That Will Be England Gone by Michael Henderson

Author:Michael Henderson [Henderson, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography, Autobiography, Memoir, Sport
ISBN: 9781472132864
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2020-04-29T23:00:00+00:00

VI

Summer Nocturne

Leicester, The Oval

I t is a sweltering day at Grace Road, the hottest of the year, and the forecasts indicate that winds from north Africa are pushing more heat our way before the week is out. In old money it’s touching 90 °F, and it feels uncomfortably humid as Leicestershire and Yorkshire knock up on a summer-brown outfield before this Vitality Blast match, which starts at 6.30.

The knockers-up are the T20 cricketers, not all of whom feature in the championship. The Vitality Blast requires a different kind of player, some brought in specifically for this competition, which will occupy them for the next five weeks. It’s really a season within a season, with the four semi-finalists playing off at Edgbaston on 21 September.

Nicholas Pooran, the West Indies left-hander known for his mighty hitting, has boosted the Yorkshire ranks, and Dom Bess, the off-spinner, has been signed on loan from Somerset. Not that they are called Yorkshire in this giddy romp. Their designated name is Yorkshire Vikings, which is less absurd than Lancashire Lightning, if only by the width of a stump. The home side, naturally, answer to the Foxes.

Officially this is now the Fischer County Ground. Few people beyond the club offices, situated next to the dressing rooms, know it by that name. To the world at large it remains Grace Road, twinned with Desolation Row. Hemmed in by streets of mainly terraced houses, a mile south of the city centre, this is the most functional ground in England. It may be only 30 miles from Trent Bridge but in this celebratory week, when the world is marking the fiftieth anniversary of the first moon landing, the distance seems lunar.

Even on pleasant days this can seem the most forlorn of homes, and over the years it has attracted some odd folk. The baronet who used to take pot shots at balloons that floated over his estate, pretending they were zeppelins. The bedraggled member who wore his lunch on his shirt, and lurched through the gate by the Cricketers Arms with the cry, ‘I’m on me way!’

In the 1970s, when Raymond Illingworth brought himself on for an exploratory over of off-spin ahead of Jack Birkenshaw, to see if the pitch was turning, this man would shout: ‘Get Birky on!’ If championships were awarded for contributions to care in the community, Leicestershire might have won as many titles as Yorkshire.

The people who have given their lives to this club deserve the highest praise. Charles Palmer leads the list. He served Leicestershire as captain and then, in retirement, as secretary, chairman and president. He also served as president of MCC. Without men such as Palmer and Mike Turner, who did a long term as secretary, in the days before chief executives, clubs such as Leicestershire would not exist.

One can only commend the men and women who gather here in the summer months, striving to keep cricket alive for a constituency so small it may be measured in hundreds. The membership is just over a thousand.

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