddershall’s ‘glory years’ – starting with three championships in four seasons – were ignited by a man who lived but three or four miles away, just about close enough to steer a van full of pottery clanking and clinking and chinking down Stallington Lane after a night of post-victory lubrication. That team – which did a lot of drinking together – featured such exceptional (cricketing) talents as Jon Addison, Iain Carr, Andy Hawkins and John Myatt, as well as several others more than capable of making the decisive contribution to the game. However, the wave of success finally crashed against the rocks in 2009, since which time it’s fair to say the club’s on-field stock has fallen a little with the 1st XI suffering one relegation and two near-misses without the playing strength of yore. The on-field struggles were mirrored beyond the boundary, where an air of neglect or shabbiness hung over the old pavilion.  

Nevertheless, as one era was breathing its last, the resolve, the will and the energies of folk at Moddershall who wished to revive the ailing patient and rebuild (literally) the club was already kicking in – new plans, new duties, new facilities, new fittings, new blood, new hope. People such as Jim Elton, Andy Housley, Andy Hawkins, Tricia Williams, Paul Bagnall and many others – people who, if sliced in half (heaven forbid!), would have CARPE DIEM running through them like sticks of Blackpool rock – have undertaken the many tasks, large and small, that slowly but surely shall see Barnfields – beautiful, glorious Barnfields – again become a stronghold of local cricket.

At the heart of that revival will be the plentiful young talent emerging through the club’s academy. Although my circumstances have taken me elsewhere, it was immensely heart-warming to drop in to Little Stoke en route from London to Nottingham last September to see Moddershall Under-17s pick up the final part of a treble in a season in which they swept all before them. A truly special achievement and, as a stick of Modd rock myself, one that I hope augurs well. All of which brings me back to where I started…

Had a team such as last year’s U17s emerged twenty years ago it would be almost guaranteed that they would stick together. And, provided they continued to improve as players, provided they became streetwise as competitors, it would be almost certain that they would go on to success together as seniors. No longer. 

Modd U17s: treble winners

As I say, the cash inducements of an open league bring destabilising effects – on young minds, on clubs’ planning. Bathing in sweet nothings all winter, it is easy to see how some youngsters might get an inflated sense of their ability (as opposed to potential), with themselves likely the biggest loser in it all. This is a simplification, of course: it isn’t always about status; in cash-strapped times, it may genuinely be about hard economic realities. Still, it’s easy to see how a club’s carefully cultivated fruits might be cherry-picked by a couple of Charles Darwins and an Adam Smith, after which there’s a revolving door, a dust cloud, and another search for players. In effect, the situation would be a mini-replica of player power in football.

However, there may be a lesson for Moddershall’s immediate future in the previous ‘golden era’. The nucleus of that team stuck together for twelve, fifteen years. We were mates – mates who squabbled and bickered at times, true, but mates. Without cricket, some of us may have had little in common, little to bind us, yet we looked forward to each other’s company, to practice nights as much as matches, to playing and, hopefully, celebrating together (the drinks then were not isotonic, nor even gin and tonic, but good old Jim’s Carling, otherwise known as “a pint of gloat”). It all mattered deeply to us and as a consequence victory was so much the richer. And at the heart of all that, I think, there was a subtle distinction in attitude: wanting to play a game of cricket on a Saturday, versus wanting to play cricket for Moddershall on a Saturday. (As I see the tots learning the joys and mysteries of cricket in their subsidised club kit, I feel happy that there are yet more sticks of rock being made.)

But that was then. To this emerging generation – cricketers who’ve already had some noteworthy successes in senior cricket (and whose relative failures are all assets in the bank) – I have a simple message: the grass is not always greener. In fact, it is unlikely that the grass, in a cricketing sense, will ever be as green as on that hilltop looking out over Shropshire, a view without equal in the whole of Staffordshire cricket.

From what I’ve seen and heard, this U17s group has the raw ability to build a great new era at Moddershall, a dynasty; they have the potential to propel the club on the same journey we made in the mid-nineties: from the lower reaches of the second tier to the top of the local pyramid. It’s an opportunity that doesn’t come along all that often (for some, never): the chance to savour victory with people you’ve struggled alongside not just for twenty-two matches, but for ten years. These will be some of the sweetest moments of your lives. Rolling from team to team for a couple of grubby banknotes and some well-practised flattery will be empty by comparison.

As the club dusts itself down, as new energy and new air breeze through old bricks and mortar, I’m reminded that everything has to adapt and change. That is life; that is nature. Moddershall CC is no different, a lesson that has been learned the hard way. Yet the principles of what makes team sport so rewarding – the camaraderie, the fighting for a common cause, mucking in – will endure, eternal as the Wrekin.

I hope very much that this generation can bring some magic back to this magical corner of the world and eventually become a legendary team. Irrespective of results, though, cricket – for all abilities – will continue at Barnfields. Or should. Recent history underlines that a club is only ever as strong as its members’ devoted efforts – a truth that’s physically embodied every time you see Jim get up to fetch you a strawberry whip or Tricia come bundling through the clubhouse clutching her papers – and a healthy club will only increase the chances of success on the pitch.

So, to finish by butchering a famous quote of JFK’s: ask not what your club can do for you, but what you can do for your club. With such an attitude, the greatest beneficiary will be your own cricket.

This was my first column for 'Barnfields Buzz', the Moddershall CC monthly newsletter. I had a fair bit to say this time but will try to keep it snappy hereafter. And for the pedants: yes, one of those three championships was Section B.

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