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i could snap back there Cork but always around 2k per day at the oval and festivals get pretty decent crowds
If the County Championship matches were held behind close doors would anyone notice the difference?
Cricket in excelsis: Grace Road, Leicester on a Tuesday afternoon in June; a handful of spectators, half of whom are asleep; the match petering out towards the inevitable draw…as Neville Cardus, the doyen of cricket writers sort of wrote but probably much more poetically
The cricket season would be starting around now: what glorious weather is being wasted
Lingfield, Newcastle and Hamilton Park have apparently been pencilled in for a programme of behind-closed-doors ‘hub’ racing. The former two seem obvious, being geographically strategic English AW tracks but anyone know why of the Scottish turf tracks Hamilton has been mooted ahead of Ayr and Musselburgh?
I haven’t been there so have no idea of its environs
Drone,
Hamilton has an on course hotel, as do Lingfield and Newcastle. The authorities are fixated with this idea of staff remaining on site for several days. The ‘plan’ involves big stables releasing stable staff to work full time at the racecourse. When you send your horse to run there, the trainer has to hand it over to one of the permanent on course staff at the stable entrance, and that person then looks after the horse, saddles it, washes it down afterwards etc. The trainer would not be allowed to enter the racecourse.
So it’s asking a small stable to pass their horse over to a total stranger that has never handled the horse before and hope for the best.
Here’s the Hamilton hotel info:
Hampton by Hilton Hamilton Park hotel
That’s a bit of a tongue twister. Say that after a few beers
It was just a light hearted quip about the cricket. Many is the time I have been in an almost empty Old Trafford watching Lancashire toil away. Much better when they play at Aigburth or Southport.
As Drone says, the season would have been underway now. My copy of Wisden arrived on Tuesday. At least I will have plenty of cricket to read about.
Thanks APR. Not entirely convinced this idea is a runner but at least it’s a plan of sorts in unprecedented circumstances, so credit where it’s due
Many is the time I have been in an almost empty Old Trafford watching Lancashire toil away. Much better when they play at Aigburth or Southport.
Yorkshire’s county championship matches at Headingley on a rum and raw tuesday tend to be rather grim days out. Much better at Scarborough, whatever the weather, and best of all at the late, lamented Harrogate which I believe is now a housing estate
Remember going to Bradford Park Avenue for a few one-dayers in the 80s. Highlights were Monty Lynch hitting about 130 with 9 sixes I think. Boycott replied with an equally majestic century although as you can imagine in every way different until he was run out by the bowler’s deflection at the non-striker’s end. Yorkshire still scraped home. Then Somerset in a JPL Sunday game when Richards and Botham were trying to clear the pavilion. Botham saying anything you can hit I can hit longer! I also think I saw Kevin Sharp score a century there. Think the ground closed in the mid to late 80s.
Out grounds are quite wonderful
Arundel has the reputation of being the most beautiful and I can see that but perhaps a little too perfect if that’s makes sense
Very attached to guildford which is my county’s ground. A thrilling compact venue
Perhaps my fav is the one I visited first time last year. Tunbridge Wells. I’m no Kent fan but this is a classic venue in every way
I went to Guildford once, always better when the sun shines and it was a belter that day. I can’t remember who won, think it was Somerset, I do remember Taunton legend Ian Bishop playing for Surrey at the time getting Jamie Cox out caught and bowled.
Bath festival was my local outground played on or next to the Rugby ground, I do miss that day out for the one day match.The trouble with getting sport started back up is I’d imagine they would need tests ready for the participants yet they took ages to get some for the frontline NHS staff. I’m not sure what the situation is at the moment regarding tests but it is shocking to see that gowns have run out..
Blackbeard to conquer the World
Lancashire’s main out ground – Aigburth in Liverpool – is superb. It is better than some counties main grounds.
When Lancashire won the title in 2011, the county played all its home games at Aigburth when Old Trafford was being redeveloped. This made a big difference because it allowed Lancashire to escape from one of its main foes – the Manchester weather!
Reading the new Wisden, there is an article that attempts to identify the champion county based on the results in all competitions since 1963. Lancashire has been declared the winner!
Remember going to Bradford Park Avenue for a few one-dayers in the 80s. Think the ground closed in the mid to late 80s.
It’s still there and used as a school sports ground. Yorkshire last played there in the mid ’90s
It was also home to Bradford Park Avenue (Bradford PA) football club who were a football league side, spending most of the time in the lower reaches of the old fourth division. After finishing bottom in 1970, they – as was the norm then – had to apply for re-election, and failed, being replaced by Cambridge United
My first visit to a county cricket match was at that other dual-purpose ground, Bramall Lane in Sheffield, which had no stand on the side between the football and cricket grounds. Cricket ceased there in the early ’70s and a stand was built to enclose the football ground
Abbeydale Park then became Yorkshire’s home in Sheffield and a grand little ground it is, though hasn’t been used for county games since approximately the same time they stopped using Bradford
It always seems to be Headingley these days with the occasional outing to Scarborough and, memorably, a visit to York last summer which was the first time there for 50 years or so
I enjoy cricket grounds almost as much as I do racecourses, more so in hot weather as I tend to sweat-up badly charging around racecourses in high summer
Chasers and hurdlers in winter; leather and willow in summer: the sporting life
Thanks for that Drone. I didn’t know they played until mid 90s. I remember going in the 80s and there were discussions then about BPA becoming defunct for YCC matches. I believe Bramall Lane was used as a Test Ground once back in the early 1900s. Harrogate was another ground they played at until the mid 90s it seems.
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