What’s as entertaining as the game, is listening to people talk about it
Hi everyone!
I’ve never met Clare Rogers.
But in Season 2025 I will try to find her in the Pavilion at Hove.
The quote is from her interview in Field of Dreams, the book that commemorates the first 150 years of cricket at the County Ground, Hove Actually.
A few weeks
ago, I was watching the game v Derbyshire with a friend who was at his first
ever game of cricket.
He made exactly the same point as Ms Rogers.
As I watched from Up in the Deckchairs on the last day of Season 2024 - 65 Seasons since I was first there – I wondered:
What is it that I really value about Cricket at Hove?
Well, it is this … …
Ol’ Ric
Sussex have Best Season EVER
I’d been in Hove for Days 1 & 2 on the Thursday and
Friday. But both days had been completely washed out.
On the Saturday I was in London for a good friend’s 70th Birthday Party. I’d pretty much decided not to travel down from Bickley for Day 4 on the Sunday.
But as I occasionally checked the score on the BBC Sports website on the Saturday afternoon … I felt the Invisible Waves of Recollection.
As Clive James wrote about Sydney, the city of his youth, in the closing words of Unreliable Memoirs:
Pulsing like a beacon through the days and nights, the birthplace of the fortunate sends out its Invisible Waves of Recollection.
It always has and it always will, until even the last of us Come Home.
On the Sunday morning I took Lady Dianne her morning cup of tea in bed and headed off from Merryfield to catch the 08.29 local train from Bickley to Beckenham Junction and then the tram to East Croydon.
No Thameslink services to Brighton (“engineering works,
sir !”).
But I soon caught a Southern train.
As I headed south, I started to pen my Blog.
The day was “bound to” end in a:
Final Ball
Triller.
Last ball, one wicket left, Sussex needing 3 to win.
You know the sort of thing … the Standard Lord Ric Blog!
From way back in 1890, the game was Sussex’s 2,827th
in the County Championship.
I haven’t seen them all… but I have watched quite a few!
If ( when !!) Sussex won, it would be their 806th victory, their 9th in Season 2024.
9 wins out of 14 games played would
be a Win Rate of 64%
The Best EVER!!
But in the event; Day 4 would be a Day of the Unexpected.
The First Surprise of which was that the train was diverted - because of engineering works immediately outside of Brighton station – to Hove.
Alighting at Hove station, I strolled along East along the Cromwell Road to take my seat up - as tradition these last six decades demands - Up in the Deckchairs just before Start of Play at 10.30.
---
Straightaway I realised that the Blog would need some heavy editing.
The First Draft had in mind that:
the weather was gloriously sunny, the type of weather you occasionally get in late September
In fact - as Will Macpherson would write in Daily Telegraph - it was a bitterly autumnal day.
Something told the Wild Geese
It was time to fly,
Summer sun was on their wings,
Winter in their cry.
Something Told the Wild Geese by Rachel Field
And it didn’t turn out to a Final Ball Thriller.
Sussex got their 2nd
Batting Point – the one needed to secure promotion back to Division 1 as
Champions – in early afternoon.
And then … they had to play on for another couple of hours, scoring 200 more runs, until the game could be declared a Draw at 16.20 hours.
And even the Championship winning runs weren’t a once bounce 4 through midwicket or a huge 6 high over the Pavilion.
As Bruce Talbot wrote in Brighton & Hove News:
There was a slight sense of
anti-climax shortly after lunch when [off break bowler] Luke Hollman
overstepped, and the two No Balls took Sussex to 250.
But absolutely no matter … Sussex were Division Two Champions !!!
After 9 long winters, we are back in Division One for Season 2025 !!
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As I caught the No7 bus back to Brighton Station for my journey back to SE London, so many memories of watching from Up in the Deckchairs.
What is it that I really value about Cricket at Hove?
Friendliness
As I walked through the Palmeira
Avenue Gates the Security Men were there to scan my Membership Card and offer
me a complementary Scorecard.
We chatted amiably for a couple of minutes.
I told them they are an essential part of the Sussex Family.
From there it was off to take my seat.
There are those who always sit in the Pavilion; and those who always sit in the Sharks Stand at the Sea End.
But … From my very first day:
Saturday 7th May 1960
I’m a Deckchair Boy. Always have been. Always will be!
John & Heidi also sit Up in the Deckchairs.
John’s letter to The Cricketer explains
why The Deckchairs are the very essence of Hove Actually.
Please note Sussex’s reply:
"Continue" & "Retain" !!
Putting the world to rights
I took my seat. There were a
couple of Good Mornings from & to people sitting nearby.
Soon I was joined by Andy Winter, who writes a weekly column in the Brighton Argus.
Andy started life in South Africa, almost 10,000 kilometres south of Hove.
These days, he is a Sussex Fan.
Just as Clare Rogers said:
What’s as entertaining as the game,
is listening to people talk about it.
Andy & I soon started to chat.
As Lewis Carroll wrote:
The time has come, the Walrus said,
To talk of
many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —
Of cabbages
— and kings —
And why the sea is boiling hot —
And whether
pigs have wings.
The Cricket Museum
At Lunch I popped into the Cricket
Museum, at the sea end of the Pavilion.
As many of you who have watched
with me at Hove will know, the Museum is a Must Visit.
Knowledgeable Guides and a
veritable Treasure Trove of Sussex Cricket memorabilia.
I looked - as I always do – at the
exhibits about Tony Buss.
Tony is a Hove Immortal; one of the
Sussex XI who was playing in the first game I ever saw at Hove:
The scorecard is of a game Tony played
in at Lord’s in August 1962 for the Royal Air Force v Royal Navy.
The RAF No.5 and Captain was Squadron
Leader MD Maurice Fenner.
Maurice played 33 First Class games: 14 for Kent & 19 for the Combined Services.
He was Secretary of Kent Cricket from 1977 to 1982.
Even if you are a Lifelong Kent Fan … you’ve probably never heard of Maurice.
So why is it that I ALWAYS look at
the scorecard.
And the Answer is … Come to my Funeral Service.
There will only be time for the one Lord Ric Cricket Tale.The one about a game Maurice played in.
Please; You will come along won’t
you??!!
(Editor: I keep having to write this in the Blogs…
Right at the Top of Ol’ Ric’s Bucket List:
2039: Turn 87 & Attend the 200th Anniversary Lunch of the founding of Sussex Cricket Club)
Softball
Cricket on the Outfield
And Finally …
That Saturday now long, long ago; Dad & I played Softball
Cricket on the Outfield.
These days my softball days are (probably!) behind me. But in the Tea Interval I like to walk round the outfield; always walking down the Palmeira Avenue side of the ground & back up the hill by the Pavilion.
David Roodyn is very often watching from the SO Legal Executive
Suite. There’s always time for catch up.
David & his Godson, Neddy on his first ever
visit to Hove Actually
What is it about Softball Cricket at Hove?
On page 205 of Field of Dreams; a Sussex Fan explains:
[The] father took his eldest son for his first visit to the ground at an early-season Championship game versus Gloucestershire in 1971.
After that initiation, armed with junior membership, he would set off from Holmes Avenue with his three younger brothers in tow. They'd leave their sandwiches and bottles of diluted lemon squash on the grass in front of the Hencoop (they knew it as the Cowshed) and then got on with the main business of the day - not watching the game but playing it.
They would invariably meet up with friends and they were always six to ten strong. Plenty for competitive matches out on the outfield during intervals, and straight onto the road behind the main scoreboard once play restarted.
"All you needed was a bat and a tennis ball. The world was our oyster."
A couple of Seasons ago the Decision was taken to stop Softball Cricket at Hove.
At a Members Meeting, an ol’ boy
asked a question…
He said he’d been playing Softball Cricket since the first time he ever watched at hove on Saturday 7th May 1960
The Sussex Fan in the quote above made
his position crystal clear:
Softball Cricket would be back in the Tea Interval!!
Of course… It helps when - though you started as a little boy playing with your brothers & friends – these days you are the Sussex Chair !!
A Lifelong Fan
Best Chair in County Cricket
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I started the Blog with mentioning a friend who a few weeks ago watched his first game of Cricket with me.
Mickey has lived all his life in Castlebar in County
Mayo, Ireland; on the very edge of Western Europe.
Prior to the game v Derbyshire, he had never seen a game of Cricket.
After two days watching from Up in the Deckchairs, he had caught the Hove Bug.
“Ric; it’s not really all that much about the Cricket, is it?”
In Season 2025 the Mighty Sussex will be back in Division One.
Mickey will be visiting from Ireland to watch a game (or two!).
I really hope you too will also come down to Hove Actually … I’ve Saved A Deckchair for YOU!!!
After all ….
Why read a Lord Ric Cricket Blog, when you can star in your own.
See you soon!!
Lord Ric of Beckley Furnace
Dozing up in
the Deckchairs
PS
Memories - aka Invisible Waves of Recollection
There is one other thing I really value about Cricket at
Hove.
After 65 Season of watching … there
are so many Memories of Days that are never to be forgotten; and Players too.
As I wandered round the outfield at
Tea, from just outside the Sussex Cricket Foundation cabin I heard a little dog
bark .
A friendly voice said: “Don’t worry,
he’s friendly!”
Chris Nash played for Sussex from 2002
to 2017. His tweet very well-captures the Day & Sussex Cricket.
You often see Former Players at Hove. For as John Spencer (1969-1980) said in Field of Dreams:
I just love the place. Loved going. Still do.
As I sat watching the game, I thought of another #SussexLegend, my Favourite.
Young Jim, as a little boy,
watched his Dad Jim Snr & Uncle Harry play for Sussex at Hove.
Along the way he played 563 games
for Sussex, won the Gillette Cup twice & played 46 Tests for England.
He Captained the XI and was President … Twice!
Jim was still a regular visitor to
the ground in his late 80s
Mrs Parks &Young Jim
Watching from the Cromwell Road end in June 2019
The interview with Young Jim in Field
of Dreams ends with:
As long as there’s cricket played
at the county Ground, the light will shine undimmed.
Do come & watch with me… I’ve
written the Blog already
Final Ball Thriller
Sussex have
Best Season EVER
