Lord's past is a present for the future (26 July 1999)

26 July 1999

Lord's past is a present for the future

Michael Henderson

There was general agreement among spectators, media watchers and former Test cricketers that England's performance at Lord's was unpardonably wet. If the players do not understand that, and in their private moments they must, then they are fairly well advanced along that draining thoroughfare, the rocky road to ruin.

The response of those who used to play for England has been instructive. The current players, as they should know but appear sometimes not to, are only the latest representatives of a line that goes back more than a hundred years. In turn they will pass on their inheritance to a generation not yet born. That is what playing for your country means, not a sponsored car, a ghosted newspaper column and three grand in the bank.

As David Lloyd, the team's coach until two months ago, points out in his column today, the standards exhibited at Lord's were unacceptable. It may reasonably be claimed that no England team in recent memory have batted so poorly as this, given the conditions and the relative merits of both sides. When tribute has been paid to New Zealand for their ice-breaking victory at the home of cricket, it must be admitted that England offered them every encouragement.

Enough of that. Let us forget about the shoddiness of the performance and celebrate the happiest feature of the last four days: Lord's itself. If ever a frame outshone the picture it encased it was this Test match. Though the cricket was wretched, the ground looked magnificent and the crowd rejoiced in the splendour of one of the great English summer events.

Over the past decade, Lord's has been transformed from a great and evocative ground into a great and modern one without becoming a stadium. Apart from the irritating build-up of human traffic in the passageway beneath the grandstand, the rebuilt ground, seen at a Test for the first time, is a joy to behold.

There cannot be a finer sporting venue in Britain. Wembley is a public toilet in the wasteland of north London. Twickenham is impressive, but impersonal. Wimbledon is full of big event hunters. Lord's, with its incomparable treasure chest of memorabilia, is a living, breathing repository of a great game's history. It has also, by the way MCC have invested millions of pounds into its redevelopment, showed that progress need not always be associated with ugliness.

The Mound Stand, which Michael Hopkins redesigned 12 years ago with the 'tented village' effect on the third tier, now looks as if it has been a feature since Thomas Lord and company upped sticks from Regent's Park and shifted a few acres across town in 1814. Nicholas Grimshaw's new grandstand was unveiled last year to good notices and now the imposing media centre by Future Systems, constructed with the financial blessing of NatWest, stares at the Victorian pavilion on equal terms. MCC have accomplished all this in the face of some scepticism (in the case of the media centre) and a public image that finds the club lampooned constantly as a bunch of bewhiskered buffoons. There are one or two, of course, as the zealots who tried to pass a vote of no confidence in the committee unintentionally proved, but even within the membership they are seen as a not especially funny joke.

Walking round Lord's this week has been to witness the world's greatest cricket ground in full bloom. There are bigger grounds, and ones with better facilities, but nowhere else does the past and present co-exist so naturally. The past is what those who dislike cricket dislike most of all about it, but we can ignore them, for they know nothing about the game, or about life. As William Faulkner wrote: "The past is not dead. It's not even past".

In this netherworld of past and present, of great deeds seen and those to come, the cricket-lover is trapped willingly. Years from now, who knows, people may recall the 1999 Test with wonder, even if it is only to wonder just how awful England were. Phillippe Auclair, a Frenchman who comes to Lord's each year, asked in genuine puzzlement the other night: "Why the bloody hell don't they try bowling at the stumps?"

Great as it is, Lord's could be better. Ever since the old Tavern concourse was bricked in, a decade ago, the ground has lost something that can never be replaced. The Tavern, with its dreadful beer, its strain on the legs (some people used to stand there all day) and its less than perfect position, was the crossroads of Lord's.

Ian Nairn, that fine writer on London and other cities, once said of it that, for the price of a pint, the drinker had access to the most famous paddock in the kingdom. That was before 1968 when the old Tavern pub, with its entrance from the road, was altered. He wouldn't have cared much for what has happened since.

Seats were installed there as a temporary measure for cup finals. Then they became a permanent feature, to satisfy the demand of MCC members, and finally, after the Hillsborough disaster of April 1989, the ground authority said they had no choice because of the subsequent Taylor Report. Yesterday those seats were nine-tenths empty.

What a rotten shame it all is, though it cannot spoil the pleasure of a good day. Last year I had the pleasure of escorting Sharon Robinson, daughter of the great baseball player, Jackie, to Lord's and even though the county match was of no great significance, and she found cricket marginally less puzzling than differential calculus, she could see it was a special place.

Therefore let us thank Thomas Lord's father, who was forced out of Yorkshire after his land was sequestered on account of his Catholic sympathies (this was the mid-18th century, the time of Charles Edward Stuart). Thomas grew up in Norfolk and made his way to London, where he founded the first MCC ground in Dorset Square. (Perhaps we ought also to thank our fine Protestant forefathers!)

This is a partial piece because I happen to love Lord's like few other places. For thousands of others, too, it will always be more than a mere cricket ground. Along with the Frick Collection in New York, our own National Gallery, and the State Opera in Vienna (I said this was a personal list) - it truly is a special plot of land where one feels exalted. No amount of horrible England performances can alter that.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)