Readers of this blog need no introduction to my feelings on the writings of Gideon Haigh on cricket. The bloke, quite simply, is in tune with much of what I believe about the game, but puts things far more eloquently than I could ever aspire to. His love of the game comes through in pretty much every article and book I’ve read of his, and as people also know, when asked about the best cricket book I’ve read, the Jack Iverson biography “Mystery Spinner” regularly comes out near or at the top.
Cricinfo are exceedingly fortunate to have him on board as a guest columnist, and although it was released a while back, I had to raise this one with my limited readership. “Let Them Watch TV“
If I may, I’d like to take a couple of extracts from the article, and have a rant. Oh, go on then…
“Frankly, for what English cricket fans pay to watch Test matches, the security indignities they undergo, the general dilapidation of grounds and the killjoy prohibitions of administrators, they should be allowed to parade in the nude if they so wish. But there’s the rub. Crowds, in general, are simply assumed, like sightscreens and drinks breaks, and reported with a similar degree of understanding by journalists high above them in air-conditioned comfort, who haven’t had to pay to get in.”
Gideon was reporting on how Peter Roebuck had slagged off English cricket fans for the bad light episode at The Oval in 2005, and the rather ludicrous outburst from that serial lunatic in the Independent, who seem to revel in having a pop at England fans – didn’t Dominic Lawson run his outburst on the Barmy Army in that organ. But Haigh is correct in how English cricket fans are treated at home. I’ve been to three test grounds. By far the best has been Lord’s who, despite being stuffed to the gills with stuffed shirts, actually keep their security and stewarding levels perceptively below Stasi levels and at least allow you to bring your own drinks in with you.
The Oval has degenerated as the large new OCS Stand went up. The hoi polloi seem to be granted access only during “big games” to the new facilities and now have to make do and mend with smaller seats, less leg room and a smaller playing area to watch the game from the large ground of the past. When it comes to the big games, we are, of course, not allowed to bring in alcohol, and are only allowed to drink something masquerading as “Fosters” in the so-called lager department, but tastes suspiciously like it has been watered down. It is rancid nonsense, but it is all we are allowed. We are forced to carry the stuff in paper holders that mean if you have a “carrier malfunction” all four beers in your holder are going down with the ship. The constrained legroom means you need to do the lambada with the seat’s incumbent to get into your seat. When seated, as someone larger than the average bear, you are trapped. Wedged in… Then the stewards take over and make something purgatory a hell – no fun allowed. No beer snakes, no beachballs, no fun at all. Ever seen a major fight or crush at a cricket match at The Oval? No. Due to the stewards? No. I’ll never miss going to the The Oval test, but the mere sound of the patronising announcer telling us that staying off the playing area is for the “safety of everyone” when you see what they did at Cape Town makes my blood boil. The real piece de resistance is because we can’t go on the playing area, presentations and ceremonies at the end of the game become like watching your favourite rock band from outside of Wembley Stadium. Take the Ashes last year. In Block 19 we couldn’t really hear Atherton, the advertising hoardings blocked our view as it was set up in front of the pavilion, and as some of us stayed behind for a while to soak up the win, those Stasi-inspired stewards came around to chuck us out. £52 a day, the cheapest seats, and we get treated like vermin. Haigh has it nailed on all right. The CMJs etc. of this world, who get their tickets given to them, wouldn’t have a scooby.
The subordination of the game to television priorities has had many perverse outcomes, but one of the strangest is this: where the accent of television coverage of the game used to be about making the viewer feel like he or she was “there”, today the opposite is true. Televised cricket, shot from every angle and at every speed, screened in a uniformly pleasing light and reported in a uniformly upbeat voice, bears no resemblance to that viewed by those sitting in the crowd. Yet it, rather than actually being physically present, has come to be regarded as the definitive experience: the emphasis at grounds is now on striving to replicate what the game would be like were you watching at home. There are big screens for replays of every boundary and wicket, and advertisements at every break; there are entertainments in each intermission, so you need never feel unamused or, heaven forbid, reflective; there are radios for sale, so you can listen to the television commentary, and frankly you sometimes need them, the conditions having been made so absurdly complicated in one-day internationals that games can border on the incomprehensible – just ask John Dyson.
Yes indeed. Take a run-out… In the ground you get to see the incident first hand, then the umpire’s signal for a replay and then……and then….. ooooh, look at the nice N-Power advert on the screen….oooh, why are the fielding team jumping up and down…ooh, someone behind has TMS on and says it “looks out”…still an Npower sign, and no replay. Hang about, the Npower ad is moving….and….OUT! According to the ground authorities it provides suspense and doesn’t let the home crowd influence decisions. However, we in the ground get to see…nothing. Nothing at all. A classic was the freakish Michael Clarke dismissal on Day four of the Oval Test. A bloke in front told us it looked out according to the replays but that Bell’s boot was in the way…suspense for all concerned although we were struggling to understand why because it wasn’t all that clear from where we were what had gone on. When Clarke was given out, it wasn’t replayed to us in the ground. Even at tea, when the highlights were shown on the big screen, this was omitted. The paying spectators were left to record it that night to see what happened. We weren’t treated with contempt. We were totally ignored. Lets get so-called celebrities singing Jerusalem and chanting “C’mon England” instead. That’s what we want.
Mr Haigh concludes..
Those who trouble to attend cricket are also its core constituency; to set aside a day for a Test or a one-day international involves a huge investment of time and money, which deserves proportional return. Yet the members of this core are being treated as political parties sometimes treat their most loyal voters, and listed corporations their most steadfast small shareholders: marginalising and alienating them as they take them for granted – and no party or company has done this long and prospered. On the contrary, commercial organisations dependent on public patronage lavish extraordinary efforts on keeping their most loyal customers, encouraging them to return by loyalty cards, bonus programmes and other incentive systems. Why does cricket, so purportedly savvy in the ways of commerce, care so little?
I resigned as a member of Surrey CCC this winter. The limited attendance at county games, even in the single years, did not justify the outlay. At 20-20 games we couldn’t bring a non-member friend to the game and sit with them without paying full price for a ticket – I know Surrey still keep the 20-20 as part of the membership and are not making us pay separately like others do – but cricket is a shared experience and the ground doesn’t sell out for Hampshire, Sussex or even Essex, and nowadays Kent and Middlesex are not either. Surrey did nothing to persuade me to stay, instead they have increased the subscription by over 50% in my nine years as a member. I have cut the number of days I’ll go to Tests at The Oval because, quite frankly, it has become an uncomfortable, claustraphobic experience. It won’t be long before my love for comfort overtakes my love of cricket and I’ll just say f*** it. Surrey don’t care, someone else will fill my ample seat. But, even with indignities, being there, as I was when we clinched the Ashes is better than listening to Insane and Aspergers, but all the while when the authorities care little about those inside the ground (save how much they can fleece off them in over-priced watered-down piss, and shit food at West End prices) it isn’t going to change. They don’t need to.
