Last-Wicket Stand: Searching for Redemption, Revival and a Reason to Persevere in English County Cricket by Clarke Richard

Author:Clarke, Richard [Clarke, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781785317217
Publisher: Pitch Publishing
Published: 2020-07-27T05:00:00+00:00

The Grumbler

In June, I received an email on my Grumbler email address. It was from a production assistant at BBC Essex, the local radio station that covers the club. They had supplemented the excellent ball-by-ball coverage they began producing a decade or so ago with a Saturday afternoon cricket show, called Around the Wicket . It covered Essex CCC and the local leagues showing admirable enthusiasm in both areas. As a regular emailer to the ball-by-ball commentary team and vociferous Twitter user they wanted to talk to me as part of their regular Speak to the Fans slot. Little did they know that this request would force a change of direction for me.

I had always been pretty cautious about revealing my identity. The whole Grumbler persona had started when I had been asked to write a column for the club website. I thought a character would be better than straight think-pieces so I plumped for a name that was a gentle dig in the ribs at the stereotypical county member. I started a Twitter and Facebook account in the same name and kept them up even when my work with the county stopped.

Having previously held back from using social media in anything but sedate ways, I enjoyed the anonymity my handle gave me. I protected it. Part of the appeal of attending Essex games was the fact that I was doing my own thing, utterly and completely. Hiding your real identity was fine for the first decade or so but, in the last few years, social media had changed. Anonymity started to be considered sinister and dangerous so, for example, when I tried to restart my Facebook account after it fell into misuse, new regulations forced me to reveal more personal details than I wanted. I opted out.

The production assistant from the BBC also wanted to know my real name. Quite rightly, the corporation have strict guidelines on giving a voice to anyone who is unknown. I thought about declining the interview but then, I was hoping this manuscript would turn into a book and, although I could ‘do a Belle de Jour ’ and go under a nom de plume, it seemed a little self-important. This is only county cricket after all. In the end, the deciding factor was accountability. My tone of voice is about guarding the spirit of the game. County cricket means something to myself and many, many other fans in England. Despite the bedrock of humanity at the heart of the game, I feel that a vocal minority of football fans could not care less about anything except their team’s success. I had views about English cricket, strong yet open ones that were hopefully worthy of discussion. Anonymity had given me a little more confidence to be open and forthright. However, these days it was not enough.

I had been stringent about avoiding Twitter rows to the extent that I put it in my bio. Partly because it is often needless grandstanding that brought out the

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