The Systems Administrator took me today to see a county match at Lord's. It is not that through the influence of the Olympics and the Paralympics I have suddenly become interested in sport, for I still find the idea of supporting a team baffling, and remain as serenely unpeturbed as ever by who wins or loses. Nor have I changed my views on football. However, I do like cricket, in moderation, and provided it is played by teams wearing traditional white clothes and not coloured pyjamas, against a background of polite clapping and throaty muttering and not loud music, and on a sunny day, not under spotlights. And I particularly like Lord's (actually, I shouldn't say that, as it is the only cricket ground I have ever been to) because having read and re-read the Peter Wimsey novels more times than I would care to count, I can imagine Wimsey (five foot nine and rather sensitive about his height) striding out on to the pitch in the Varsity Match, bat in hand.
The Systems Administrator is a member of Middlesex Cricket Club. This is not nearly so posh as the MCC, which the SA's late father unaccountably forgot to put the SA's name down for at birth, but it does mean that for county (as distinct from Test) matches when Middlesex are playing at home the SA can use the Pavilion, and can sign in a guest. Not being allowed in the Pavilion for Test matches is not a total disaster, since MCC members have to queue from about half past six in the morning to bagsie good seats, whereas the plebs' seats at the other end are numbered, so there's no need to queue and the SA and great mate can saunter in for the start of play. Today we were in the Pavilion.
The Pavilion is wonderful. The Lord's website doesn't make as much of it as it might, and I had to look up its architectural details on Wikipedia, since I don't have the Pevsner guide for that part of London. It was built in 1889-90, and is a magnificent concoction of Victorian brick and ironwork, now grade II* listed. The Long Room is renowned, and the last time we went we saw the players file through it as they came off for lunch. An extremely fine collection of cricket related paintings, from the nineteenth century to the current day, is dotted around the building. A people watcher can have a field day in the Lord's pavilion. There are more linen jackets per square metre than anywhere else in England, an intriguing array of hats, a secret code of ties which I don't understand (some of the MCC members are not very pleased with the way that Middlesex members and their guests lower the tone on 20-20 match days), odd rooms that only MCC members can enter, and a Committee room restricted to Committee members. There are two huge war memorials for the two World Wars, one on each main staircase. The MCC lost a heart breakingly large number of members in both conflicts. I read the one for the Second War all the way through, and only spotted a handful of names that had Pte and not an officer's rank against them (and no visibly Jewish surnames at all). Female members were only allowed in 1998.
Wanting to enter into the spirit of the thing, I wore a rather well-cut, moderately expensive, decorously below the knee linen skirt in a colour discouragingly described by the Toast catalogue as 'donkey', a new T shirt and a double row of fresh water pearls, topped off with a straw hat and an ancient two-tone cotton jacket that was originally the top half of a trouser suit but went well with donkey. As pre-war vibes went I thought that would be spot on. Ladies are required to wear 'appropriate' shoes, which leaves things a little vague. My idea of an appropriate shoe is something which I can walk in and which is not going to give me blisters walking from Baker Street tube to the cricket ground. Victoria Beckham's idea of an appropriate shoe seems to be a four inch heel. From the MCC's perspective I should think that flat cream sandals that show the tips of three toes are highly appropriate.
The cricket. I didn't mention the cricket. Middlesex were playing Lancashire, and when we arrived Lancashire were just going out to bat. It was a bit slow. Middlesex had their fielders bunched in close and defensive, and sent on the fast bowlers, and then tried a spinner, and not a great deal happened. Lancashire notched up the odd run, and the score crawled towards twenty, of which six were extras. The SA had to explain to me what an extra was, and I asked if they were supposed to account for a third of your entire score, and apparently they aren't.
I can't remember what the score was when we got to lunchtime, but at that point we were allowed to go and walk on the pitch. The 'hallowed turf', as it is traditionally called. Stewards stood in the middle and prevented the crowd from treading on the wicket, but a big group of happy and surprised people swirled slowly around the rest of the field. Apparently this is sometimes permitted at the end of the season, plus as a quid pro quo for allowing Lord's to be used for the Olympic archery they are going to get a hunk of the turf replaced. It is amazing turf, very short and dense, and made out of grass species with much narrower leaves than your common or garden domestic lawn. I took my sandals off, the better to experience it, and it felt like walking on a carpet. I have long thought that there would be an interesting TV series to be made about sports turf, and all the techniques the groundsmen use to keep it in good nick, the special substrates, and the problems caused by things like new stands making the whole ground too airless and enclosed. I'd watch it.
The opening batsman managed to rack up some fours, so that he had reached 55 (I think) and his partner 25 or so. The SA suggested that as it was very slow, if I'd seen enough we could go home ahead of the rush, so we did. Walking past the end of the ground we heard a more energetic burst of clapping than any of the previous ones, and when we got home I looked up the score on Cricinfo and saw that Smith, the opening bat, was out for 55, so we must have just missed seeing that. The match was going slowly, though. Lancashire need to win, otherwise they will be demoted from Division One of the County Championship. That will be a severe reverse for them, as they won it last year. I asked the SA how things had gone so badly wrong in such a short space of time, and whether several of their best players had retired or something, but apparently not. They just went off the boil, mysteriously.
There was a big plan to redevelop Lord's, to be funded by residential development on land at the 'nursery end' which is the opposite end to the Pavilion. It was voted down by the Committee, and Sir John Major resigned from the Committee in protest. The outward appearance at Lord's is Oh so English, traditional, peaceful and unchanging, but dark currents run beneath the surface.
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