Taunton, Weston and Bath

Taunton 1974, Somerset playing Hants in a  one-day cup game; one of the teenage heads growing up in a long ago world where schools had playing fields that come summer were used for cricket. Among the things that weren’t better then, smoking, which was actively encouraged by the sponsors, but the county cricket season  had a flow, and  was done by a date that usually left people wanting more.

2024 and  the Colin Atkinson Pavilion making an attractive  background. Looking the other the way towards the corner the view more open and better for it, and  overall Taunton has the feel of a traditional  ground within a reduced scale TMG. Perambulating and  surprisingly or not  no sign of  cider sales.

The development of Somerset Cricket Museum from a derelict barn is very impressive, free, history  better presented than the one at Lord’s.  Prominent some fine paintings, a mobile scorecard maker and a display on women’s cricket. Personally for some reason I missed a trip to Street for a game played in 1977, and in 2024, missed the publication on it  from the Museum, sold out; closure, one to smile to about.

In all Somerset played at 11  outgrounds between 1969-2010,  chiefly Weston and Bath. Games, festivals at  Clarence Park until 1996 and some luck  to  have been in time to  snap Viv Richards here;  one into the pavilion or possibly Clarence Park West.

Passing by in 2024  Clarence Park East  was serenity itself, the cricket pavilion still identified as such on park maps, was doing a turn for  Men in Sheds, Hospice care support. The substantial properties by the roads nearby still there, the holiday-makers not so many.

Bath rec, county cricket in the days when the players sat one side of the pavilion, members the other and for days at the cricket one of the best.  Not as popular with the players, but a city that has generally prospered in globalising decades and not to play there at all seems  surprising from the outside.

So Bath for rugby; and Taunton, as Somerset, for cricket,  a success story? Not entirely, The Blast as successor to the Sunday League has been floodlights and £s,  transferring the game to a younger generation not so much. County cricket is now very dependent  on a small number of public schools for its players, Somerset more  than most, which given the way of things at the top here is a big change.