Duham C C at Trent Bridge

Wednesday 30th July marked a change in the mood of what was becoming a great and likely to be memorable holiday. Breakfast of pan au chocolat, Alpine cereal and coffee. I bought a pasta salad which I mixed with tomatoes and salad peppers brought with me for the trip. I also bought a fruit salad of strawberries, melon, grapes, apple. This was part of a two for £5 deal which brought the price within the reasonable range rather than expensive for my budget. I commenced to write this when I returned to my home on August 2nd and after unpacking and feeling tired I watched a DVD which had also made the same journey of the past week called Déjà vu about the use of as time machine to prevent the blowing up of a car ferry with 500 hundred passengers I am now trying to write a chronicle of my immediate past and my present as quickly as I can in order to bring the two into the same time dimension of ongoing experience. I am also trying to get up to date with everything else. I am visiting Nottingham to day, for Durham playing at the County Ground. I have visited the ground for cricket before. I have visited Nottingham University, the Football Ground and the neighbourhood of the Football ground. However in this situation it is about the present and not the past and previous experience is for another occasion. Before setting off today I completed writing about my journey to Havant and posted on MySpace. This meant I would arrive at the ground before the start of play but I had forgotten that parking could be a problem, unlikely Chester Le Street on County Championship days when the traffic would be normal with limited stops for lights and roundabouts and parking unlimited. There was no one at the Travel Lodge reception, when I was ready to leave, to ask how to get to the other side of the motorway and failing to identify the exit I returned, rang the bell and the assistant explained what I had to do, These roads are intended only for use used by emergency vehicles, staff, and motel guests, so the every effort is made to avoid casual visitors using the facility. It is such a long time since visiting the city, but less than ten years, and I had failed to work out the route and therefore I was driving more in hope of finding the best way, first time of travel, to the cricket ground. As I hoped, soon after entering the outskirts from the motorway there was a sign directing Football and Cricket traffic back out of the city towards a ring road. Then I was unsure of the way and turned back towards the town centre, passing a Park and ride, an out of town shopping centre and the coming by the main railway station where road signs included a reference to Trent Bridge and I was soon turning across the river with the football ground to the left and then saw what are the as yet unused six majestic permanent new floodlight masts at the cricket ground. These are contained within a ring rather than the usual squares and are unique and attractive architectural structures. I turned my vehicle in front of the building and went around another side, and reaching a wide road turned left moving away from the ground until finding a car park with many unused spaces. However the fee for over 3 hours was £20 set intentionally high to prevent use by cricket and football fans. I doubled back and explored the side roads but although parking was not restricted to residents there appeared to be no free spaces. However I found a space within five minutes walk of the ground and crossing over, found the ticket office at the very junction where I had turned the car left into the main road. I had gone a full circle and I work out now in my mind how I did so Usually one can enter the ground at the ticket office but there was some work being undertaken to what I discovered is the extraordinary new all singing and dancing scoreboard. By good fortune I had only needed to walk a couple of hundred yards from the car into the ground. I have lost my prescription sunglasses and had an idea where they might be, so broke off to investigate without success. The opportunity was also taken to close the bedroom curtains. I check emails and then decide to print out the Blogs that have been posted since on my travels. I have been going to sleep early around 10pm and while away waking early around four or five and writing I have then become tired during the day for longer periods that has become custom so I try and stay up but around 11pm I am very tired so leave further writing until the morning. My writing is impressionistic although written as a chronicle and an official report where the emphasise is on fact and accuracy and less on feelings and the intrusions of memories and flights into fantasy, although I encourage the former and disciplines the latter into projections of possibilities rewinding variations in future time options. Do I want this, can I make it happen, can I avoid that happening. I have recovered sufficiently from the night of my return home to break for breakfast and commencing the washing of clothes, but as it is Sunday and there will be no postman or anyone else calling I delay washing and shaving until this first writing has been completed. Inside the ground I am impressed by the visual impact and by aspects of the comprehensive developments since my last visit. There is only one old building at the corner of the ground by the street level ticket office with the entrance I used marking the other end. This is in fact the pavilion so the first aspect to note about the cricket ground is that the wickets are at angle to the pavilion with the site screen comprising white or presumably black blinds to the windows. Members sit in a the small terraced area below the windows and therefore are exceptionally well disciplined. The long room is quite small and when one cannot see the game except by bending down below window level. There are only a handful of tables compared to the vast area at Durham. There is an executive lounged/dining area which I did not explore, but I did find as small TV lounge. I only found this after circulating the ground in search of a cup of tea and in the members lounge cups of tea were being served for £1.20 a side table to the bar, where previously there had been a lunch time roast meal available. There was also a scone with cream for £1.30. There were also the player's dressing rooms and game viewing area. It is a ridiculously small and inappropriate Pavilion for a ground of such importance for international games. Nottinghamshire is the third oldest test Playing ground in the world and a photograph of the original Pavilion area indicates that section have been replaced by the new scoreboard and a hospitality conference suite. The then £7.2 million Radcliffe Road development comprises one of the tallest cricket stands I have experienced with four levels. The pitch side terracing, hospitality boxes level and then the upper terracing and then an even higher level, unused today and I suspect restricted to Internationals and perhaps domestic 20 20 cricket. The building has dept so it contains facilities open to the public and there are a few private business offices at street level, The building contains residential accommodation as well as a host conference and meeting rooms. There are also lifts. I did not explore this area because unlikely any other ground it is not possible to walk round inside the ground although pass outs are freely available if one wants to go to other areas. What I have said is not strictly accurate as I will describe in a moment. The Radcliffe Road stand occupies the widest straight stretch of stand and building inside the ground and I thought this was the new Pavilion at first until advise to the contrary by a Nottinghamshire Member. The new Fox Road stand has what is a described as a state of the art aircraft wing roof which provides shelter to the upper tiers of its 2300 seat capacity. However on my visit I could not get around this stand without going up and then down steps into the stand, until lunch time when I was able to walk on the pitch where spectators are allowed to play during championship games. Opposite this stand there is another recently opened stand with a different kind of wind and rain shield but also only applies to the upper tiers. I was able to get to this stand via one side of the Members Pavilion passing in front of the new super scoreboard in a building which may also house players or media facilities. There is a logic about locating this facility here only if it includes facilities for the players as this is the only area inside the ground for parking cars for club officials and players. However the screen cannot be seen from the Members Pavilion. The other reason is that it would have further obscured the view from the County Council offices that are located in one area of the ground and where the old scoreboard remains. I sat in the Hound Road Lower stand as there is shelter from the sun for most of the day and from the rain by the upper tier. There are hospitality and conference meeting room facilities in between the two tiers. I was on my own at the beginning of the day but when the rain arrived briefly and then as the sun reached the area everyone congregated in the undercover space and this was when I had several conversations with Nottinghamshire members. I arrived just as the third over of the day commenced to find that Durham had won the toss and elected to bat first. Nottinghamshire is an excellent bowling side with Stuart Broad released from Test duty and a first class spinner Patel so Durham took their time playing defensively and awaiting scoring opportunities, a far cry from the approach to shorter one day games. There was a good performance from Will Smith who had played for Notts who had promise but failed to progress and where he has become the most consistent performer at Durham, His 85 runs came from 182 balls in included 13 fours, His partnership with Captain Blenkenstein was crucial in bring stability to the innings although again it was slow cricket with 28 runs from 77 balls, and Chanderpaul Ben Harmison and Mustard also each scored thirty and I was delighted that my advice to Notts players than Durham would bat to the last man was proved accurate as although 204 seven a total of 268 was reached and there was only time for a couple of overs for Notts. There was much interest in the test match with the performance of Vaughan and Collingwood the subject of comment. Collingwood especially it was felt had taken the place deserved by Broad although there was delight that he was playing again for his home club. I was also told that Members usually parked for free at the Notts Forest ground but where amazingly there was a friendly with Sunderland that night so the car park was closed except to football supporters. This explained the number of Sunderland shirts in the ground and as a group of young supporters of both sexes arrived and sat in the seats in front and became lively as the drink took effect. Some move doubt of the shade as the day progressed and two girls were bright red and going to suffer as they left sheltering too late. They were part of a coach party who had booked an overnight stay. I spoke with one local supporters late in the morning when wanting to know where I could buy a cool drink, He disappeared at lunch time, reappeared a couple of hours later and then disappeared again after tea. He clearly did not enjoy a day of the opposition batting. Eventually I found a drink on advice of a gate steward I went into the Squash club bar who were offering a Hoagie roast which is a form of bread and meat, with a pint for £5.50. The Member's bar was serving a Hoagie without the pint for the same price.. In the afternoon a married woman sat nearby and asked if I she was right in saying that I supported the opposition, which surprised me how she knew. She usually came with her husband who was engaged elsewhere fro the day and was a regular member who knew a great deal about the home players which was helpful. She as other longer term members were adjusting to scale changes at the ground but also added about the lack of food for those who did not want to rely on a packed lunch. Later in the day I could not resist advising one of the young men that. I too lived on the Lawe Top which had the effect of stunning the lad which was desire as he had been allowing the drink to govern his mouth. The group, seeking shade and surrounded another older Notts member, a woman sitting on her own and although the banter had been good humoured I could see that she felt overwhelmed and left early, or to move elsewhere. They had explained to her that they were not all from Sunderland and that some were from South Shields and the young man had added the Lawe Top. It is a small world but also underlines that one should always be careful what ones says because one never knows who could be listening. It had been a relaxed day, the kind I needed and I looked forward to a quiet evening at the accommodation getting up-to-date with emails and MySpace writing as well as thinking about the following day when the weather was forecast as poor and I planned to explore the area. I then had difficulty in getting on line which was later a identified as local problem and where the service provided gave me a reference for a couple free days use which will be left until the London trip. I was able to write a little after a good evening meal of soup, the last pasta, and some cake. I was in bed and asleep by 10am.