Annie Chave column: Skyscrapers hover menacingly over county cricket

The Editor of County Matters magazine Annie Chave makes her debut as a columnist on Prost International. Inspired by a day watching cricket at Chesterfield’s scenic Queens Park, she wrote her thoughts on the threat to England’s grounds by plans to take cricket matches abroad.

See: Annie Chave joins Prost International

If you enter Chesterfield’s Queen’s Park via the footbridge, past the Barbara Hepworth ‘Rosewall’ Sculpture, the boating lake and the extensive parkland, take a moment to pause on the grass bank by the beer tent.

Through the tips of the copper beeches you will see a glimpse of the well-known crooked spire of St Mary and All Saints. Just a glimpse it might be, but it’s what that old characterful spire symbolises that makes you catch your breath. It towers above a scene that is so quintessentially English; the lush green of a county cricket out ground, surrounded by trees and bathed in a hush of expectation.

It is so important to the town that the local football club, Chesterfield FC, carries the nickname ‘the Spireites’.

Just three days after Derbyshire CCC hosted Middlesex CCC at this ‘festival of cricket’, Tim Wigmore published an article in the Independent on 17 June about a radical overhaul being mulled over by the ECB.

The idea mooted is for county championship games to be played overseas in the UAE, Sri Lanka or West Indies. The two main reasons cited were to help with the lack of spin in this country and to ease pressure on the domestic schedule.

As a county member this is a hard menu suggestion to digest.

“… these idyllic days are numbered. We are losing our grounds annually. County fixtures are being cut to make way for the new brand, the beer snakes, endless renditions of ‘Sweet Caroline’ and for betting companies to line their pockets.”

If, by playing these early season games it means that the championship still has a suitable number of games to make it a viable tournament, then of course I’d rather this then see it reduced to only ten games, but the bonuses for being a county member are becoming pocket sized and I’m afraid this may be a part of the plan.

The shadow of skyscrapers now hovers as a menacing backdrop over the crooked spire.

As a Somerset CCC Member I’m not alone in my joy when, with steaming coffee in hand and winter clouds looming, I pore over the county fixtures and my crammed calendar for fixtures in the season to come.

Fans enjoy the day’s play at Queens Park
Photo: Annie Chave

Like many, it becomes a bit of an addiction and a way to escape the throes of winter by filling your diary with games and plotting your county map. Queen’s Park was a new ground to me and it didn’t disappoint.

There were a good number of fans from both sides and an air of real expectancy, but coupled with that, there was a whisper in the air that spread throughout the ground, ‘this is what county cricket is all about’ it said and it echoed throughout that tree-lined park and ricocheted off Shan Masood’s perfectly timed cover drive.

But these idyllic days are numbered, we are losing out grounds annually, county fixtures are being cut to make way for the new brand, the beer snakes, endless renditions of ‘Sweet Caroline’ and for betting companies to line their pockets.

I spoke to Jon Filby, Chair of Sussex CCC and he explained that:

“I’m not against the proposal to start the season overseas where the pre-season training is being undertaken, but this needs to be in addition to a minimum of seven home championship matches and a minimum of seven home T20 Blast games”.

Of course, this is the crux, a county ground is a business and how does that business run without the revenue from the home grounds? And if this is the financial reality what does this possible future mean for the out ground?

The fewer games there are the less the out grounds are required and the festival games, which, let’s face it require a lot of organisation are lost in the need to consolidate the finances. It’s fans that lose out, they lose out on an experience like no other.

Queen’s Park was an epitome of English county cricket of course, the older generation of mainly white males, sat in isolated numbers, prerequisite backpack and hat, well-thumbed scorecards and essential binoculars but it was much more than that.

A group of school children were invited to welcome the players on at the start of the match, each one high fived as they passed, a never forgotten handprint. People passing through the council owned park paused to take in the scene. Cricket teams converged in endless conversation and the town bustled with importance.

Derbyshire CCC winning an exciting see-saw game was incidental in its importance.

To keep space for these wholesome festival grounds in an ever-changing world is what matters and to keep making them accessible, to keep pushing the demographic so that those missing chairs are filled with a wide-eyed future star.

Perhaps then we can still glimpse a spire or two outlined in a backdrop of glistening skyscrapers.

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