By Fair Play
April 18 2004

Fair Play gives Pak fans something to smile about during these troubled times, with his article about the "good ol" days at Yorkshire. What has cricket come to I ask you? What has happened?

I shall tell you what has. It's all about forgetting Yorkshire.

If cricket cannot remember what debts it owes Yorkshire then it will lose its way. If you cannot look back, then you cannot look forward. And you miss everything else as well between the looking back and the looking forward. You lose the current. And this is why cricket has lost itself.

In the old days, I and Dick Sparrow used to open the innings in Yorkshire. It was league level – ah, but what a league level. Wesley Hall would have suffered if he had had the courage to show up! But he never did – good on him!

In between deliveries Dick and I kept to the tradition – history was greater than the game. “Would you say Victor Trumper was the greatest batsman to pick up a bat?” said I between Yorkshire style forward defensives one day. Sparrow refused to reply. I got the hint and asked him if it was Hammond instead. “Did thar see Hammond near the Dales!” came the reply. Quite! And when Dick asked me one day if Hobbs would have carried Len’s shoes, I showed him my profile. The set of my jaw and the aquiline warrior nose, with its flared nostrils, filled with the scents of Yorkshire from tough infant days, were his answer. “Thar is right” came the succinct reply, as he prepared to grind out yet another holy over.

Yorkshire and cricket were one and the same. In fact, it was rather more – a cricketer was a Yorkshireman and vice versa. Fast bowlers were honest men who worked the shaft, used outside loos (now that’s a tradition one great England footballer has not forgotten), and had broad backsides. If you don’t understand what I mean, just look at this Indian chappie, Balaji? A fast bowler? Just look at his backside - my arse!

What has happened now I ask you? “It’s them bloody foreigners it is. What tradition do these bloody curry munchers have? Chicken tikka? Lamb Dopiaza? Urgh!”” says Brain Closed every day of his life. Fedup Truemoaner has the answer “Beer is what a Yorkshireman used to drink, Mother’s milk was not available those days – we didn’t know what a breast was! Where was page 3 I ask you eh? A Yorkshireman drank beer from infancy to youth – it made him strong, wise and unyielding. And most of all it gave him a broad backside. How do you expect these guys to bowl?” I looked then at the new Indian star, Balaji, all slim hipped and fashionable dhosa and samosa eater and I saw the point. A star in the making? Yes. A real cricketer? No. Fedup Truemaoner was right again – as he is about so many things. When will we learn? Why have we stopped moaning?

I have decided that I must do my bit for world cricket – by which I mean supporting Brain Closed and Fedup Truemoaners ideas whenever I can. Not enough beer for the young men? Come to my pub in West London! It’s the best pub of its kind anywhere. No milk, no chicken tikkas, lamb karahi or even the samosa-dhosa or whatever you call it! The drink is beer, the food is Yorkshire pudding and the loos are outside! But it’s rather more. It’s something holy - when you drink the beer, or eat the Yorkshire pudding and roast, you will be rekindling an ancient ceremony: the rite of passage for a Yorkshire man. The pub is Yorkshire, Yorkshire is cricket, cricket is an Englishman, and your cash will soon be mine!

Imagine the smell of linseed oil on a battered old piece of slender willow, the sound of the ball thudding into your pad as you essay the quintessential stroke, the forward defensive, the true test of a man. With due apologies to Viv Richards and his brand of bludgeonship, imagine you lean over the ball, and the stroke reveal the strength of your character, the impregnability of your technique, and your broad backside to the wicketkeeper. Think, think, and order a drink – two pints to start with if you may!

And while you drink, and drink some more, think about England, the Celts and the Romans, Boudica, Stonehenge and the Druids. It’s Holy Cricket, that’s what it is. What do you think those rocks at Stonehenge are for? It’s the rock of Len’s forward defensive technique carried all the way from Yorkshire – having stood the test of time! Jim Pressfist might have said that the daily battles of getting on the drain at Waterloo Station are won on the playing fields of Eton or Harrow, but they are not. They are won in Yorkshire, which is to say in my pub – the stain is either on your jeans or it is not. It cannot be bought – it can only be spilled. Would you like another pint please?




Editor’ note:

Next month Makeitup Barkingson writes about beer in Yorkshire, milk in India, and big breasts on his TV program. Guests on his program will be Fedup Truemoaner, his relation by marriage Racy Welchleavaged and her breasts. Only on this broad backside – um, um, the broadsheet!