For several
years now, my Good Friday routine has seen the noontide West Allotment Celtic v
Whitley Bay fixture assume the role as the opening station of my Easter
sporting pilgrimage. Not this year though. Having attended West Allotment’s
depressing home loss to Guisborough Town the Saturday previous that had confirmed
their relegation to Northern League Division 2, providing they rescind their
provisional resignation submitted in response to an outrageous rent increase
imposed by their landlords the Northumberland FA (an organisation with £400k in
the bank), I decided against this. That game had been a profoundly depressing
experience, akin to attending the funeral of someone I knew only vaguely.
In years
gone by, Newcastle United at home to Leeds under floodlights in front of a sold
out crowd of seething drunks would have been a footballing event of obligation.
However, I declined another dose of the eye-bleedingly prosodic anti-football
that Senor Prosodia Rafael
Pardew-MacClaren-Carver Benitez is inflicting on an increasingly restive NUFC
supporter base. Half of them are still in thrall to a rapturous cult of the
personality that can best be described as a collective delusion akin to
premature adultation, while the rest snipe, moan and twist from kick off to
full time in the ground and every waking second on social media. If and when
Newcastle do go up, then it will be the time to debate the merits of this
campaign and the achievements or otherwise of the personnel involved. Then
again, it is 12 months hence when Benitez needs to be judged, having somehow
been given a free pass following relegation last season when his team accrued
the less than impressive total of 2 points from fixtures against Sunderland,
Norwich and Aston Villa. Anyway, we’ll
no doubt return to this subject at a later date.
I also
dismissed any notion of the Newcastle Thunder v Barrow Raiders rugby league
fixture I’d taken in two years previous, where the travelling fans appeared to
be dressed like 1970s Slovak tourists on a coach holiday. Barrow won by about
40 points, but there was an encouraging crowd of 1,032. I fancy a trip to funky
Kingston Park to see Toronto in a Friday night game later in the season.
Anyway,
these no doubt worthy but less than compelling alternative attractions were
sidelined in favour of the opening day of Durham against Nottinghamshire at the
Riverside. This was a choice made partly on account of a desire to show
solidarity with a county betrayed and traduced by the Machiavellian
insensitivities of the ECB and partly because it was only a fiver to get in. While
I wouldn’t count myself as a Durham fan
per se, as Northumberland are unquestionably my county, I am sympathetic to
the cause of the Prince Bishops and, having been born south of the river and endured
the opening 19 wretched years of my miserable existence in the historical
territory of County Durham, I do have a birth right to follow then. The thing
that has always baffled me about Durham (my pal Jan from Oxford apart) since
their elevation to the status of a First Class county, is that they’ve
attracted a whole rake of glory hunting fans with no obvious connection to the
county; perhaps like Borthwick and Stoneman their loyalties lie with Surrey
now?
In keeping
with the Easter traditions of suffering and penance, my journey to Chester le
Street was arduous and uncomfortable. I left home in steady drizzle at 9.05 and
arrived at Tynemouth metro to see trains simultaneously pulling away in either
direction, with the information screens proudly explaining a Sunday service
meant the next trains were not due for 30 minutes hence. Rather than do
nothing, I opted for the bus; not the relatively rapid 306 to Haymarket, but
the glacially slow 1A to Low Fell, replete throughout with thirsty proles en
route for a day of gambling and bevvying in the fleshpots of Wallsend and Byker.
It took 90 minutes; the 21 that followed behind a mere 16 more minutes to deposit
me in Chester le Street. With Good Friday being a Sunday in public transport
planners’ heads, this one only went as far as Chester le Street market place
rather than on to Durham (or in some instances Bishop Auckland, if you please),
leaving me an uncomfortable walk through a mass gathering of radicalised
Christian extremists who, accompanied by the Sally Army band, were belting out There is a Green Hill Far Away.
Sickening and almost unpleasant as the ranks of toothless simpletons already on
the gargle in the large selection of ropey pubs either side of the main drag.
A slow walk
to the ground under slate and ebony skies as befitted the Christian narrative
of the day, with the giant, incongruous floodlights showing the way, in
contrast to the semi-secret, publicity-shy entrance kiosk, where I was
eventually relieved of my fiver. It was 11.56 when I finally took my seat.
Durham were 26/1, so I’d missed the Cook and Ball story of the first wicket. So
much for the overseas saviour; he followed this up with a duck in the second
innings.
A
combination of cheap entry and Bank Holiday ennui had produced a healthy crowd
in excess of 2,000; considerably more than the opening day of a normal
championship game, according to Durham member Gary who I quickly hooked up
with, after he’d finished schmoozing with Lizzie Ammon and Martin Emmerson in
the commentary box. Much of the crowd consisted of bespectacled, slightly deaf
men in their 60s, attired in Cotton
Trader fleeces and Durham CCC caps, armed with flasks, newspapers and
modest picnic lunches, stoically peering through the gloom; hypersensitive and
intolerant to the isolated spots of rain blown on the breeze to streak their
lenses and moisten half-completed Sudoku and crossword puzzles.
On account
of prevailing climactic conditions, it was understandably a bowlers’ paradise.
Notts have the best pace attack in Division 2 and the pressure on the home side
was intense and unforgiving; Burnham soon departed after leaving a straight one
from Fletcher, Jennings (whose class had shown through as he actually seemed
comfortable out there) was beaten for pace by Pattinson in a potential mini
cameo of Ashes meetings to come, while Richardson was caught at slip after a
hideous half hour of uncomfortable wafting. The home team went to lunch at 68/4
and a sedate lap of the ground, accompanied by a phenomenally pricey Illy flat white was the order of the
day. As ever in these instances, we fell into conversation with visiting fans
and enjoyed general, carefree cricket chat; it was so nice to enjoy a sporting
event devoid of malice, other than the opposition quicks of course.
After the
interval, it got no easier for the hosts. Collingwood trapped in front by Ball,
Pringle caught by Read next delivery and Coughlin departing the same way to
Gurney; Durham were 71/7 and Notts increased their lead over the hosts to a
mere 73 points. Then, an element of recovery; Mark Wood made 11 and Graham
Onions, as stick thin as ever, hung around for a brave 2 until Pattinson made
an awful mess of his stumps. So, last man Chris Rushworth came to the crease to
join Stewart Poynter at 110/9. The pugnacious Ireland wicketkeeper batsman, who
is Tynemouth’s county player, had suffered a nightmare run of form for Durham
at the end of last season, but he came good today. A series of aggressive blows
as the bowlers strained unnecessarily for that final wicket and a sit down in
the pavilion, saw Poynter make his highest score for the county; 65 out of 162
all out when he missed a straight one from Fletcher. To see the chunky and
dogged figure improvising aggressively made the Tynemouth part of my cricketing
DNA swell with pride.
Notts may
have the best attack in the division, but Durham aren’t far behind in that
respect. Graham Onions had Smith caught by Collingwood for 4, before a truly
joyous experience. Chris Rushworth’s dad Joe is a pal of Gary’s and he dropped
by for conversation. This was just in time to see Chris bag Libby and then the
prize scalp of Alex Hales, reducing Notts to 7/3. A couple of subsequent LBW
shouts were ignored and Notts battled their way back into the game, at 36/3 at
tea.
Another hot
drink was required as the temperature fell, wind blew up and clouds gathered
again; the lights had been on all day, but they could do nothing about the rain
that came at 5.15 with Notts steadying to 85/3. We took our leave; Gary’s new
car bringing me back far quicker than public transport would. Ironically, the
players came back on at 18.45 for 8 final overs, with Mark Wood bowling Lumb to
leave the score 92/4 at the close. By that time I was snuggled up warm at home
with a homemade spinach and okra curry, ready for the inevitable disappointment
of Newcastle United and shallow braggadocio of grown men on social media
lionising those who’d beaten up an opposition supporter at full time in the lee
of the Gallowgate. Repulsive.
And so to
Saturday. Firstly, I sat through a wind-ruined disaster of a 1-0 defeat in my
beloved Benfield’s final home game of the season against a determined West
Auckland Town side, scrapping for points to avoid relegation. As the truly
awful 90 minutes dragged by, my mind strayed to events elsewhere; specifically
the opening day of the North East Premier League season and the fortunes of my
pair of teams, Newcastle and Tynemouth. The former were hosting Eppleton; the
latter were visiting Benwell Hill. As is ever the case when football and
cricket seasons overlap, pragmatic decisions have to be made; too indolent to
make the morning session at Jesmond, I headed for the final stretch at County
Club, arriving at 5.00 as tea was ending.
Home skipper
Jacques du Toit, as ever to be found fortifying himself with a trusty Marlboro at the top of the pavilion
steps, had declared on 235/9, leaving Eppleton a generous 61 overs to make the
runs. They had begun steadily enough, reaching 108/2 from 25 overs at tea.
Around two dozen spectators shivered under blankets and in long coats as the
unforgiving westerly that had already made Benfield toil fruitlessly, but it
wasn’t the weather that brought us there, was it? Brief words with Chris
Youldon, currently completing his personal tour of all 44 Northern League clubs
with a stint at Dunston UTS, but out injured for both sports. A handshake from Oli McGee as he took the
field, complimentary words to his brother Ben who’d made an impressive 91, the
opportunity to chat with their parents in that relaxed, friendly way that makes
cricket such a joy. These are the reasons we return, year after year.
The
Riverside, where Durham were imploding in their second innings over 230 behind
Notts, may be large and impressive, but it has little soul and less poetry.
Osborne Avenue is beautiful; a ground to fall in love with. The gloriously
whitewashed walls of the graveyard in lieu of sightscreens, the art deco grandeur of Osborne Court
mansion flats behind the still bare trees and memorial benches on the far side,
and the solid, honest dependability of the large Victorian terraces, now often
subdivided into luxury apartments for the Jesmond young professional legal and
financial elite, whose roofs JDT often has cause to pepper, as he admonishes
another impudently loose delivery. Nothing had changed other than the absence
of the familiar, reassuring cloud of cigar smoke that normally wreathed Doug
Hudson. However, following a health scare in the autumn, he is off the pungent
Havanas; good for his recovery but aromatically of mixed blessings. Dare I say
it, he seems to be off the profanities as well…
Alas
Eppleton seemed to thrive in this adorable haven; 111/3 then 134/4 after a
contentious run out, before sedate progress to 200 seemed to indicate an
untroubled away win. Then it got interesting as wickets tumbled in a clutch; it
was 206/8 and the pressure was on. Oli bowled a maiden, appealing in fruitless
earnest after every dot ball; nothing doing. Four byes and four overthrows in
the next dozen balls released the pressure and Eppleton eased home to win by 2
wickets with 4 overs unused. A disappointing result, but as usual a rare and
noble pleasure to watch cricket in such surroundings. Not to mention the chance
to browse the bottle shop equivalent of Fenwick’s
toy fair, in the shape of Rehill’s glorious
selection of craft ales and wine.
Sunday
promised a maiden visit of 2017 to Preston Avenue, for Tynemouth Academy
against South North 3rd XI; a promise that was betrayed by light
midday drizzle turning into afternoon rain. Abandoned without a ball bowled and
so we move to next week. A busy Saturday; Record Store Day, Wallsend Boys Club
Over 40s in the Ironside Cup at 10.30, then Benfield ending the season at
Chester le Street before I can even think of cricket. As I’m duty bound to
attend the Benfield end of season do, it looks like I’ve no option other than
to send my apologies to Tynemouth who host Durham Academy and opt for the
grudge match when champions Chester le Street come to Osborne Avenue.
The noise
you can hear is them appealing for the light already…..
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