MY ONE AND ONLY CRICKET MATCH

I have only ever attended one day’s professional cricket in my entire life, and that’s most probably because someone else was paying. Many, many years ago, I had managed to pull enough wool over enough eyes that I was once considered to be good enough at the job I had back then to be rewarded for consistently being so good at it. That was then, as opposed to now where I spend every day in complete and utter fear that the developments in technology are going to become so unfathomable to me that I’m simply going to be left behind there with a permanent sense of bewilderment of the kind I last remember having during that endless “A” level Applied Mathematics exam back in ’82, (insert my own limited personal version of a ’Nam flashback here).

Old Trafford on a different day, but looking
much the same as I remember it

Anyway, because of whatever limited skills I once had, it was decreed that I should be allowed to attend the opening day of a test match at Old Trafford cricket ground with m’then current team leader, which was nice. It was the first day of the New Zealand match in their 1994 tour, and, because I’m me, I set off very early having dressed myself in my light linen suit and Panama hat ensemble that I deemed to be “suitable” even though I knew that most of my fellow audience members (I believe they should be referred to as “The Crowd” but I still tend towards theatrical terminology even with things like the “interval” at footballing events…) would be clad in the “tee-shirt and baseball cap” uniform that seemed to be the fashion of choice for such things back then.

I stopped off in town on the way to buy myself a radio (and some batteries which possibly cost more than the radio did) because I couldn’t imagine what sense a day at the cricket might make if I didn’t have my TMS pals to guide me along, and this turned out to be a very good thing, especially as it turned out that our seats were not in direct line of sight of any of the large TV screens in the ground.

As we took our seats and chatted away, the game began, almost without us noticing which seemed unusual, but I suppose the regulars get used to it. I do remember remarking that this was likely to be Graham Gooch’s last appearance in a test match at Old Trafford and joking that he’d probably be out for naught when he came out to bat, which he duly was a couple of balls later.

Sorry, Graham.

That rather astute insight into the run of the game was pretty much all I recall of that day’s play, although I probably do have the highlights on a tape somewhere, I’ve never actually watched them since that day. I’m sure we had a lovely lunch, and I do remember being terribly pleased when I spotted David Gower chatting to some people around the back of one of the stands when I went off on one of my little strolls. I also vividly recall the hideous smell coming from one of those cheap burger vans that dot themselves around the place at these kinds of events, although I can’t imagine what might possess anyone to actually buy and eat one of their products, but enough people must do, I suppose, to keep them in business. Finally I recall being crammed into one of the trams back to town after the event and I now realise, of course, that this probably played a big part in persuading me that I really, really, don’t like being in crowds.

I did wonder when I started to think about this today, whether this was the only sporting event that I have ever attended, but then I remembered that I had been to some more. Once upon a long ago, and, because it is the nature of things when you suffer a period of prolonged loneliness, I did attend one or two Ice Hockey games in order to spend some time with a young woman I was then quite eager to impress. I don’t think that it worked, really, as Ice Hockey never really steeped into my soul, and she left a message on my answerphone one Saturday not too long afterwards dumping me whilst I was out painting scenery in the theatre, ironically listening to the very same radio I bought for that cricketing game.

Fair enough, I suppose. I already suspected that I didn’t look enough like George Clooney anyway, but it wasn’t the best homecoming of my life.

Still, it all worked out for the best in the end, as the fates shuffled their deck and things turned out just fine eventually.

I also went to the horse races once as part of someone’s (I can’t remember whose) pre-wedding celebrations. A group of “blokes” in a minibus heading to the races might be one of those things that you regularly enjoy, but, if I’m honest, it wasn’t for me, and an older, wiser me might very well have declined the invitation. My main memory is of course that I don’t gamble, the beer was expensive despite being cheap and nasty, and the toilets were six deep with drunken blokes and stank to the rafters.

Nowadays, “sport” is something I enjoy via the radio, and, very occasionally, on television. The view is better, the food is better, the drink is cheaper, there are wise voices explaining what’s going on and I rarely end up ankle deep in urine, and that suits me just fine, although I suspect that it’s people like me who are killing sport stone dead by not supporting it properly.