My Sussex supporting origins

Have you not ever felt the urge to write

Of all the cricket that blessed your sight?

Is there no inspiration in the names

Of those that play our best of summer games? (Blunden, 1945)

1993 seems to have been a big year for me, it was the year that the sporting teams I would support for the rest of my life were firmly marked. I remember the day that I became a Norwich City supporter, I remember that feeling of finally having a team I could call my own. A team that whenever people I know hear them mentioned, it was me they were thinking about. I had dabbled with a number of different clubs, like Sheffield Wednesday but they never felt right. I mention this because it is rather more difficult to pinpoint when I started to support Sussex.

I was at one stage just happy to watch what was ever on T.V., which for the major part was England. There was one game from every round of the Nat West Trophy. This meant that it was down to good fortune who I would get to see. I remember teams like Northamptonshire and Worcestershire; who had an early favourite player of mine Graeme Hick.

There was a time when I would have associated myself with Hampshire, it is where I had spent most of my early life, before moving back for a second spell in the town I was born. Hampshire had players like David Gower, Robin Smith, Mark Nicholas, and Malcolm Marshall; It was an exciting possibility. I lived in the county borders, but Southampton was a world away from Havant, with its connections to Portsmouth it was never an easy alliance to make.

That isn’t to say I didn’t have some form of link with Sussex, I had lived in Crawley. It was a stop gap on the way back to Havant. In that year and a half or so, cricket had gone from something that I had a keen interest into a full blown obsession.

I was aware of Imran Khan, who had been a Sussex player. I wasn’t to know that he was never to play for them again. What I did know was that he was one of the world’s leading players. A rapidly quick bowler and hard hitter with the bat. He had just helped Pakistan win the world cup. I had been given a coaching book he had written one Christmas, it had photos of him in many text book poses, and I would look through it over and over again. I took it everywhere, even using it to show American tourists on a train from Gatwick Airport just how amazing this game was. I still have it and the curled up corners, and indentations of writings long forgotten about mark the front cover.

We eventually moved back across the Hampshire border, leaving friends behind. I know why we moved but I guess by becoming a Sussex fan I was clinging onto a sense of belonging, a sense of identity. I left with tears in my eyes as, fearing I would never come back.

Like most people with a passion for sport, it all started with a family member. My great-grandad was a cricketer and umpire, who died a long time before I came on the scene. My great-grandma lived on the bottom floor of a block of flats, surrounded by a huge garden and a park at the top.

It was the focal point for the family. We would visit most days; initially on holidays and then when we lived in Mansfield. It was strangely at a time when most sports were on free to air television. Sky sports had yet to corner every market. Most days on the t.v. that was only being half watched was some sporting event or another, snooker, athletics, horse racing, football and cricket.

It was the room I watched my first F.A. Cup final; Manchester United versus Crystal Palace. It was a place where the family would meet for tea on a Saturday afternoon. The living room would fill up with aunties, uncles and smoke. It would get too hot. The kids, consisting of me my sister and a cousin, would play in the bedroom, bathroom, or the big field outside. We would play our own games of football and cricket. Or go to the park and play on the playground.

It was at this park that I met kids slightly older than me who actually liked cricket.  They were two brothers, both at the middle school, while I was at the first school. They were surprised to see me when I went on a school trip to see the school we would move up to. Apart from the fact I knew, I wasn’t going to that school and we were moving back down south.

It was over the course of these days at my great-grandmas that cricket became part of the consciousness. It took a while to pick up the rules; it took even longer to be certain of the fielding positions. My great-grandma watched keenly, most of the time. A selection of England players would come out to bat and soon disappear, to the disapproval of my grandma. On more than one occasion this would lead to an ‘oh you bugger’ slipping form her mouth, only to turn around and see me, much to the amusement of my mum.

It was difficult to get my school friends to show any interest in cricket. I took a bat and ball to play in the playground, although it was soon stopped by teachers who saw it as dangerous; more to do with a swinging bat than a rouge tennis ball. So it was back to being pinned to the floor and having my pants pulled down, in front of the girl everyone had a crush on. She did get that one boy to stop doing it, as she wasn’t impressed by it.

I started to collect any articles I could find on the sport. Unburdened by any affiliations I could read without bias. However, it was limited to copies of The Sun which my granddads bought. It wasn’t long until I moved on to The Times and The Daily Telegraph with their coverage of the county game in some detail. I would even rummage through the newspapers at school that had been donated for painting time. Fellow students would bring me anything with a cricketer on. I had started to get a bit snobbish, they are only ‘club cricketers’.

I started to read about Worcestershire who had Graeme Hick and an ageing Ian Botham. Even players such as Steve Rhodes, Stuart Lampitt, Tim Curtis, David Leatherdale and Tom Moody. They were a good one-day side and must have been on television a fair bit. Worcester seemed to be so far away. It is a decent journey even now.

 I got to see these players close up in my second ever game. A Sunday League game at Portsmouth, on a gloomy day I followed Hick around the boundary edge, eager but silent hoping for his autograph. One of the supporters, gave me an encouraging ‘go on ask him’ at the fall of a wicket; to which I could only whimper a ‘Hick’. It was in a shy reluctant way in which he turned and signed my autograph book.

They were in a number of one-day semi-finals and finals, as were Northamptonshire. When Northants beat Hampshire in the semi-final of the 1990 NatWest Trophy by 1 run I cried. Not that I would cry at a Hampshire defeat now-a-days.

 Another NatWest Semi-final that sticks in the memory was the following year when, Northants again played Surrey. It had gone into a second day, and Surrey defending 208. It was the first time I was aware of Waqar Younis, he ran in with such venom and it was thrilling to watch as he dismissed five of the Northants line-up, every close chance he would clench his fists and grind his teeth so often, he was soon nicknamed Gnasher in our house.

False start for Sussex

It is never going to be easy to replace the experience of Luke Wright and Chris Nash before the start of any game. There was hope they would be fit when named in a 14-man squad for the first game of the new Specsavers County Championship. Matt Machin and Harry Finch are by no means inferior players, Machin has been to world cups with Scotland and has been in and around the first team since 2010. Finch is an up and coming batsman who has been on the fringes for a while. Only last week he scored his first Sussex hundred against Leeds/Bradford MCCU.

One selection that did kind of surprise people was George Garton who was preferred over the solid medium-fast bowling of Lewis Hatchett. Sometimes it is a hard call to go for youth over experience, (Hatchett is still only 26 it should be added) and it is a hunch that looks like it will pay off.

The new regulation that allows the away team to choose to field first is an interesting idea. Of the six games that started on Sunday, only one side chose to turn this offer down. Sussex may have wished that they hadn’t. The game at Northampton started half an hour late, but Northamptonshire’s openers Ben Duckett and the on-loan Jake Libby came out to bat under clear blue skies.

As Ben Brown lead his team out it seemed like a good option, it soon looked like they had been suckered into making the wrong decision. Libby has got history with Sussex. On his championship debut for Nottinghamshire in 2014 he scored a near faultless hundred on a flat Trent Bridge pitch.

It looked like he was going to do that again here; he was dropped at slip by Ross Taylor to what is usually a routine catch at knee height. It was a rare movement where something happened for the Sussex bowlers. There was so little assistance on offer that Danny Briggs was bowling his left-arm spin in tandem with the part-time leg spin of Luke Wells before lunch. It is not often you can say that has happened on the first day of the season.

It was Duckett who impressed with the bat for Northants. At 21 and more than a capable wicket-keeper he has had to adapt his game as Adam Rossington is the man tasked with keeping wicket for Northamptonshire. Since being given the task of opening the batting he has been unstoppable.

There were moments when he took risks that evaded the Sussex field and it wasn’t long before a third-man was put in place as a number of cuts and slashes found their way down to that boundary.

It is far too early to talk of England selection, although I have seen at least one person mention it off the back off this innings. Some may suggest that playing for a second division team won’t help, as Northamptonshire know all too well to their cost as they have lost both Jack Brooks and David Willey as they bid to play for England.

Duckett has adapted well to opening the batting there is no doubt about it, he is a player who likes to play shots, and is kind of the player England are looking for to open the batting alongside someone like Alastair Cook. Duckett is only 18 runs off a triple-century. The next step is to keep scoring big. One other option would be to keep badgering people to keep. As that is also another area England haven’t tied one player down. Although opening and keeping in the test match is incredibly difficult.

On day two Sussex have fought back, and George Garton was at the centre of it. There were some grumblings among some Sussex fans that he was chosen over Hatchett, I wasn’t one of them. Garton had a good under-19 world cup for England and looks a great prospect and just days away from his 19^th birthday, he seems level headed for one so young and isn’t afraid to bowl Yorkers.

One of the remits given to Mark Davies the new Sussex coach was to bring through more young players and that is what he is doing with Garton. Sussex haven’t produced enough bowlers in recent years and have brought them in from other places mainly in an attempt to resurrect careers.

Garton took three wickets on day two, the first couple bowled as well. With Steve Magoffin and Ollie Robinson, the attack is well lead, with the prospect of Chris Jordan and Ajmal Shahzad (if injury free) Sussex have the making of an attack that can get Sussex back into division one.

Shakeup at Sussex expects results

At the end of the 2015 season Sussex were relegated in deflating style at the hands of Yorkshire, coupled with a surge of form from Hampshire. It was a different mood from the start of the season where they were some people’s outside tip to win the LV= County Championship.

Disappointing exits in both the Royal London One Day Cup, and blasted out of the NatWest T20 Blast by an extraordinary innings by David Willey meant that the south coast club came away with nothing.

There is change in the air at Hove this year, with the retirement of Michael Yardy, Luke Wright replacing Ed Joyce as captain in all formats and Mark Robinson leaving as coach to take on the challenge of the England Women’s side. Mark Davies steps up from the second team to coach the first team, while Keith Greenfield will become Sussex’s first director of cricket.

With the tragic death of Matthew Hobden at the start of the year left the club in a state of shock. Hobden was such a promising young player who could have thrived in Division Two of the Specsavers County Championship.

The restructuring of the County Championship from 2017 means that there is only one promotion spot available. Sussex will be expected to challenge for that one spot but the likes of Worcestershire will be close challengers.
There is a feeling that a number of the younger players will get a chance to challenge for first-team places, with an emphasis to improve form in the limited- overs arena. There is no reason that this cannot be achieved.

With Steve Magoffin now qualified as an English player Sussex have been able to recruit an extra overseas player and in Ross Taylor signed up for the first half of the summer it looks like they will have added strength in the batting department which has seen the loss of the experienced Yardy.

The fact that Murray Goodwin is back as batting coach will see a focus on scoring not only a large amount of runs but runs when they matter. With the likes of Ed Joyce, Chris Nash and Luke Wright they have players of doing just that. Last year was a breakthrough season for Ben Brown who was even mentioned as a possible candidate to take the gloves for England.

The signing of Danny Briggs will strengthen the spin department that has never fully replaced Mushtaq Ahmed. It feels a little unlucky on Will Beer. Beer is a match winner in white-ball cricket but has not really been given the opportunity in the championship.

On the bowling front much will rely on the fitness of a number of bowlers, Tymal Mills will be limited to the short forms of the game as the pressures of four-day cricket is not good for his back. Ajmal Shahzad showed in the small amount of cricket he was able to play that he is a real asset. Much will depend on James Anyon regaining fitness as he is a good strike bowler who takes wickets at regular intervals, if not a little expensively.

One real find last season was Ollie Robinson, who was really on his final chance in county cricket, over perceived attitude problems. He scored a hundred batting at nine and took a bucket full of wickets. There may be hopes that George Garton the England under-19 player will be the next player to make their impact at Hove this summer.
In terms of bowlers in T20 there is the signing of Mustafizur Rahman the Bangladeshi pace bowler who has impressed in a much improved Bangladesh team.

So while there are a number of intriguing questions to be asked about just how well Sussex will consolidate and improve, much will be expected of them in the championship even though it will be more difficult with the restructuring on the county championship for 2017.

County Cricket is back!

It wasn’t long ago that the traditional curtain raiser to the county cricket season was staged in front of a sparse crowd at Lord’s as the MCC take on last year’s county champions. Things have moved on. Abu Dhabi now hosts the game and last season a pink ball was used.

There is a special breed of person that looks forward to another season of county cricket. Some may not venture into any of the countries county grounds, some may follow it in the daily paper and others on the internet, but their passion isn’t any the less because of it.

Last year I started this website with the intention of covering as much of the county season as possible. This died a death rather quickly as new ventures came to the fore. I want to revive it. But with a different intent. I will update when possible maybe not as in-depth and missing games that you would figure have more prominence. Some of it will be from games I have been to, watched on television or read about.

One thing you get will be my opinion. I don’t support a county with a test venue for a ground but I wouldn’t have it any other way. You may get fed up with my opposition to Franchise T20 in this country, but that is the way I see things.

So, for now, what am I looking forward to this season?

1.       The new Specsavers County Championship – A new sponsor means it will take a while to get used to. But the same intrigue will be there. Can Yorkshire make it three from three? Who will go down? And who will come up? With only one team being promoted ahead of a shift in the structure of the county season from 2017, it will be a hard fought season with a Worcestershire and Sussex heading the queue.

2.       England – The rebuilding of a young side continues, and it is an exciting prospect. With Sri Lanka and Pakistan, the two touring sides will offer some interesting battles, which England would expect to do well in. There are still places up for grabs at the top of the order which will keep things interesting.

3.       England Women – A new coach in Mark Robinson and a new intent about an already talented line-up will be looking for more consistency that saw them lose last year’s ashes series.

4.       Women’s Super League – After the success of the WBBL over the winter, it will be interesting to see how a first franchise style league plays out in this country. It will also hopefully help grow the international talent pool outside of the centrally contracted players.

5.       Ireland – I have followed the Irish side for a while now and am a big advocate of more opportunities for the associate nations.

6.       Sussex – I am a big Sussex fan, so I will always have something to say about how they are getting on. I will be at Northampton to see them kick-off their county championship season of April 10^th. It is a time of rebuilding. Much is still expected of the side captained by Luke Wright.

A small tribute to Matthew Hobden

While you very rarely get to know the people that represent the sports teams you support, you can gain an insight into their character when they strive for the same goals and aims as you. You see how much it means to them when they win and when they lose.

So it is always a shock when one of them doesn't get to fulfill their potential and promise. So when someone who is as young Matt Hobden was when he passed away yesterday.

I only got to see him play for Sussex a few times but he looked as if he was really starting to become a cricketer of quality. It wasn't just his bowling that had improved over beyond measure, but his batting that helped Ollie Robinson score a century from number nine.

All the messages on twitter suggest he was a good bloke and from the limited amount of time I saw him he certainly seemed to be just that. You could tell from the way he held himself and the way he was supported by his captain and teammates.

So my thoughts are with his family, friends, and everyone who saw him represent Sussex.
RIP Matt

Joy - film review

When I say a second trailer for the film Joy I was intrigued as they made it seem like two different films. One was a light-hearted comedy about a dysfunctional family with Joy played by Jennifer Lawrence the one person keeping it together. The other showed what looked like it would be a more sombre film. In some respects they are both correct.

The film sets off at a decent pace that is funny without ever getting a room of people to laugh heartily. Robert De Niro is defiantly funnier than in the Meet The Parents films he was in. The real star of the show is Lawrence who gets the character of Joy just right.

I had never heard of the woman this film is loosely based on, and not intrigued enough to find out more; I guess that’s bound to happen when you consider just how unglamorous the world of mops are. That doesn’t mean the story isn’t worth telling.

All inventions have a story to tell, and this one does it well. The use of a voiceover was good, kind of in the Steve Martin mould. It was used sparingly and never got overly emotional.

The focus was truly on Lawrence an actor I haven’t seen that much of (Hunger Games not really my cup of tea), but there is no doubting this film belongs to her. It has a strong supporting cast who help the film flow.

As films go it's a good way to start a new year with. It won’t be the best film of the year, nor will it be the worst, it will however be near the top of the rest.

https://youtu.be/uR-2TiQVY-k

https://youtu.be/D-A85lXUCO8

Christmas Eve at Norwich cathedral

It was after Peterborough that the clouds started to break up, giving the day it's first real feel of light. While the sky still had the threat of rain , the monotone grey that sucks at the soul was lifted. Wind turbines stalk the horizon and for the first time today it feels like I'm finally on my way somewhere. Which in a lot of ways is what I could say sums up my year (although that won’t finish up in Norwich).

The train is about to arrive at Ely which has an impressive cathedral, the second of three cathedrals visible on the journey; after the functional Peterborough, and before the grand Norwich. Ely is one of those places that comes out of no where and stuns you with nothing short of awe, even if the town has an Argos. The cathedral is  distinctive with it's odd shaped towers and impressive masonry. If you want to study medieval architecture you can’t go far wrong here.

While I made this trip from Mansfield to Norwich many times on both the train and car many times before, this is my third trip on Christmas Eve. It feels like it is starting to become a Christmas traditional, even the family sat opposite are the same as last year.

My connection with Norwich is tenuous at best. Looking to find a football team different to my friends and it was the East Anglia side with a plucky sense of adventure, that went to the Olympic Stadium in Munich and won that captured my attention. There has of course been more lows than highs since then, but here I remain. Celebrating a last second draw against Huddersfield felt almost as exciting as the win at Wembley months later.

It is not just the football that I admire about Norwich, as someone with an interest of medieval history (the real thing, not the Game of Thrones borefest), there is plenty to be taken in by Norwich. For this was a medieval city of some repute. The fact that Helen Castor starts at least one episodes of her documentary series Medieval Lives in the city shows how important the place and people were.

It is two of this periods buildings that still dominate the the Norwich skyline, the castle still looks grand as ever; being out of the way has it's advantages and didn’t suffer the fate of castles like Nottingham or Newark. It is now a museum and give a good account of not just Norwich but Norfolk as a whole.

It was here that I first heard the story of Saint Edmund, the saint of East Anglia and for a time patron saint of England. He was the victim of Viking raids, defeated he was tied to a tree, shot through with arrows and decapitated and dumped in a forest. When his kinsman went to find his body they were called by a wolf who was guarding Edmund. Or something along those lines. No records from his reign have survived, his legend has helped make him the patron saint of wolves, kings and pandemics.

This year there seems to be less need to hit the shops, more by accident that organisation on my part. It means I have more time to visit the cathedral than usual. The place has a quite buzz at this time of year. There are services to get ready guest to great and as a casual visiter like myself can slip in a wonder without aim.

It is a shame that I will be leaving before the Christmas service as buildings are built for the kind of show that will take place. Religious or not it is hard not to admire such an event.

When walking down to the cathedral there was the most almighty of downpours, but now sat in the building I have come all this way, light is flooding in through the high windows. The few stained glass panels are spreading light like a kaleidoscope.

The seats are filling up with anticipation. People are either reading books or magazines. While others sit and chat or quietly reflecting. The murmur of people talking is starting to make the walls echo. The odd excited child can be heard.

The best place to look in a cathedral is up. It seems self evident when you consider the nature of the building is to look upto not just God but the people who built the place. A Norman church built with French stone it is imposing now as it must of been to the people who saw it when it was first completed.

The cathedral was started in 1090, replacing a Saxon settlement in a way that would have excited town planners even today. The fact it has been here for over 900 years is a wonder. Even more so is it doesn’t seem to have suffered the same amount of set backs as some other cathedrals and is probably why is is one of my favourites.

That isn’t an easy claim to make. However when I have taken friends and family they have been just as impressed. This did include trying to find the oldest piece of graffiti with a couple of friends; which Flog It tried to make out was quite difficult.

One of the most famous people associated with the cathedral is Sir Thomas Erpingham. He was a Norfolk nobleman during the uneasy period at the end of the fourteenth century and the start of the fifteenth. He is perhaps best known from William Shakespeare’s play Henry V where he was a trusted part of Henry's army.

One of the gates is named after the bearded gent. It also contains a small statue of Sir Thomas knelling in prayer. He is even buried somewhere in the cathedral, although no one is exactly sure whereabouts.

In the end I am starting to get in the way, although no one says so. One of the cathedral staff even invites me to stay for the service. I however have a train to catch, and just as the singing of songs would be getting underway.

I take one last walk around the building and slip out into the cloisters still looking up. The sun is back out before it is due to set. The walk to the railway station is done in a kind of mournful silence, but I know I'll be back and as I cross the River Wensum I look forward to seeing this old city again.