Laughter in the Derby air

In this phoney war, before the main part of the summer begins with the appearance of the Australians in proper cricket, it has been good to revisit some of the old county grounds and enjoy the comradeship of the press box, whence many a quip has emerged.

There was a time when the tabloids, as well as the broadsheets (or `upmarket' papers, as they should now be called), covered county cricket. Back in the 1960s the county game even made back-page headlines. David Green, the former Lancashire batsman, who now writes for the Daily Telegraph, recalls arriving to play at Headingley one morning to find Fred Trueman waiting for him outside the pavilion, brandishing a rolled-up copy of the Daily Express.

"Morning, Greeny. Nah then, what's all this stuff in the Express about hitting me back over my head for six?"

"Oh, you know what the papers are like, Fred. Tell them one thing and they'll write something else."

"Never you mind. It says here you're going to hit me for six. You'll get half a dozen up your chuffer first thing." And indeed Wisden duly records that DM Green was caught Binks bowled Trueman for not very many. Not that it did Green much harm. He has spent much of the past 20 years treating press boxes to such convincing impressions of FST that other journalists have picked it up as a fraternal joke, a scribe's rite of passage. You cannot really be considered a bona fide cricket writer until you can say "I can tell you a tale or two" in the style of Green mimicking Trueman.

Readers are always surprised when you tell them that, of all places on the county circuit, the one that writers most enjoy visiting is Derby. Yes, the old Racecourse Ground, that butt of a thousand jokes by embittered players, who would rather be anywhere else. Steve James, who is making his way in the media after retiring from county cricket two years ago, may never live down that he played his last innings there. It is what they usually call a "ribbing from the lads".

But, if you are in the press box, which has been relocated from the old stand to an inadequate position above deep midwicket, you can have a whale of a time - so long as you like laughing. There is an admission charge to pay, in the form of a verbal challenge or two on first visit (which not everybody enjoys) but once you have adjusted to the mockery, you can savour some wickedly funny banter.

It was at Derby that a London pressman fell for the `little-known fact' that Fred Swarbrook, the slow left-armer, was really the son of a Hungarian ÈmigrÈ and his given name was Ferenc Schwarzenberg. On another occasion the man from a Nottingham evening paper was so fully convinced that Dallas Moir, a tall medium-pacer, had played basketball for Japan, that the revelation appeared in the first edition.

Perhaps the most amusing tale to come out of Derby, however, concerned the players in a county match with Kent in the late 1960s. During a break for rain they shuffled into a barn behind the pavilion and watched a low-grade porn film, with Stuart Leary, the Kent allrounder, giving an amusing commentary on the proceedings. After a while there was a knock on the door which, when opened, revealed the figure of Major Douglas Carr, the club secretary.

"Are the umpires in there?" he enquired. Upon receiving the answer `yes', he said: "Well, would you tell them to come out and have a look. The rain stopped 20 minutes ago and the members are hooting their horns."

Mike Carey, that superb writer, was the first joker in this happy assembly. Neil Hallam, the Daily Telegraph's cricket man in the Midlands, has been known to wear a jester's hat and Gerald Mortimer of the Derby Evening Telegraph is always pleased to recall his dim-witted Army chums, `the Marshalls', who greeted each other on the parade-ground every morning with a call of `eh up!' and a response of `bollocks!' Ah well, it's funny when you hear it.

There is not so much to laugh at these days. Derbyshire seem to be in freefall with poor results on the field and difficulties off it. The club feels left out of things and they may be right. But some of us will go back there, out of affection for an unloved place, or simply to have a giggle.