It's Sunday morning and while eating my breakfast I had a flashback to those wonderful days when I was a kid.
On Sundays in the summer one of three things happened. We might jump into Dad's Ford Anglia and hit the highways and byways of Derbyshire. This was great fun, and even now I never tire of a trip to Matlock Bath, Castleton, Buxton, Dovedale and all the rest. In my memory it is always a glorious day, the radio is playing songs from the summer of love (I Can't Let Maggie Go, Everlasting Love, Lets Go To San Francisco) and I'm wondering how Derbyshire are doing.
An alternative was going to the cricket, a day that was "enlivened" by the jobsworth stewards that we had at that time. According to them, you couldn't park/sit/walk/breathe there and no Sunday was complete without seeing someone fall out with them. Derby was always a popular spot, and we'd park up on the mound and get there early to be next to the boundary, but Chesterfield was always my favourite. The ground was in a park, the miniature railway was an option in the lunch interval and there was always the chance of a bat on the grass.
I always fantasised about the skipper of the time seeing my silky shots and sending someone down to ask me to play as they were short. For some reason it never happened, but I lived in hope. We'd sit either opposite the scoreboard or just in front, depending on where we could get closest to the boundary, but we eventually settled on a spot by the sightscreen, where you could see the ball from the batsman's perspective if you had good eyesight.
Memory is a funny thing. While it suggests that we did OK, a check of Wisden shows that we lost many more games than we won, mainly because we were, for the large part of my childhood, rubbish. Only when Eddie Barlow came did we really pick up, but from 1967-73 we were an average side. I'll make honourable exception for Ian Buxton's side of 1970, when we mounted a good Sunday campaign, but it was a very brief shining moment in a long period of darkness.
Sundays at home were great though. After the traditional Sunday dinner, we'd settle down in front of the TV and watch Sunday League cricket. Terrestrial TV, full games - what more could you want? It was a golden age where, as soon as you saw who was on, your mind would go into overdrive. The captions would come on and, while you hoped it might be Hampshire v Derbyshire from Southampton or somewhere, you were thrilled whoever it was.
Kent v Lancashire. That'll be Luckhurst, Denness, Cowdrey, Ealham, Asif, John Shepherd, Knotty, Underwood! Oh great, and Faroukh Engineer, Barry Wood, little Harry Pilling, Clive Lloyd, John Sullivan, Frank Hayes, Peter Lever and so on. Change the teams, change the names, the ritual was the same and you'd curl up in the armchair and await developments.
Its funny, it was always "little Harry Pilling". No one ever said "lanky John Graham" or "gangling Brian Brain" but Harry always had a prefix to his name. I don't suppose he minded though, as the commentators were usually the dream team of John Arlott and Jim Laker. The former, all gravelly burr with a rich fund of anecdotes, the latter minimalist in his comments but extremely authoritative. With Jim a picture painted a thousand words, whereas John painted a picture with a thousand words. Together they were superb, and leave today's counterparts (Messrs Benaud and Boycott apart) mere imitators.
As the game wore on, you'd get the latest scores from elsewhere, and you'd sit up, cross all fingers and hope Derbyshire were doing well (this was pre-teletext for the younger readers!)
By halfway you'd be hopeful. Northants 171-8 in 40 overs. We could get them. We'd reassure each other, so-and so's due an innings, he 's in good nick, they've no bowlers, but the first update was often that Derbyshire were 63-4 in 19 overs. OK, we could still get them, you'd work out who would be in with four down (and were usually wrong when you checked the papers next morning) and wait for a late order onslaught.
The next update would show that we were 117-8 after 36 overs. Still a chance, it's only 14 an over...
So it went on. Sundays were great, unlike today when you get an afternoon of assorted minor sports from around the globe and domestic cricket gets 60 seconds of highlights on Sky Sports News if you're lucky. There's games on Sky if you can afford the subscription and don't mind a dustbin lid on the side of your house for the signal, but it's really not the same.
Still, there's always teletext updates. But that's another story.
On Sundays in the summer one of three things happened. We might jump into Dad's Ford Anglia and hit the highways and byways of Derbyshire. This was great fun, and even now I never tire of a trip to Matlock Bath, Castleton, Buxton, Dovedale and all the rest. In my memory it is always a glorious day, the radio is playing songs from the summer of love (I Can't Let Maggie Go, Everlasting Love, Lets Go To San Francisco) and I'm wondering how Derbyshire are doing.
An alternative was going to the cricket, a day that was "enlivened" by the jobsworth stewards that we had at that time. According to them, you couldn't park/sit/walk/breathe there and no Sunday was complete without seeing someone fall out with them. Derby was always a popular spot, and we'd park up on the mound and get there early to be next to the boundary, but Chesterfield was always my favourite. The ground was in a park, the miniature railway was an option in the lunch interval and there was always the chance of a bat on the grass.
I always fantasised about the skipper of the time seeing my silky shots and sending someone down to ask me to play as they were short. For some reason it never happened, but I lived in hope. We'd sit either opposite the scoreboard or just in front, depending on where we could get closest to the boundary, but we eventually settled on a spot by the sightscreen, where you could see the ball from the batsman's perspective if you had good eyesight.
Memory is a funny thing. While it suggests that we did OK, a check of Wisden shows that we lost many more games than we won, mainly because we were, for the large part of my childhood, rubbish. Only when Eddie Barlow came did we really pick up, but from 1967-73 we were an average side. I'll make honourable exception for Ian Buxton's side of 1970, when we mounted a good Sunday campaign, but it was a very brief shining moment in a long period of darkness.
Sundays at home were great though. After the traditional Sunday dinner, we'd settle down in front of the TV and watch Sunday League cricket. Terrestrial TV, full games - what more could you want? It was a golden age where, as soon as you saw who was on, your mind would go into overdrive. The captions would come on and, while you hoped it might be Hampshire v Derbyshire from Southampton or somewhere, you were thrilled whoever it was.
Kent v Lancashire. That'll be Luckhurst, Denness, Cowdrey, Ealham, Asif, John Shepherd, Knotty, Underwood! Oh great, and Faroukh Engineer, Barry Wood, little Harry Pilling, Clive Lloyd, John Sullivan, Frank Hayes, Peter Lever and so on. Change the teams, change the names, the ritual was the same and you'd curl up in the armchair and await developments.
Its funny, it was always "little Harry Pilling". No one ever said "lanky John Graham" or "gangling Brian Brain" but Harry always had a prefix to his name. I don't suppose he minded though, as the commentators were usually the dream team of John Arlott and Jim Laker. The former, all gravelly burr with a rich fund of anecdotes, the latter minimalist in his comments but extremely authoritative. With Jim a picture painted a thousand words, whereas John painted a picture with a thousand words. Together they were superb, and leave today's counterparts (Messrs Benaud and Boycott apart) mere imitators.
As the game wore on, you'd get the latest scores from elsewhere, and you'd sit up, cross all fingers and hope Derbyshire were doing well (this was pre-teletext for the younger readers!)
By halfway you'd be hopeful. Northants 171-8 in 40 overs. We could get them. We'd reassure each other, so-and so's due an innings, he 's in good nick, they've no bowlers, but the first update was often that Derbyshire were 63-4 in 19 overs. OK, we could still get them, you'd work out who would be in with four down (and were usually wrong when you checked the papers next morning) and wait for a late order onslaught.
The next update would show that we were 117-8 after 36 overs. Still a chance, it's only 14 an over...
So it went on. Sundays were great, unlike today when you get an afternoon of assorted minor sports from around the globe and domestic cricket gets 60 seconds of highlights on Sky Sports News if you're lucky. There's games on Sky if you can afford the subscription and don't mind a dustbin lid on the side of your house for the signal, but it's really not the same.
Still, there's always teletext updates. But that's another story.
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