The Nottingham Test. Ah. One of my favourite grounds, and the visit to Higgys at Long Eaton is always good fun, so it was in good spirits that I began the train journey via the roundabout itinerary of Huddersfield, Sheffield, and finally Long Eaton.
The train ride is quite pleasant and picturesque, although when we slipped through a station called Penistone, I couldn’t help but think what a nice place that would be for the Numan Inc. company to relocate to should they ever wish to move their Head Office. You must know the company, they advertise all the time on Sky Sports to cure erectile disfunction for those men unable to get aroused watching Crystal Palace v Watford.
On arrival at Higgys, guess what? Straight down to his local, The Bell, where we were soon joined by Lofty and the Long Eaton cricket boys, Tony, Captain Ryan, and young Sam sporting their brand new cricket shirt – now sponsored by The Bell. How marvellously appropriate this combination is. By the time we were kicked out of the pub all the local food outlets were long closed, so my dinner and tea consisted of a ham butty and ten pints of beer.
So to the Test, but before that, the train. From social distancing a few weeks ago, to standing room only packed like sardines now, with a chatty train driver constantly apologising for the overcrowded conditions, and saying he wished he was coming with us to the cricket. Well, maybe you can go to Headingley next week by car instead, you bastard, like we will have to do while you c***s are on strike – readers, you haven’t heard the last of this topic, I guarantee!
We arrived at the ground in one piece, having picked up Lofty at the taxi rank outside his hotel, Jury’s Inn on Canal Street. I bet he wouldn’t stay at that address if the Test Match was in Manchester, ha ha!
England won the toss and inexplicably put New Zealand into bat.
New Zealand made the most of it and were 300+ for 4 at stumps. England’s fielding was sloppy, with several dropped catches, notably off the unfortunate Broad. The day was quite dull, in truth, but I did hear that Skip, Herbie and Saint had been present, sat in the alcohol free stand. Lucky Saint. Sounds like a good name for a new brand of low calorie, vegan alcohol free beer!
The highlight of the day was when Daryl Mitchell hit a towering six into the members and it landed smack in some unfortunate punters plastic pint pot.
Maybe given the quality of the ‘beer’ on offer, Mitchell was actually doing the guy a favour, but we found out later that the New Zealand team had the good manners to actually buy the unlucky man a replacement pint.
A visit to the Trent Navigation pub after stumps. Very disappointing. Last time we were there, they had nice individual tables with comfy seats, glass pots to drink from and chilling acoustic music played on the guitar by a gifted singer. Tonight, we got uncomfortable, thin wooden benches, shite overpriced beer in unsuitable plastic pots, and loud bang bang music performed by a teenage busker which wouldnt have been out of place at the Download Festival and which made conversation impossible. We didn’t stay, instead we reconvened at The Bell. Unless the Trent Navigation reconfigure once more to the traditional set up, I won’t be going back. Who says old people don’t like change, eh?
Tonight I put my foot down and insisted on some solid food post-session. Higgy was forced to the local Chinese takeaway, where his Benny Hill style ‘Chinese Ambassador for Culture’ impression went down great guns with the whole shop, except, I suspect, the long suffering female owner. The spare ribs, though, were scintillating, as Isa Guha might say.
Day two and we have the same seats, which are two thirds up the New stand and on the end of the row. Lofty and I aren’t getting any younger, and we reacted with dismay to the constant steam of punters getting up to go and buy trays of shite beer, come back, and no sooner had they sat down it was up again to pee. My God, we will need new hinges in our knees if this carries on for another three days!
The ground was ablaze with the news that the pub owned by Harry Gurney and Stuart Broad had burned down overnight. The commentators on TMS were treating this like the world’s biggest ever disaster…..hang on a minute, nobody was in fact hurt, and I’m sure the pair have more than adequate insurance cover.
Comments like “Ooh, and they had such a lovely beer garden too!” abounded on the radio. Well, that won’t have burned down, will it?
I met Saint and Skip at lunch time, and as you might expect, they were somewhat less sympathetic. In fact, a theory was advanced that Stuart Broad was fuming so much after all his dropped catches on day one, he had self-combusted the bar!
Early doors I received some very sad news from New Zealand concerning my friend Silver Dave, which is covered in a separate article – I have no wish to disrespect Dave’s memory by including his passing within this piece of nonsense.
New Zealand were also on fire today, and piled up a score of 553, which could have been worse apart from a small collapse towards the end.
Daryl Mitchell, who had been dropped on 3, got very close to a magnificent double hundred.
England had 26 overs to survive and finished on 90-1. Crawley got out cheaply once again, but Lees and Pope looked convincing, with the latter playing his best shots since Port Elizabeth (sorry, but I can’t pronounce or spell the silly new politically correct name for PE).
Tonight, Higgy was going to the Download Festival with daughter Georgia to enjoy the subtle rhythms of Mastodon, Megadeth, and Iron Maiden, I think he said.
Higgy had given me a set of keys to his house. Lofty and I adjourned to the Bell, and tried to arrange an impromptu party back at the house, but most of the locals seemed unwilling, nervous in fact, about what they might find. Anyone would think his address was Cromwell Street, Gloucester!
But we needn’t have worried. The Long Eaton CC team were in the pub in numbers, celebrating a win at Keyworth. They were all in, well, high spirits, and the night concluded with batsman Jack and the female scorer exchanging underwear. I wonder if she learned this on an official ECB Scorers course? All this was treated as routine, indeed encouraged, by ‘liberated’ Captain Ryan. The evening also featured Gary Glitter songs being played loudly on a mobile phone. Just another Long Eaton CC night down The Bell, then!
Day three, and Higgy seemed a little subdued after his ‘heavy’ night at Download.
“Those were nice bacon butties” I said to him as I recounted last nights fun and games at The Bell. “Yer what mate?” he eventually replied, as a small trickle of blood escaped from his left ear.
England bat really well this morning. Alex Lees goes to his first International fifty, Pope is also playing exceptionally well. I turn on my earpiece. I am still using a £3-99 battery purchased on Ashton Market over twelve months ago before the last Test we attended at Headingley. It seems to be an extremely potent and long lasting battery, perhaps it was manufactured by Numan Inc! Actually, it pays to replace batteries rather than buy new, as the price of these ECB earpieces has risen to a staggering £15 a pop!
Sky news will soon be running an expose, I feel, no doubt presented by Beth Rigby:
“Financially distressed? Eat, Put the heating on, fill up the car, or Buy an ECB cricket radio earpiece? – help, I cannot decide!”
The radio content today makes the decision a Cinch, if you will pardon the unfortunate expression, dear reader.
A full inquest into the Gurney-Broad pub fire, led by Phil Tufnell, who has no doubt sampled it’s wares on more than a few occasions. Phil’s voice now reminds me of The Rolling Stones Ronnie Wood, throaty after years of smoking cigarettes and other things and with a laugh that sounds more like a cough. The content though, like The Stones, is still worth listening to.
Lees plays probably his first iffy drive and is caught in the slips for 67. That’s 147-2.
Pope and Root prospered up to and after lunch, and Pope reached his well deserved hundred just after the break. Dare I say it, we are beginning to think that avoiding the follow on is a strong possibility rather than a pipe dream. All in all a fine morning, with England’s run rate never dropping much below 4.
Higgy has gone to the pub today for a change, so leaving Lofty hungry I nip out of the ground to find a local chippy. Eventually after much walking I obtain Nottingham haddock, chips and curry sauce from a Chinese takeaway on Radcliffe Road at the entirely reasonable price of just £12, but I wouldn’t recommend it. In fact, the quality of the food offering made me understand just why Robin Hood spent most of his life in Sherwood Forest living entirely off the Kings venison.
Root batted superbly after lunch. Isa Guha gushed forth on the radio thus:
“Ooh, its been scintillating viewing!” Loftys response: “Well, its not been scintillating listening to you!” Our Joe reached his milestone at 3.30pm with the score on 325-2. Cue a standing ovation, but in truth the shot that got him there was rather fluky.
No sooner had the radio announced that this was England’s best third wicket stand against New Zealand since 1958, than Pope lobbed one up in the air to be caught at long leg for 145. Jonny Bairstow didn’t ignite the scoreboard and was dismissed for just eight.
However, we avoided the follow on at about 3.30pm.
Lofty was by this time ravenous, and disappeared in search of food. He came back with a box of ‘substitute’ fried chicken and curly fries.
My, how times have changed.
I will always remember Loftys first ever visit (the authorities do not allow fast food chains to operate on the Channel Islands) to ‘The Colonels’ in Oamaru, NZ, many years ago. I had taken Lofty there for dinner as he had been imbibing rather a lot of home brewed, industrial strength cider in the Criterion Hotel and was a bit too tiddly for a sit down meal. As I placed the box of KFC chicken and chips in front of him, he stared at it for a minute, and then observed:
“What the f**k am I supposed to do with this?”
Well, the Nottingham fries clearly didn’t match up to the standard of the Oamaru ones, because as I got up to go to the gents Lofty said “Are you looking for rubbish? You can take this shite down with you, these curly fries are f***king cold!”
Now, I am a firm believer in ‘waste not want not’, so I offered to take the box back to the vendor to see if they would stick it in the microwave. I cannot repeat the response I got from Lofty here without grossly offending our readership.
Various jokes and references to ‘Chicken George’ ensued, although clearly Higgy and I were wasting our time with that one, as Lofty doesn’t watch TV unless cricket or formula one are on!
Enough of such frivolous observations because out on the pitch New Zealand were wilting now under a Stokes onslaught and to add to their woes, the Kiwis lost Kyle Jamieson at 5pm to what looked like a serious injury.
Sadly Stokes holed out for a quick fire 46 and as you-know-who was holding forth on the earpiece radio, I switched it off for a spell to listen instead to the stream of drivel emanating from the bloke behind us, who was clearly trying to convince his mate that he was a bit of an expert on cricket.
“Gawd, why did Stokes play that shot? It was obvious New Zealand were trying to get him out like that. If we, the spectators, can see that, why can’t he? Bloody hell, Foakes is in next. He can’t hit boundaries he’s just a nurdler. Our run rate will drop like a stone now! Bloody hell, etc etc etc ad infinitum.”
In reality Foakes batted well enough. He survived a ridiculous ‘out’ decision by Paul Reiffel when the ball had clearly hit his chest, almost amputating a nipple in the process. Thank goodness for VAR. Root brought up England’s 450 with a stunning drive, and his own 150 the next over with another classy boundary. This has been a superlative, scintillating even, display by our ex-skipper.
So to The Bell, and another night of mayhem with the local cricket community. The lure of a Monday at the Test has proved too much for some, and young Sam gets out his phone to buy tickets for himself and Tony on day four. Somehow, Sam gets seats right next to our own. Should be fun tomorrow!
Day four begins and with England just 80 in arrears, and with Root at the crease, hopes are high for a lead by lunchtime. We are early, so we obtain coffees and watch the artist atop the TBI Soundstage for a while. “Is he Megadeth or Mastodon?” I enquire of Higgy, and then to Sam: “Mastodon is a really silly name for a group, isn’t it Sam? If they are crap,the music critics will just change it to Masturbate!” Sam laughs, albeit a bit sheepishly.
Lofty then commandeers the conversation. “Don’t be stupid, you idiot!” he says. “It isn’t Megadeth or Mastodon. He’s playing ELO. The guy even looks a bit like Jeff Lynne!” As the opening chords to ‘Mr Blue Sky’ commence, Lofty starts to sing along, and I kid you not, after about ten seconds it starts to rain.
To our relief this did not delay the start of play and 500 came up for England in no time thanks to Root and that damned hopeless nurdler, Foakes. Sadly, Root was caught for 176 and things suddenly calmed down.
Looking around the ground there were quite a few empty seats, which I found surprising as Sam had been able to buy his tickets for just £40 apiece, which I gather is somewhat cheaper than the rip-off prices charged by Lords.
Wickets tumble and evidently England are not going to get a lead, in fact soon Jimmy Anderson is striding out to bat. “It won’t be long before we see Jimmy’s trademark reverse sweep!” I predict, and Jimmy obliges, having first hit a normal sweep to the fence. Cue rapturous applause. Our innings ends with a deficit of 14, but New Zealand do not start their second innings well. Jimmy takes the wicket of Tom Latham with a very poor decision to leave a ball that hits middle stump.”A hideous misjudgement!” waxes Aggers on TMS. Hard to argue with that , really, and Jimmy’s 650th Test wicket.
I accompany Higgy, Sam and Tony to the Larwood today and we meet Chris and Carol, a scouse couple who have lived in Auckland, New Zealand for thirty years. “The right decision, tha, la” I assure them! But seriously these are really nice people, and what they don’t know about NZ isn’t worth knowing.
The afternoon becomes hazy, and when we return to our seats Jack Leach is coming on to bowl. Now I’m sure Leach would admit that he hasn’t had a very good game. But he is now on Loftys radar for sure. “For God’s sake take him off!” “Hit the pies!” “Help yourselves, New Zealand!” The lunchtime beer only makes Loftys rants more enjoyable.
New Zealand stagger to 213-7 when suddenly over the tannoy it is announced that Day 5 tickets will be issued free. Tony wisely nips down to the ticket office to grab one. Sam, on the other hand, texts his boss to ask permission for a day off.
“Nooooooooooo do not do that Sam. Pick up the phone and speak to him, bosses are much more likely to capitulate if you are there live in person, a text is too easy to say no to.” Alas, it is too late. Sam soon receives a reply declining his perfectly reasonable request. I am personally going to give that lad a grounding in devious negotiating skills before much longer has elapsed, but as it stands, he will not be joining us for the free day five. A lesson learned, I hope.
That evening in The Bell there is an 18th birthday party for one of the young lasses that works behind the bar, and it is all balloons, Harry Styles and excessive drinking. This provides some consolation for Sam, and it is even harder than usual to drag Higgy out of the pub at last orders.
On the fateful fifth day Higgy has a master plan. He is going to take loads of pictures at the cricket and bombard young Sam: “Are you having a nice day at work mate?”
This he does, and I join in until Sam is well and truly pissed off. He would be even more pissed off a few hours later!
My first question today was “will Jamieson bat?” Because if not, the Kiwis are effectively eight wickets down. The highest run chase at Trent Bridge is 284, coincidentally against NZ 18 years ago, so we cannot afford to give them too many runs first thing.
Leach comes on to bowl and Lofty is right on it.
Before even a ball has been bowled, “Take him off for f**ks sake!” : “There’s a pie coming your way soon!” Etc etc etc.
There are two adults and a boy sat in front presumably on the free tickets. It is the lads first Test match, and they are all bemused by Lofty’s rants, so I endeavour to explain to the youngster.
“You don’t know how lucky you are to be sat in front of the grumpiest man in Test Cricket. When you go to school tomorrow, you must tell all your mates about it. Lofty here had an audition for the ‘Grumpy Old Men’ show, you know with Rick Wakeman, but he failed the audition because he was just too f***king grumpy”
The kid hadn’t got a clue what I meant but the adults seemed to like it.
Eventually, Stokes replaces Leach with the faster men and wickets start to tumble.
“We could have done this an hour ago without using Leach!” exclaims grumpy Lofty, but I guess he has a point. Well, Tuffers on the radio agrees with him anyway!
Fina!ly NZ are out for 284 leaving England 299 to win at about four runs per over.
England commence. There are three fours from the first Southee over. Is it Alex Lees, or Alex Hales in disguise that we have sent out to bat? Although we soon lose Crawley, Pope and Lees see it through to lunch. 86-1, we are up with the rate.
Pope has a life straight after lunch when he is dropped by Latham off Boult. Lees is still looking assured. Lofty is listening intently to his radio when he suddenly exclaims:
“Shut up you silly moo!” to the bewilderment and amusement of the family in front.
I have no idea what or who he meant either (fingers crossed firmly behind my back with that one!)
Pope is out. Enter ex-captain Root. He is out for just 3. “Ooh, you can feel the excitement going out of the crowd!” comments Isa Guha.
As Root walks back to the pavilion he receives warm applause. “Why are they applauding him? They should be booing him!” Lofty rather harshly exclaims. We are 56-3 now,still needing plenty.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man.Enter Bairstow, to play the innings of his life. Six after six is deposited into our stand, tin hats are required, this is getting like a T20 game!
Stokes comes in, but Jonny is out Stokesing him today. This is the best I’ve seen him play since Cape Town, when he was second fiddle to Stokes, but definitely first fiddle this afternoon.
I’m sure I don’t need to describe the closing moments, you must all have watched it. We stayed for the presentation and Lofty was slightly dismayed when Bairstow got Man of the Match instead of Leach, but he managed to contain his disappointment.
All kinds of records here, no LBW decisions in the whole Test: Bairstow was one ball away from beating Gilbert Jessops fastest England hundred, a record that has stood since 1902. The most boundaries ever hit in a Test match.
A memorable watch and an absolute privilege to be in attendance.
Meanwhile, at a workplace somewhere in Nottingham, an angry young man called Sam is sitting at a desk, his phone filled with jokey text garbage, penning his resignation letter.
Oh dear, I hear you say!
Well, there is a happy ending. Sam joined us at The Bell afterwards and we bought him a few beers.
Now, it was my turn to suffer. I was sat on an outside table with Lofty, Sam ,Tony and Higgy, together with their friends Deano and Nicky, who had been at the cricket too.
Nicky is in charge of the local hair/ beauty salon, and, ever so slightly drunk, she insisted on giving me a therapeutic neck massage to relieve the stresses of the afternoon.
Today, on the way home, my head feels as if it is about to drop off my neck at any moment like the closing sunset shot in ‘The Wicker Man’.
Thanks Nicky! I’m glad I didn’t agree to the knee massage, I might never have made it back at all.
We will all be at Headingley, transport allowing, so further fun and games from there hopefully.
Thanks as usual to Higgy for meeting my nourishment expectations fully, and of course the accommodation.
Thanks to Lofty for all the laughs – he is a good egg really, if a bit grumpy at times!
Thanks to the Long Eaton cricket fraternity for your usual warm welcome.
And last but not least, thanks to Sam for taking all the ribbing in good heart, and being great company throughout our visit. Hopefully, you will get out on tour one day, lad………. New Zealand this winter maybe? Who knows?
But you will need to sort that boss of yours out first!
Regards, Midnight.
PS. Its good to be back on the horse!