I spent four days last week getting up early, preparing for the day ahead and journeying to the Riverside Chester Le Street, the home of Durham County Cricket Club, and then sitting in hot sun, mostly under clear blue sky watching Durham play magnificent cricket against a Nottinghamshire side who had come to avenge the humiliating defeat which I witnessed on my visit to that county in July.
The win on Saturday afternoon meant that Durham had become the English County Champions for the second year in succession, an extraordinary achievement given that twenty years ago the there were just a few individuals with vision and determination, no office, no ground, no players and no money who wanted to convert Durham Minor Cricket County Club into a top level team attracting spectators in their thousands, hoping to build a team which could in the future compete for the championship and create a ground which would host international matches. There were many in cricket and in the media who said it could not be done as in addition to achieving the level membership and sponsorship required to support a top level team the support of all the existing counties in the then one championship league set up had to be gained. At that time income of the order of half a million English pounds was required of which two fifths came from the English Test and County Cricket Board so that an additional county would mean that the existing counties would get less from the same without changes which would increase the support funds available over all. There was also concern about the impact of such a development upon the rest of cricket in the County, in Northumberland and North East in general which stretches into north Yorkshire.
However there was the good will and support which had been created by the two Caller brothers who ran a travel business and sponsored each year for a decade a cricket festival during which they invited most of the great international players to form a team to compete against a British team. Such was the support and the way the players were treated that without contracts hundreds of international players agreed to come for the festival over the years and took back into their respective clubs the goodwill they experienced on their visits to the far north, including that the weather was good and the administration effective.
This writing is about the experience of the life changing game for North East Cricket which took place last week, only some twenty years later and another day I will look back at my experience this year when I will have watched most days of the eight home games and five of the away games, four of them live, visiting the Worcestershire ground for the first time. I knew that if Durham won this game no one could overtake their total of championship points but what I did not know until the first day is that if Durham gained 11 points from the matches, that is seven of the eight bonus points available and four from a draw then the championship would be theirs for the second years in succession, a feat which only nine of the sixteen other clubs have achieved and with three never having won the championship in their history of over 100 years. Glamorgan, the last county to be added in the 1920’s took nearly 50 years before they won a championship and this year they also held a Test match.
I will also write about how the dream became reality later, following the publication during the game of Tom Moffat’s book on his knowledge and role, which needs to be read in conjunction with Ralph Dellor’s book published in 1992. I will also search for my boxes scorecards and newspaper reports on Durham cricket experienced during the past twenty years watching the team play around the county at the University riverside ground at Durham City, at Hartlepool where the ground is located along millionaire’s row, Stockton, at the cold and windswept Gateshead Fell on Tyneside and at Chester Le Street the local club which still exists a short walk from the present international standard ground; and then travelling outside the county to Lords and the Oval, to the Kent and Sussex grounds, to Yorkshire at Headingley, to Nottingham, to Edgbaston and Old Trafford and Leicestershire. It was only last year that I went to Hampshire at the their new ground The Rosebowl and I am yet to visit Somerset at Taunton, Gloucestershire at Bristol, Cardiff for Glamorgan, to Derby or Northants. Until the last three years it was a big ask to arrange accommodation to watch Durham lose or seek a boring draw, often against a team who generally was second best to the majority of other clubs.
The omens were good for the game which commenced on Wednesday as no rain was forecast and Durham had the confidence of not having lost a game all season so far, a feat which even the most successful teams of recent years have not achieved. The context for the game is that in addition to the three countries who have never one a title the championship dominated by Yorkshire with 30 wins and who are fighting to avoid relegation to the second division this year, Surrey 18 my boyhood club and Middlesex 10 both struggling at second level and only the fourth club on the list, Lancashire with seven wins but last won in 1950 but having had a promising start to the season and who remain the home club of England’s star Freddie Flintoff.
On Wednesday I had risen early to cook a carton of chicken pieces which were then wrapped in foil to enable the plastic container to be used for other picnic meals subsequently. I am not a great maker of flask coffee and not prepared to go to the lengths of keeping the hot water, the instant coffee, the milk and the sugar in separate containers which one regular member and traveller around grounds has organised. I arrived at the Riverside in good time with a place position in my favourite car park close to the river and the member’s entrance which brings one close to north east temporary stand behind the bowler’s arm. There was time for a brief chat with one of the three regular gatemen who I have come to know over this season in particular.
To say temporary stand is misnomer because it has been in the present condition for over a decade and will be replaced over the next three years by a major development which will include hospitality and conference facilities, and a car way underpass.
The additional stands for the final one day international against Australia were in the process of completion as was the long hospitality tent which took up a lost of the parking space prized by all the Members with disabled badge stickers. I made my way to the Member’s lounge where I bought a coffee and read the Journal and Northern Echo newspapers provided free for members by the Club and chatted to one of the few Members with whom I engage in conversation on a regular basis. I thought it would be interesting to hear how the media were approaching the game and took a seat in the south west corner just below where a news camera was located and where at half hour intervals the presenter appeared from having watched the game from the impressive media centre which dominates the southern end of the ground. The approach was to show a graphic with Durham heading the table and for the viewer to have explained what Durham had to do to win the championship and Nottinghamshire to stop them and retain an outside chance of gaining the title for themselves having finished second in the two previous seasons.
Durham won the toss and elected to bat and start was slow with opener DiVenuto taking uncharacteristic care and Coetzer his usual testing of the wicket in the unusual position of joint opener, as Stoneman, the Durham development player for 2008-2009 having been dropped as a result of a succession and low scores. It was from the media reporter that I learnt that Durham could win the championship during this match if they obtained 11 points. Although Notts like Durham had three games to play, with a drawn game implicit with Durham gaining 11 points, Notts could only achieve a maximum 217 points and Durham would have to fail to gain any bonus points in their remaining matches for the points total to be tied and I presumed would be awarded the titled having beaten Notts although I have no idea if this is so in the Championship rules. In any event it became increasingly academic as the day progressed.
Not in wildest dreams did I imagine that Durham would bat until the final overs without losing a wicket. Coetzer, the South African sounding Scotsman, scored quicker than DiVenuto because at first a greater selection of balls to hit for four came his way, but it was not until the third session of the day that he reached his century with 80 of the total achieved from shots reaching the boundary rope. Michael having gained control of the wicket and the bowlers as the lunch break approached, commenced to smash his way to a century, to 150 and then to his second double century of the season, unique in the history of Durham as although Morris, Lewis, Muchall, Hussey(253) North and record holder Love 273 had scored double centuries, only DiVenuto with 204 against Kent in 2007 had now scored not just two but three two hundreds with the last two this year and with two matches to go who knows? When DiVenuto reach 254 against Sussex, Durham retired in order to ensure there was sufficient time left in game to achieve a win. DiVenuto was thus only 20 runs short of the all time record, but on Wednesday he looked as if he would become the first Durham batsman to achieve 300 in one innings.
I enjoyed lunch and afterwards for the last two sessions moved to the south east corner of the new Durham stand. Captain Will Smith, who has had a unhappy time with the bat, joined the Tasmanian, and although the scoring slowed the fourth batting point was achieved before the evening close. The prospect was for an even more glorious day on Thursday.
Durham announced that the decision had been taken to invite friends of Members and the general public to the ground with free entry on Thursday and Friday. I thought this was a great idea as a means of getting more people interested in the watching cricket although as I anticipated there were some regular members overheard moaning at the development in the main lounge from time to time. The reality is that for most county championship matches less than 1000 people attend and given that the majority are concession members paying £90 a years this will not produce the income to meet ground overheads let alone the earnings of the players, the second team and the Academy and the various activities in support of cricket in the county community.(I have no idea what the present membership is or that of other clubs and could not find the information after a good search of the internet. Some 5000 people signed up when the club was established but I would be surprised if there were half that number at the present time. The purpose of the free admission was not just commercial. Durham had celebrated its first major trophy, the Friends Provident One Day Cup before a deserted Lords because bad weather meant the game finishing on the Sunday, and last year the Championship was unexpectedly won at Kent with only a handful for Durham supporters, let alone partners, parents and other family members present. There was good prospect of being able to celebrate before a good crowd as sharing with everyone connected with the club and family members.
I have had my reservations about the push to make every club a ground able to hold international matches having experienced the vast areas of emptiness at Headingley and Old Trafford, Lords and the Oval over the years at County Championship games. It is only the one day games held over the weekend ,especially Sundays that have brought in the crowds and more recently the short early evening and floodlit 20 20 game. This is a different form of cricket with partisanship coming more and more to the fore. However the games are watched by younger people and families and this is for the long term good. Similarly the Test and One Day International cricket have become the preserve of business men and young yobs usually drunk before tea time. Getting more families and young people into the spirit of the four day championship game will be a hard task, but it is worth a try and as I shall record there were several positives arising on Friday and Saturday which proved the free entry to have been an excellent decision.
One consequence of the free entry together with the September start at 10.30 instead of the usual 11 is that the ground was open from 9am and I decided to have a test run on Thursday. So I made up a salad the previous evening together with some grapes and a cinnamon whirl. I did not make coffee and leaving the house before 8 am made the short journey to Kentucky Fried Chicken for a breakfast platter and coffee which I obtained for £1.79 £1 off the usual price, comprising something resembling a sausage and scrambled egg with a chewing hash brown and crispy bacon. The beans were hot and the coffee good and at that price what should one expect. I was not the first into ground and Member’s area, arriving at 9.15 but the stadium was almost empty. I had estimated under 1000 people for the first day and there may have been a similar number for the second. It was just as well that I was in my place about the third row from the back on the aisle behind the bowler’s arm in the north east stand before the first ball was bowled. DiVenuto was out caught by the substitute wicket keeper Shafayat with the first ball off the bowling of Fletcher, He looked devastated as he made his way back to the player’s dressing room. Not long after Captain Will Smith was also out to the delight of the Notts supporters who had congregated on both sides of the aisle. This was not in script and one wondered if the course of the game had been significantly changed!
The win on Saturday afternoon meant that Durham had become the English County Champions for the second year in succession, an extraordinary achievement given that twenty years ago the there were just a few individuals with vision and determination, no office, no ground, no players and no money who wanted to convert Durham Minor Cricket County Club into a top level team attracting spectators in their thousands, hoping to build a team which could in the future compete for the championship and create a ground which would host international matches. There were many in cricket and in the media who said it could not be done as in addition to achieving the level membership and sponsorship required to support a top level team the support of all the existing counties in the then one championship league set up had to be gained. At that time income of the order of half a million English pounds was required of which two fifths came from the English Test and County Cricket Board so that an additional county would mean that the existing counties would get less from the same without changes which would increase the support funds available over all. There was also concern about the impact of such a development upon the rest of cricket in the County, in Northumberland and North East in general which stretches into north Yorkshire.
However there was the good will and support which had been created by the two Caller brothers who ran a travel business and sponsored each year for a decade a cricket festival during which they invited most of the great international players to form a team to compete against a British team. Such was the support and the way the players were treated that without contracts hundreds of international players agreed to come for the festival over the years and took back into their respective clubs the goodwill they experienced on their visits to the far north, including that the weather was good and the administration effective.
This writing is about the experience of the life changing game for North East Cricket which took place last week, only some twenty years later and another day I will look back at my experience this year when I will have watched most days of the eight home games and five of the away games, four of them live, visiting the Worcestershire ground for the first time. I knew that if Durham won this game no one could overtake their total of championship points but what I did not know until the first day is that if Durham gained 11 points from the matches, that is seven of the eight bonus points available and four from a draw then the championship would be theirs for the second years in succession, a feat which only nine of the sixteen other clubs have achieved and with three never having won the championship in their history of over 100 years. Glamorgan, the last county to be added in the 1920’s took nearly 50 years before they won a championship and this year they also held a Test match.
I will also write about how the dream became reality later, following the publication during the game of Tom Moffat’s book on his knowledge and role, which needs to be read in conjunction with Ralph Dellor’s book published in 1992. I will also search for my boxes scorecards and newspaper reports on Durham cricket experienced during the past twenty years watching the team play around the county at the University riverside ground at Durham City, at Hartlepool where the ground is located along millionaire’s row, Stockton, at the cold and windswept Gateshead Fell on Tyneside and at Chester Le Street the local club which still exists a short walk from the present international standard ground; and then travelling outside the county to Lords and the Oval, to the Kent and Sussex grounds, to Yorkshire at Headingley, to Nottingham, to Edgbaston and Old Trafford and Leicestershire. It was only last year that I went to Hampshire at the their new ground The Rosebowl and I am yet to visit Somerset at Taunton, Gloucestershire at Bristol, Cardiff for Glamorgan, to Derby or Northants. Until the last three years it was a big ask to arrange accommodation to watch Durham lose or seek a boring draw, often against a team who generally was second best to the majority of other clubs.
The omens were good for the game which commenced on Wednesday as no rain was forecast and Durham had the confidence of not having lost a game all season so far, a feat which even the most successful teams of recent years have not achieved. The context for the game is that in addition to the three countries who have never one a title the championship dominated by Yorkshire with 30 wins and who are fighting to avoid relegation to the second division this year, Surrey 18 my boyhood club and Middlesex 10 both struggling at second level and only the fourth club on the list, Lancashire with seven wins but last won in 1950 but having had a promising start to the season and who remain the home club of England’s star Freddie Flintoff.
On Wednesday I had risen early to cook a carton of chicken pieces which were then wrapped in foil to enable the plastic container to be used for other picnic meals subsequently. I am not a great maker of flask coffee and not prepared to go to the lengths of keeping the hot water, the instant coffee, the milk and the sugar in separate containers which one regular member and traveller around grounds has organised. I arrived at the Riverside in good time with a place position in my favourite car park close to the river and the member’s entrance which brings one close to north east temporary stand behind the bowler’s arm. There was time for a brief chat with one of the three regular gatemen who I have come to know over this season in particular.
To say temporary stand is misnomer because it has been in the present condition for over a decade and will be replaced over the next three years by a major development which will include hospitality and conference facilities, and a car way underpass.
The additional stands for the final one day international against Australia were in the process of completion as was the long hospitality tent which took up a lost of the parking space prized by all the Members with disabled badge stickers. I made my way to the Member’s lounge where I bought a coffee and read the Journal and Northern Echo newspapers provided free for members by the Club and chatted to one of the few Members with whom I engage in conversation on a regular basis. I thought it would be interesting to hear how the media were approaching the game and took a seat in the south west corner just below where a news camera was located and where at half hour intervals the presenter appeared from having watched the game from the impressive media centre which dominates the southern end of the ground. The approach was to show a graphic with Durham heading the table and for the viewer to have explained what Durham had to do to win the championship and Nottinghamshire to stop them and retain an outside chance of gaining the title for themselves having finished second in the two previous seasons.
Durham won the toss and elected to bat and start was slow with opener DiVenuto taking uncharacteristic care and Coetzer his usual testing of the wicket in the unusual position of joint opener, as Stoneman, the Durham development player for 2008-2009 having been dropped as a result of a succession and low scores. It was from the media reporter that I learnt that Durham could win the championship during this match if they obtained 11 points. Although Notts like Durham had three games to play, with a drawn game implicit with Durham gaining 11 points, Notts could only achieve a maximum 217 points and Durham would have to fail to gain any bonus points in their remaining matches for the points total to be tied and I presumed would be awarded the titled having beaten Notts although I have no idea if this is so in the Championship rules. In any event it became increasingly academic as the day progressed.
Not in wildest dreams did I imagine that Durham would bat until the final overs without losing a wicket. Coetzer, the South African sounding Scotsman, scored quicker than DiVenuto because at first a greater selection of balls to hit for four came his way, but it was not until the third session of the day that he reached his century with 80 of the total achieved from shots reaching the boundary rope. Michael having gained control of the wicket and the bowlers as the lunch break approached, commenced to smash his way to a century, to 150 and then to his second double century of the season, unique in the history of Durham as although Morris, Lewis, Muchall, Hussey(253) North and record holder Love 273 had scored double centuries, only DiVenuto with 204 against Kent in 2007 had now scored not just two but three two hundreds with the last two this year and with two matches to go who knows? When DiVenuto reach 254 against Sussex, Durham retired in order to ensure there was sufficient time left in game to achieve a win. DiVenuto was thus only 20 runs short of the all time record, but on Wednesday he looked as if he would become the first Durham batsman to achieve 300 in one innings.
I enjoyed lunch and afterwards for the last two sessions moved to the south east corner of the new Durham stand. Captain Will Smith, who has had a unhappy time with the bat, joined the Tasmanian, and although the scoring slowed the fourth batting point was achieved before the evening close. The prospect was for an even more glorious day on Thursday.
Durham announced that the decision had been taken to invite friends of Members and the general public to the ground with free entry on Thursday and Friday. I thought this was a great idea as a means of getting more people interested in the watching cricket although as I anticipated there were some regular members overheard moaning at the development in the main lounge from time to time. The reality is that for most county championship matches less than 1000 people attend and given that the majority are concession members paying £90 a years this will not produce the income to meet ground overheads let alone the earnings of the players, the second team and the Academy and the various activities in support of cricket in the county community.(I have no idea what the present membership is or that of other clubs and could not find the information after a good search of the internet. Some 5000 people signed up when the club was established but I would be surprised if there were half that number at the present time. The purpose of the free admission was not just commercial. Durham had celebrated its first major trophy, the Friends Provident One Day Cup before a deserted Lords because bad weather meant the game finishing on the Sunday, and last year the Championship was unexpectedly won at Kent with only a handful for Durham supporters, let alone partners, parents and other family members present. There was good prospect of being able to celebrate before a good crowd as sharing with everyone connected with the club and family members.
I have had my reservations about the push to make every club a ground able to hold international matches having experienced the vast areas of emptiness at Headingley and Old Trafford, Lords and the Oval over the years at County Championship games. It is only the one day games held over the weekend ,especially Sundays that have brought in the crowds and more recently the short early evening and floodlit 20 20 game. This is a different form of cricket with partisanship coming more and more to the fore. However the games are watched by younger people and families and this is for the long term good. Similarly the Test and One Day International cricket have become the preserve of business men and young yobs usually drunk before tea time. Getting more families and young people into the spirit of the four day championship game will be a hard task, but it is worth a try and as I shall record there were several positives arising on Friday and Saturday which proved the free entry to have been an excellent decision.
One consequence of the free entry together with the September start at 10.30 instead of the usual 11 is that the ground was open from 9am and I decided to have a test run on Thursday. So I made up a salad the previous evening together with some grapes and a cinnamon whirl. I did not make coffee and leaving the house before 8 am made the short journey to Kentucky Fried Chicken for a breakfast platter and coffee which I obtained for £1.79 £1 off the usual price, comprising something resembling a sausage and scrambled egg with a chewing hash brown and crispy bacon. The beans were hot and the coffee good and at that price what should one expect. I was not the first into ground and Member’s area, arriving at 9.15 but the stadium was almost empty. I had estimated under 1000 people for the first day and there may have been a similar number for the second. It was just as well that I was in my place about the third row from the back on the aisle behind the bowler’s arm in the north east stand before the first ball was bowled. DiVenuto was out caught by the substitute wicket keeper Shafayat with the first ball off the bowling of Fletcher, He looked devastated as he made his way back to the player’s dressing room. Not long after Captain Will Smith was also out to the delight of the Notts supporters who had congregated on both sides of the aisle. This was not in script and one wondered if the course of the game had been significantly changed!
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