BOWLED OVER
A passion for cricket can be all-consuming, and not just for those on the south side of the border
Alan Cochrane waxes lyrical about his passion for leather on willow
In a lengthy career, I’ve managed – by luck as well as judgement – to escape the more dangerous assignments that come the way of journalists. But I take my hat off to those of my ink-stained colleagues who venture into war zones to bring us first-hand accounts of the death and despair that appear to dominate today’s world. The closest this correspondent got to real-live action was covering the Falklands War from the old Annie’s Bar in the House of Commons where we political hacks were the first to find out from ministers that HMS Sheffield had been hit by an Exocet missile.
And as far as being in physical danger is concerned, my only experience of violence aimed at me (so far at any rate) came while covering a cricket match – and a Scottish Counties Championship match at that.
What happened was that Perthshire, always known as the Big County, so dominated this competition that on the day in question in the early ’70s they hadn’t lost a game for ten years. I was covering their encounter against Stirling County for the Sporting Post, Sunday Post and Courier (we worked hard in those days) in pouring rain and almost pitch darkness; Perthshire were batting and should have asked for – or been offered – ‘the light’. Instead, they batted on, were duly bowled out and lost.
Unhappily for me, t he public telephone was right outside the visiting team’s dressing room; after getting through to the copy-taker in Dundee I got as far as dictating my ‘intro’ along the lines of ‘ A sporting gesture by the Big County cost them their ten-year unbeaten record yesterday…’ when a muscular arm hauled me off the receiver with the words: ‘You lying bugger – we beat them fair and square!’ It seemed the Stirling players took exception to my report; to escape these unsporting censors I had to beat a hasty retreat to a nearby phone box to continue my unbiased account of the game.
Far from turning me against the sport, that unhappy experience merely cemented in me an undying love of cricket. I’m not alone: contrary to the opinion of much of the media, it is a hugely popular sport in Scotland. Its governing body, Cricket Scotland, oversees a lively and extensive sporting world, with 150 cricket clubs affiliated to it. Indeed, you’d be hard-pressed to pass a public park in Scotland from April to September without encountering a cricket match of some description in progress, and it’s a little-known fact that Scotland has more cricketers per head of population than England.
On the non-playing side the sport begets one of Britain’s best charities, the Lord’s Taverners, whose Scottish region does sterling work in supporting disabled athletes. In recent years it has donated three specially adapted accessible minibuses and at least 17 sports wheelchairs.
Such generosity is typical, in my view, of the sort of folk who gravitate towards cricket. I encountered many of their number during the 20 years I spent in their midst, mostly playing village green cricket in the borderlands of West Kent and East Sussex. The cricket was serious but not deadly, given how varied were the abilities of those taking part. And, even if things did occasionally get heated, all was settled nicely over a few pints of proper English ale in the local hostelry afterwards.
This was also where the forfeits were paid. Taking five wickets meant t he bowler had to buy a gallon jug of beer so that his team mates could toast his success. In my club it was dispensed in a watering can, being the only vessel available that held eight pints. Scoring a 50 also cost a jug, and so modest were my at-the-crease accomplishments that I had to stump up only once in 20 years, my half-century coming in a draw against the might of Chiddingstone Causeway back in the mid-1980s. It would be an exaggeration to say that this innings is ever discussed when the great men of cricket gather, but me? I can remember every run.