Adapted from A Critics’ Corner (Chapter 3).
I was prompted to revisit this as I opened the door one morning last week to that unmistakably fresh feel of autumn.
Soon it will be time to pack the cricket gear away again, sun-block hardly touched, discard the empty ibuprofen packets and reflect as another year passes by without an England call.
Simultaneously, up and down the country kids will be waking up to the prospect – some with sheer dread – of a new school as the dew glistens on fresh grass in the chill morning sun.
Many moons ago I was one of those kids walking into the unknown, literally bricking it.
Cricket and a small club with a big heart probably saved me when I most needed it but to this day I have absolutely no idea how I became obsessed with this beautiful game.
This maddening game is something you either love or hate and the average club cricketer is never far from some form of mental breakdown at some point in the English summer caused by either bat, ball or blind umpires.
As passions go, only Kylie Minogue ever rivalled it but even she had a shelf life.
A uniquely quirky game, sons and daughters used to follow mums and dads from match to match, picking up skills almost unwittingly. Whole summers unwound as willow caressed leather, observing the language of cricket with “silly mid ons” and “square legs” dicated by mad captains.
We were sustained by glorious teas, cold pop, stolen chocolate bars and colourfully embellished tales in great company.
Today, with almost no school sport left in the state system, this unique game is dying as surely as a beautiful women loses looks that once caused heads to turn at will.
Strangely, I cannot claim any real parental inspiration for my love of cricket but without my mum and dad it would have been impossible. They ferried me all over the place and, without being over bearing, took a real interest in junior life at the Villas.
As for the Villas, if the schoolyard was tough from time to time, that hidden oasis of green was a sanctuary.
I believe it’s a good thing not to have parents desperate to re-live long gone youths through their kids on the sporting field. This is a very kind way of saying that my dad does not know one end of a cricket bat from the other.
However, both were as keen as any other parents to see my brother and I prosper in life and I think I was quite a bright kid at school, either that or the rest at St Francis RC Primary were as thick as posts.
Sadly, I did have a desperate need to be the class prankster as if to dumb down evidence of my intelligence before the future armed robbers and drug dealers of Bradford – my classmates – rumbled me.
As the clever kid always ended up with his head down the toilet, I was desperate to avoid a shampoo and rinse. One of the ways I placated the mob was to sedate them by reading novels as few could read anything other than Skol and John Player.
A very popular book at the time was the martial arts tale Enter The Dragon which I was holding a reading for one day, despite our teacher’s insistence I turn around and listen to her instead.
Assuming I had the protection of The Mob, I carried on until a whack around the ear made me reassess my situation pretty quickly. Dear old Mrs Wood could middle a skull better than I could any cricket ball; she had my undivided attention thereon.
I loved “Frannys” as it was where I developed a love for sport in general without being particularly good at anything other than turning up.
It’s a pathetic state of affairs now that the opportunities for kids to play sport appear dependent on whether you are fortunate enough to go to a private school.
The sight of a storeroom full of brand new Gray Nicolls bats, Mitre footballs and bright yellow Slazenger tennis balls could not have been bettered by the presence of a naked woman; at least I had a vague idea of what to do with a bat.
Soon it would be time to leave though.
On the recommendation of the school, my punishment for being slightly less stupid than the rest of my peer group was to have to sit the entrance exam for Bradford Grammar School, an independent school, which in those days provided some thirty free places for those of us that had to make a pair of school trousers last a whole year.
Thousands of kids sat this exam each year for the chance of an education worth a small fortune. There was no way I wanted to sit the exam at all as I simply did not want to go there and lose the protection of The Mob.
Sensing an opportunity she understood far better than me, my mum was keen for me to try and my dad obviously wanted me to take any chance I had to escape the factory; not that there was one in England that would have employed me.
It should have been clear to him from my inability to fathom out even an Airfix modelling kit that the engineering tradition was not a mantle I would carry on.
To this day I cannot believe that I passed the exam as I sat and gazed up at the blue skies outside awaiting my release to go play footie on the cricket field.
Initially I got a letter saying that I had not made the cut – good – but that I was on a reserve list – not so good. Then, a letter arrived on my eleventh birthday informing me that I now had a place.
My first instinct – which I regretted not carrying out for years to come – was to burn it and begin a 24/7 vigil by the post box until September, thereby securing the comfort of St George’s Middle School and a reuinion with The Mob.
On reflection I know it was a huge honour for my little school, doubly so because another boy was also selected, but I was gutted.
I simply could not accept that I was going there because, in truth, I never felt I was good enough which is a brutal judgement at any age, let alone eleven and especially self-inflicted.
I think I cried my eyes out for a year and my mum spent a fortune on expensive uniforms and sports kits, money that she would never have spent on herself.
She even had to spend more money on bus fares making sure I would actually go there by walking me to the school gates for fear of me bunking off and ending up wandering around Lister Park which was not advisable then or now.
It was a great opportunity eventually squandered; I blew it in monumental style and left Bradford Grammar School after a year. Not even the fabulous cricket facilities could change my mind.
And so I rejoined my old pals at St George’s at least resisting the up and coming drug cartel.
For a while things were great. We had woodwork classes where I made the worst toast-rack ever, which survives at my mother’s insistence as a memento to my total ineptitude at anything practical.
As for metalwork, my toffee hammer collapsed at the first whack and so the factory was not for me after all.
The sense of failure at such a young age lingered much longer than it should have and the only place I felt I belonged for a long, long time was Villas.
It was my life growing up and cricket, beautiful cricket, hung it all together for many more than just me. We simply loved that patch of grass on All Alone Road.
These days clubs struggle for survival in an age where committing to anything seems impossible for most. As they begin to disappear so too will a society where friendship, decency and community are key.
I’m simply grateful I walked through those rusty old gates all those years ago; nobody can ever take away your memories.
Dear Mrs Bayne
It is with pleasure I report progress on the domesticity front and very timely re the boy’s impending return to the home shores. The other day I heard a wail from downstairs followed by a crashing sound.
Although demonstrating very good hands on the cricket field it appears that one of my four-for-a-pound and definitely not Waterford Crystal tumblers had literally tumbled from his grasp.
He was ashen faced but more so I would guess about the prospect of using the dreaded vacuum again.
So you may think progress but hold your horses one moment. Despite the wondrous supplies of fresh produce from this farmer’s land – Mugabe has yet to evict me here in Bradford – I came across something not witnessed in this house of the fair and fresh.
One step forward, two steps back…as Mr Springsteen would say.
Have a good weekend all.
young mush says
As always highly entertaining but to the point. Keep up the good work
Lyn Bayne says
Good luck to you and the boys in your final this Sunday!