Simon Hughes: End of an era such a drag for some (14 July 1997)

Monday 14 July 1997

End of an era such a drag for some

By Simon Hughes

IN 1972, Leicestershire won -L2,500 as the original holders of the Benson and Hedges Cup (on Saturday, Surrey received -L42,000) and the Gold Award winner, Chris Balderstone, earned -L100 for his 41 not out. Luxury! The prize in zonal matches was -L25.

The 1972 final was a dull game - Yorkshire managing only 136 for nine in their allotted 55 overs - but I kept the scorecard as it was the first major match I attended. Now, 26 years, 45,000 diving stops, 1,356 reverse sweeps and 34,900 slower balls later the end of a competition concocted by Peter West and Billy Griffith is nigh. If Lord`s don`t get you, the Commons will.

Quite a lot of smoke has wafted over the horizon in the interim. Never mind all the changes one-day cricket has initiated, what about all the free fags the players have puffed? As a youth, I was slightly appalled at the sight of Derek Underwood lighting up on the Canterbury balcony, but soon discovered a legion of county cricketers with a similar affliction. For the B & H Cup and the John Player League matches, dressing rooms were overflowing with the sponsors product. Many sampled it - why else do you think Harry Pilling was only 5ft 3in? -or tucked 20 in their "coffin" for a rainy day.

The zonal round of the B & H was particularly welcome amongst the smokers, precipitating a rush into the dressing room to seize their free entitlement and bag any unclaimed packets. People like Wayne Larkins and Phil Tufnell could get through virtually all of May without having to buy.

Because they top the league of nicotine addicts, Kent will most bemoan the end of the cigarette sponsorships, but they do tend to run out of puff in the B & H. Saturday was their fourth final appearance in 11 years and they have come second each time. The first of this sequence, in 1986, ended with them needing 14 to win off the last over. I was the bowler, and served up a juicy full toss third ball which Steve Marsh dispatched into the Grandstand.

What do you feel in such a predicament? Helpless and choked with fear. The loneliness is suffocating and your body is gripped in to- tal spasm. It is enough to make you take up smoking.

"Damned hospitality marquee is taking up our normal parking spot," a Sussex member complained during the NatWest tie at Hove last Wednesday. Next, he grimaced at a group of beer-swigging Lan- cashire supporters disturbing the peace of deckchairdom. "Wide," they yelled every second ball and, when Mike Watkinson nudged the Lancashire score past 80, added a reassuring: "Doon`t woory Winker, Sussex `aven`t got past 80 for about six moonth." Eventually, several speciallyhired nightclub bouncers escorted them to the cheap seats, where they merely continued as before.

Grounds like Hove are well past their sell-by date. They might be charming and have a distinguished history but, like quaint corner shops, they cannot, on cramped town-centre sites, reconcile the growing demands of the public and private sector. The Hove pavilion looks like the abstract Lego construction of a child, and isn`t even watertight. Yet Sussex, with a profit of -L25,000 last year, are hardly in a position to renovate.

So what to do? Sussex are sitting on a -L5 million plot and in an ideal world would up sticks and develop a modern out-of-town complex with suitable car parks, facilities and sound-proofed bunkers for visiting boors. But Sussex are at the mercy of the town council, so it won`t happen. The corner shop will just have to do.

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