When Sky commentators picked an overseas  XI from 50 years of county cricket, Barry Richards and Gordon Greenidge were a given, differences of opinion over some of the other places but not the two openers. Those of us  who took to cricket sitting behind on the Dean Park benches plainly got rather lucky,  to the extent that half a century later three List A/limited overs innings there by the South African maestro  stand out to this day.

Versus  Kent, September  1970, in  the days of local reports and the Beeb’s tv coverage on Sundays. A completely dominant innings against an opposition with ten internationals; Alan Stickland’s piece in the Bournemouth Echo hints at an outlook for South African cricketers that was not at that point settled, still the possibility of a future in Test cricket. Two months later came his innings of 356 in Australia in a career heading towards its peak.

Richards versus Lancashire was the local headline for his innings of  129 in a Gillette Cup QF two years later. Happily there is a YouTube clip of this one and a spread in the 1972 winter edition of The Cricketer gave two pages to it, reflecting on its brilliance and his status in the game.

Versus Leicestershire, August 1975, a long way above all again, electrifying those present. Alan Stickland’s report conveys the excitement, although tactfully misses the impact  on the pavilion tiles very evident from the scorebox. The legend of Darley Dale was made the following week.

Andy Murtagh has observed that for someone with his talent Barry Richards has not been lucky, as a player, or as commentator. Two trophies when Hants were the buzz team in the 1970s and the what might have been in a different political climate. Alan Butcher (Mark’s father) who once got both Hants openers out in the same spell, commented on social media that, of the two, he thought Barry got bored more easily; although for those who saw him bat when he wasn’t, doubts about the Sky XI opening pair there are none.

Hampshire versus Kent, 26th-29th August 1978, Bournemouth. Surrey versus Hampshire 18-21st  August 2019,  The Oval.

When John Arlott retired in 1980 he wrote of his abiding nostalgia for the county cricket circuit which had anchored much of his career, cricketers as members of a travelling circus going round the country in the summer months, the game’s greats on board.  Something from another world now,  but in the summer of 1978 it was a strong  Kent team, that included ‘Deadly’ Derek Underwood, that came for the second half of the Bournemouth week. On the point of becoming County Champions they bumped into Gordon  Greenidge  going through a great purple patch:  five centuries and a fifty (in the SL game below) in seven innings; two of them enabling the home side  to win with relative ease, (umpires) Cowley and Jesty at the crease.

The photo of Trevor Jesty  from behind looks a bit odd now, although given a camera at just one end  with TV coverage  at the time, not especially then.  In another media age, Radio 2 did hourly sports desks in the afternoon which fed the game’s chatter, with the  second reading of the cricket scoreboard at 7.30; a holy of sorts for some, it was often delivered with a certain gravitas if memory serves.

As for those doing the chatter  players then perambulated around grounds and talked to members and spectators. This blog takes its name from those who watched  from one end of Dean Park in those years: prominent the then chair of CAMRA, real ale and communism,  ‘W.G.’, who having trialled the world of work for a fortnight in the 1950s had  decided against continuing with it, those too young to have made that decision; those that weren’t and hadn’t and one who remembered matches from the 1930s. Easy days spent watching cricket: part sanctuary, part speakers’ corner, and a comment on those with the patience to follow  the  game and the tolerances of each other that watching fostered.

The  Oval in 2019 is  a decent place to take in the pleasures of a Monday morning at the cricket, hearth  from its history and strangely, or maybe not all, the Vauxhall End has its ‘sightscreen committee’, independent-minded  comments and recollections as standard. Perhaps there is a parallel universe somewhere with many sightscreen committees, the game there might be the better for it , but in this one it should be mentioned the ‘People’s Home’ also benefits from its flag-bearers for the county game in the Peter May stand.

The course of the Surrey-Hants fixture  was reset  by a big innings of considerable maturity from Ollie Pope, enough to generate interest on the last afternoon despite the fact that, in the end, only 22 wickets fell over four days. The 12 men of Hants (one concussion sub) resisting the 13 of Surrey (two England call-ups) with an innings of promise from Felix Organ  leading their rearguard. As the game reached its conclusion Ben Foakes again showed the lightening speed of his reactions (and anticipation) and credit, of course, to those who field at short-leg

When the game was expanding in the direction of more limited-overs cricket  in decades past there were mature types then who, understandably, did not give thanks for having their memories, understanding, of the game disrupted.  Sentiments that get passed across the generations maybe; but had England won the World Cup in 1979 no-one then would have been bonkers enough to promptly  downgrade the Gillette Cup, and  when England did win the Ashes in 1981, the County Championship was respected in  ways that it just isn’t now.  Much  centralisation of decision-making  since has left the game’s governing body appearing as confused as it is self-interested.

Hampshire versus Middlesex 3rd September 1978.

The current issue of The Nightwatchman is largely  given over to the influence that overseas players have had on  domestic cricket since the summer of 1968,  the season after the rules on their registration were relaxed. In the 1970s much of the excitement that followed came from West Indian cricketers who dominated on the international stage but who starred in domestic cricket as well.

Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge and Alvin Kallicharran had county careers that between them spanned more than 70 years, brilliant but also lasting, and apart from Roy Fredericks who by then had left Glamorgan, 10 of the West Indian team that won the inaugural World Cup in 1975 returned to play for their counties that summer, 6 of them in Sunday League fixtures the following day. Seen from 2018 the general strength of  West Indian cricket in the 70s and 80s, and the loyalty of the individual players to their respective counties, put the game decades ahead of football in helping combat prejudice.

As to the Sunday League match played on the 3rd September 1978 at Dean Park, after the mid-season exit of Barry Richards, it was a game largely won by Gordon Greenidge  batting about as well as at any time for his county.  The strong Hants team of the 70s were on the wane, but were to claim the JPL trophy that evening as he got on top against a Middlesex team, that boasted a bowling attack of  fellow Barbadian, Wayne Daniel, Mike Selvey , the ‘spin twins’ Phil Edmonds and John Emburey, and Mike Gatting.   Even after 40 years it is not at all difficult to remember just how hard Gordon Greenidge hit  a cricket ball, back over the bowler’s head as much as anywhere, and the general excitement, apprehension then relief that followed the ball’s trajectory after the shot, realising that someone might have to catch it, and then seeing the ball land in or sail over the hedges that surrounded the ground.

The Middlesex team that afternoon had nine players who either had or who would go on to play international cricket; although it was actually Norman ‘Smokey’ Featherstone that led the visitors’ reply, having also checked the Hants innings with the ball. Harry Pearson in his piece ‘The Journeymen’ points out just how important ‘bits and pieces’ players can be to their teams and how much appreciated they are at times by supporters as well; in the case of Norman Featherstone a career lasting a decade and more, giving ‘glue’ to a Middlesex team that was generally on the rise in the 70s.

In a separate piece titled ‘Box of Delights’, Matthew Engel recalls happy summer days past  when county cricket was quite widely covered by the national press, but also by local, independently-minded journalists  as well.  It could fairly be said that the press box at Dean Park, to the left in ‘the cowshed’, did basics;  a building shared with the scorers to the right, a store of historic equipment in the rear which also provided a place for the umpires to change in.  But a way of life for those doing reports that had a certain charm to be sure, particularly then perhaps; even if, unlike their colleagues going round the nation’s racecourses, there were no telephonists to assist with dispatches.

There were other ways, now largely forgotten, in which domestic cricket exercised its voice then;  tea-time interviews given by county players and officials as  a part of the Beeb’s coverage on Sundays being one of them. Twenty minutes or so once a week through the summer months; ground level views in a manner of speaking, often from pleasant settings at a time when the game was still largely viewed as a game, and batsmen who walked, such as Hampshire’s captain Richard Gilliat, won their share of trophies. In his interview that summer he expressed  complete scepticism about the long-term benefits of the Packer revolution  for ‘ordinary’ county cricketers, which from the vantage point of 2018 is a judgement that seems to have been largely, if not entirely, right.

Of Dean Park, Hants continued playing home fixtures there until the early 1990s after a decade in which the county of the Hambledon club began to rather lose its way off the field. If cricket is a mirror of sorts to the world beyond, the Rose Bowl, conceived in the late 80s during the excesses of the ‘Lawson Boom’, led to decades of financial strain in Southampton, as an essentially solvent cricket club making small surpluses became something rather different. Others since have added to the over-expansion of TMGs and are still counting the cost.

Hampshire 221-4, (C.G. Greenidge 122), Middlesex 195ao (N.G. Featherstone 76, T.E. Jesty 5-32).

Hampshire versus Yorkshire Sunday 6th August 1978

The United Services Ground in the 1970s had a certain robustness to it, the feel to spectating given partly by the sounds emanating from the Officers’ Club in one corner and the famed heavy roller, weighing over 5 tonnes, stationed more or less directly opposite. Behind the rugby stand opposite in the photo, the railway line, and, on one side of the ground the festival tents with deck chairs for spectators, adjacent to the entrance and the impressive King James’s Gate.

Modernity then was in the form of the rugby clubhouse cum pavilion next to the pavilion used by the  players; offering home-made teas on Sunday afternoons and social history in the form of the photographs of the rugby teams over the decades, and the distinctive looking figures that played for them. Burnaby Road also did something of a split scoreboard, with the main board to the left of the older pavilion and tin plates doing bowlers’ overs bowled on the other side.

Cricket Archive records first-class cricket starting with a match between a Cambridge University team and the visiting Australians in 1882, a week or so before the ashes of English cricket were urned at the Oval.  County Championship matches were first played in 1895, and wars and two seasons apart, continued until 2000.  An historic ground; as to the cricket played on Sunday 6th August 1978, the match rather foreshadowed what was to happen in the  World Cup Final a year later. In an era of outstanding West Indians, Gordon Greenidge batted brilliantly, scoring at a rate close to current norms in List A cricket; the visitors after a solid start, struggled rather (Hampshire 216-4 in 34 overs, G. Greenidge 116, Yorkshire 130ao, 28 overs).

Ambient pleasure in watching at Pompey came from its history and distinctive character, a good ground to perambulate and cricket by the sea as well; with the prospect of the Rose Bowl being otherwise used for several weeks in the summer of 2020, perhaps a Hampshire team will return to Portsmouth, or, if not, then to May’s Bounty in Basingstoke.

Derbyshire v Hampshire 7th September 1975

Sundays in the 1970s  were quiet days, pre the relaxation of the  trading laws and with restrictive licensing that meant that pubs were open for two hours at lunchtime, before closing until the evening. Televised sport in the winter meant Ski Sunday, with its iconic signature tune, and, in the summer months, the Sunday League; a game a week broadcast on the Beeb, commentary by John Arlott and Jim Laker and bat and ball games on the outfield  during the tea interval helping  to breathe new life into the game.

The then 17 counties played each other once with the matches in 1975 being  played at over 50 venues: county grounds, outgrounds and outer outgrounds which that year included the Somerset team of Viv Richards and Ian Botham playing in Torquay,  and Colin Cowdrey and Derek Underwood playing for Kent in Long Eaton. When Hampshire defeated Leicestershire at Bournemouth in the penultimate round of fixtures  they were a win away from claiming the title that year. Interest was sufficiently high among supporters that a coach undertook what was, on the road network of the time, the long haul from Swanage to Darley Dale, ably organised by Joe Goodwin. Joe went on to become the chair of CAMRA, the  body championing consumer choice in beer matters, at the time choice for many was often bitter or mild and the ‘big six’ as they were known were standardising  production. CAMRA today still give an award to local pubs in Joe’s name.

Darley Dale Cricket Club played host to an estimated crowd of 6,000 (more than the population of Darley itself), and the scorecard for the day shows an era when county sides included Test cricketers, supported by decent county pros. Hampshire made 222-8 and won by 70 runs, in large part due to the dominance of their opening pair who put on 90, backed-up by John Rice who took 4-14 in his allotted overs.

In 2018 the T20 Blast is scheduled to be played at 23 venues and with the new city-based competition from 2020  on the horizon (“the future”) the number of venues it uses may well  be down to just 8. The game of cricket, it could be fairly said, has contracted in some important respects since the 1970s, while happily the nation’s choice of beers has widened considerably, and in many cases, gone local.  There are voices in the game suggesting that only the new standardised manufacture should be played in the height of summer in two years time; a message in a bottle, maybe, for cricket goers about the need to exercise their voice.

Many thanks to Gary Sanford, who watched much Hampshire cricket at Dean Park for the photographs of the ground that prompted this post. Mark Nicholas in his book A Beautiful Game gives a very readable account of his time playing for the county at the time, as to the spectators who took pleasure watching, they had the good fortune to see high level cricket played on the county’s outgrounds of which Dean Park was the most picturesque.

Those by the sightscreen at the end  of the ground from which the photograph here was taken  were collectively known as the ‘Winton End committee’;  individuals that came from well beyond the county’s borders each year for the Bournemouth week as well as those who lived locally; an annual pilgrimage of sorts for some, the member for Woking declaring ‘this committee meeting open’ each year.

On a wall of the pavilion there was a photograph of WG Grace at the turn of the 20th century when on the ground, and two distinctive bearded members  of the aforementioned committee  certainly did their bit for English heritage over the years; one who became the chair of the Campaign for Real Ale in its formative years, Dean Park a convivial place to organise and also a place of informed opinion on ales.  By the time the photograph above was taken a decade or so later, ‘Tony’ remained a prominent figure, often immersed in the cricket seen through his binoculars, to the side or at times just in front of the sightscreen, a prime spot from which to watch the game. He was also a natural with a cricket bat.

Despite the very English idyll suggested here, the 1980s were in some respects also very different; a decade in which, for example, Viv Anderson and John Barnes were at different times booed by sections of the crowd when they played at Wembley. Sunday League fixtures at Dean Park had spectator numbers increased  by  ‘football supporters’  and when Gordon Greenidge’s wife approached a group of about 20 or so sitting by the sightscreen collecting for her husband’s benefit, her face betrayed genuine uncertainty as to the nature of the response she was about to receive. Courtesies followed and £1 for the raffle tickets was collected about 20 times over.

As for the ‘actual committee’ Gary’s  photos show  the mayor’s tent and other hospitality tents, the forerunner of today’s corporate boxes; seemingly natural homes for some of its members.  Socially very different, the two worlds did intersect on occasion, the expeditions to distant outgrounds organized at the Winton End being instances of such, most memorably perhaps the trip to Darley Dale in 1975; those who went returned a full 24 hours later after traveling on a very different road network.

About the time these photographs were taken those who held offices on the main Hampshire committee  first mooted the prospect of a new ground with the aim of hosting Test Match cricket, and also alleviating the parking problems at the Northlands Road ground in  Southampton. While it would  be fair to say that the county game as a whole has become more centralised over the years, Stephen Chalke’s book, Summer’s Crown, also makes it clear that Hampshire have been the only county that has relocated away from a town or city centre. The wisdom of this decision in relation both to the county’s heritage, and its future, escaped the blogger at the time, the photos here are a reminder that it still does.

Middlesex versus Hampshire, 12-15th September 2017

To every Hove its Arundel, although to Uxbridge in September when it would have been better were it Lord’s was a test of patience. After a blank first day, a start was made on the second morning, although when some rain came the players did not delay in leaving the field, a reminder of times of old, before the arrival of T20 cricket and the changed attitudes that have come with it. To be fair, given the problems with the covers it was probably of some help to the ground staff as well.

In a nice touch after lunch the PA informed that Felix Organ from the Hampshire academy, who had travelled to the ground after James Vince withdrew in the morning, was present in person making his debut for the county; alas a quick deluge followed after a few minutes and whereas at a major ground coverage, drainage and a resumption in an hour or so would have probably followed, that was it for the day. Middlesex 76-3.

The blogger renewed his enthusiasm for spectating on the third day by listening to the BBC commentary, a job well done by them as it usually is. Play resumed on time on the Friday morning, some warm sunshine, free admission and a sprinkling of spectators to witness proceedings. The Middlesex innings closed on 204 and in reply Hampshire made 146,  no-one really batted with any sense of permanence at the crease on either side, although Joe Weatherley, Felix Organ and Ian Holland played attractively for the visitors. A pleasant few hours to watch and a reminder of the charm of watching at outgrounds.

Middlesex play much of the time at Lord’s, ground preparations by the MCC, their outgrounds, prepared  in high summer by club/school; it came to light that they do not have their own ground staff and it seems that more time was lost in this match than might have been as a result. The 2016 winners of the Championship go into the final two rounds of matches with Yorkshire and Somerset their chief rivals to avoid the drop, the tables turned on a year ago and some added spice to the end of season given the way the title was won last year.

Elsewhere,  Essex became  Champions for 2017, a title won at Edgbaston with a team that had seven players born in what might be termed  the historic cricketing county. It was the seventh time in all and their first win since 1992. To use Stephen Chalke’s phrase  they are a grounded club; other counties have mortgaged their futures, gone prospecting for prestige since then, while Essex, it could be said, have played the game.

Surrey versus Hampshire  July 16 1978, July 3-6, 2017

To the Oval, about to celebrate staging its 100th test but also a place  where the question posed by CLR James in Beyond a Boundary…what do they know of cricket who only cricket know?…still resonates. The book, published in 1963, came after the appointment of Frank Worrell as West Indian captain and the decades that followed were to become a time of Caribbean dominance in cricket; the  Oval, particularly in the 1970s, a place  where the West Indian team and their supporters  made a statement against a background of prejudice and lives being difficult.

West Indian cricketers were also prominent in the domestic English game, Hampshire very much included, although by comparison with the tests, county matches were relatively calm occasions; four days for county cricket then  meant a Championship game  played on a Saturday, Monday and Tuesday, together with a 40-over Sunday League  match. When  Hampshire went to the Oval in July 1978 the Sunday saw Gordon Greenidge and Barry Richards open a Hampshire innings  for the final time in a Sunday League match, putting on 97; with the help of some late hitting by Andy Roberts the innings totalled 238-7 at a time when 240 was a ‘good score’ in 60 over cricket and heading over the horizon in the 40 over format.

Surrey however, with a team that had John Edrich, Younis and Intikab chased down the runs with a ball to spare, despite economical overs of medium pace bowling by John Rice and Tim Tremlett.  A defeat for Hampshire to get over and also the last  weekend in which Andy Roberts played for the county; although in a message about winning competitions they went on to lift the Sunday League trophy that September, winning four of their five remaining games played, in  large part thanks to Gordon Greenidge who made two centuries, and also perhaps to a  changed dressing room.

In the years since the Oval has been largely rebuilt, albeit that it retains much the same ambience for watching the game. Gas holder number 1 is now seen as iconic and has been granted grade II listed building status.

Cricket, of course, no longer holds the place in West Indian culture that once it did; the Oval in  2017, home to Surrey cricket and to much corporate hospitality and event management, a reflection of the prosperity of London in an era in which, broadly, those born in the decades after WWII, those at the top, have done particularly well. The capacity of the ground is planned to rise to 40,000 in time for the 2023 Ashes test;  an expression of confidence in the future, although if the current era beyond the boundary is now drawing to a close, the effect on English cricket, the Oval, is really anyone’s guess.

In the 2017 fixture it was Surrey, with their home in the global city, that took to the field with ten England qualified players and Hampshire who were the team of internationalists: four England qualified players, three South Africans, two Australians, one Zimbabwean  and one West Indian. The first two days were dominated by Hampshire who posted their 5th highest ever score,  648-7, with centuries from Jimmy Adams, James Vince and George Bailey; but they were also then  left with the difficult task  of bowling out an opponent twice on the same pitch. Rory Burns led Surrey’s response from the front, but Hampshire  stuck at it with Fidel Edwards, now just one of four West Indians on the county circuit, bowling quickly on the third evening and handy support given  by Ian Holland who took five wickets on the final day; although, in truth, the Oval was rather becalmed on the fourth afternoon. A draw on a draw wicket.

From the Oval, the pleasures of a county match in an empty cathedral; in a nice touch on the first day there was  a presentation made to Surrey members who had passed their personal half-centuries of membership; if other counties don’t do something similar in a better world they would. Hampshire stronger than they were a year ago and they should be playing Division 1 again next year; if they were to win four of their remaining five matches this year they could still be on to something.