The Teesra

Category: cricket

  • Review — Beastly Fury: The Strange Birth of English Football — be careful what you wish for!

    Review — Beastly Fury: The Strange Birth of English Football — be careful what you wish for!

    In the continuing debate about the future of professional cricket in England, there is an iconoclastic strand that would see the end of the “First Class” system — a big “no” to the elitist, closed shop of the MCC and the Counties.

    One repeated theme has been the need for an “FA Cup of cricket”, open to all teams, whether (old-style) County or club or, presumably, franchise.

    As if the model of professional football is somehow more equitable than the (admittedly flawed) First Class cricket and County system we have in England and Wales.

    So it was very interesting to read Richard Sanders’ Beastly Fury: The Strange Birth of English Football, to find out a bit more about the early years of the professional game in England.

    And it might appear that a little caution would be advisable!

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  • Back where it all started. And the importance of a hub for local cricket.

    Back where it all started. And the importance of a hub for local cricket.

    This week, I visited† the Ilford Cricket School, for the first time since I left school in 1980.

    Where I, and countless numbers of local school children, have been introduced to the game since the facility opened more than 70 years ago.

    The telephone number on the board by the front door has not updated since the “Big Number Change” in 2000, and some of the decor inside is possibly of the same vintage…

    Ilford Cricket School, January 2024

    But it’s an indoor facility where otherwise there was none back then.

    Where State schools and local clubs got to practice.

    It demonstrates perfectly, for me, the importance of a local hub, no matter how humble, in promoting and supporting the game.

    Would the London Borough of Redbridge be host to 7 Essex “Premier” clubs, each running three or more Saturday XIs and numerous junior sides, if the Cricket School had never found a home in Ilford?

    I rather doubt it.

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  • Time (again)

    I played my final game of the 2023 season last week.

    A disappointing exit from the National KO stages, although we did get to enjoy a rather charming (if slightly confused) away-day to Worcestershire for the Vase quarter final.

    Birlingham Cricket Club, venue for our final game of the season…shame we were sent to a different ground!

    After a Championship-winning season with the over 60s 4th team in 2021, and a barely believable glut of runs (by my standards, at least) in 2022, 2023 has been less fun.

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