I trust my readership, limited as it is, won’t get bored with all this, but as this is my blog, I really could not care less. Blogs are, by their nature, self-indulgent, and I am writing this much more for my own enjoyment than for hit stats, or to please anyone. I feel, after the Lord’s Life incidents that I keep having to stress this, but it does need repeating. Hence I set this blog up in part to recount some of my cricket match experiences, and where better to start than Adelaide in December 2006. This is my story…..

You can tell from the name of the blog that I have never really got over the defeat in Adelaide in 2006. To me it summed up everything wrong with the England cricket team then, and since. All the common factors behind our current predicament came through for all to see. We had England gaining a strong position. Ian Bell looking at ease before giving his wicket away in the first dig, and with the pressure on in the second, not getting a score. It was Collingwood looking solid but never taking the game to the opposition unsupported. It was not grasping the opportunities that came our way, the dropping of Ponting, the chance to score 600 and make the game safe, the absence of positive intent on that fateful 5th day…. The denouement, with Hussey coolly seeing off the target without ever looking like getting out, and the Aussies rubbing our noses in it like we would have to them, was painful. For five days we watched a great test match, with plenty of quiet moments it has to be said, and it was the Ashes experience in all its glory. In a series of posts, I am going to try to explain my thoughts and my recollections of the events of those days, with the build-up, the surroundings, the events in and outside Adelaide Oval and to try to bring to life what it felt like to me. It is a personal reminder of what happened, aided by as many sources as I can find on-line, the photographs taken of that trip, and the characters I enjoyed and despaired with.

First of all, the character list.

I travelled to Australia first in 2002-3, with the principal partner in crime who for the purposes of this tale shall be known as Sir Peter. We travelled to South Africa for one full test and two days of another in 2005 and always intended to return to the Ashes with a better team the following year. We didn’t fancy repeating Brisbane and Adelaide as our itinerary, so chose Adelaide and Perth this time as we did not want to be away for Christmas. Sir Peter, if he ever shows it to us, has video footage of this test, and I do believe, somewhere, I have his pictures which I will also use in this piece of work. Sir Peter is 40 odd, a wet wicket specialist bowler who once got me out with a ball that bounced three times. He had no chance of getting me out when last we met on a cricket field – and my 39 not out showed I was not got out by anyone! Sir Peter does not like Bon Jovi.

The other traveller on the aircraft from Heathrow was a tour virgin, who for the purposes of this report will be known as Danno. Danno is of indeterminate age, but older than me, and is a keen lover of the sport. This tour was a step beyond for him, and we hoped he’d enjoy the time he had out in Australia. Danno is somewhat dubiously known as a wicket-keeper / batsman but is more like Adam Ant than Adam Gilchrist in that regard. As lovely and genuine a bloke as you could meet, Danno appears a little on the periphary of this tale, but he was great company and as you will find out much later on in the piece, saved my bacon.

My third OJCC companion shall be known as Reg. According to some sources this is because he looks like Elton John, although I think alcohol may have been involved. Reg was a key man on this tour, as it was through him the vast majority of tickets were secured, and for that we will always be eternally grateful. A keen student of the game, and a virtually shotless but doughty left handed batsman, he lets himself down by supporting Occidental Cured Pork and the South Coast Sticklebacks, but we shall forgive him that. Reg is very forthright in his views and is not afraid to verbally joust with anyone in his party. Me included. Reg watched all of the Ashes debacle, from Brisbane to Sydney, and I’m sure if he’s reading, will be keen to impart any views he has of the Adelaide experience for you to share.

The fourth OJCC link came in the form of the man who shall be known as the Bald Eagle. This larger than life character announced himself in my world on his visit to Brisbane four years before. He turned up at our West End apartments, and from that point on it has always been Lord XXXXX and Sir Peter. We missed Australia’s closing out of the match on the 4th day of the 1st test as we lounged around in his Helensvale bungalow, and had a jolly old time in so doing. Bald Eagle used to play for OJCC, his brother still does, and he used to be quick, according to all and sundry. He once infamously described an OJCC line-up as “a herd of elephants”. I couldn’t have been playing. The Bald Eagle’s mum lived in Adelaide, and he popped down for the duration of the test, attending on one day, but ostensibly to meet up with Sir Peter and Danno as old school colleagues.

The final main character is my own respondent Adelaide Exile. Now I think I’d met him a couple of times before this test match – I suppose I had to to recognise him – but while we were only online mates through the club of our mutual love (WindyBricks of course), we’ve become bloody good mates now, and he’s a top lad. It was he who secured me the members pass to get me in on every day of the game, and got some first day tickets for the rest of the gang. It was he who somehow became the star of the show one tea interval (more of that later) and he who ingratiated himself so well with the locals. He has taken up a campaign to have me banned from following England overseas again on account of my stellar record. Adelaide Exile was married to an Australian woman but is now divorced. He moans about living in Australia, but we also know he’s a big fish in a small pond there, and the ladies love him (so he tells me). But he’s a top bloke and he pops up more often than not in this story.

Then outside of Australia, on the periphary, like the voice of Charlie in the hit show about three women who run around a lot and are called Angels, is Dmitri not quite as old. A fellow supporter of the WindyBricks, Dmitri Jr, as he’ll be known as on the times he pops up in this tale, was at home recording the action for my delectation on my return to the UK. Therefore, I think this was before my requirements blew up his DVD recorder, I have a full record of most of this test match and can refer back to the TV coverage for any misconceptions etc. There is also a couple of memorable phone calls we had during the game which shows the relationship between Dmitri Old and Dmitri Jr in microcosm. Married with three daughters, Dmitri Jr is a happy-go-lucky, carefree chap just like his brother. Unlike his brother, he’s as blunt as a 20 year old Bic razor blade that’s been used to shave his considerable facial hair! I await my phone call….

Finally your author. Dmitri Old is, of course, not my real name, but it will be used throughout this piece if I do a Michael Vaughan and refer to myself in the third person. I am nearly 40, and since this tour I have got married. At the time, November / December 2006 my life was in a total mess. I’d lost my mum to cancer in 2005, my dad to a mixture of pneumonia, progressive supranuclear palsy and medical incompetence / euthanasia earlier in 2006, and my own well being was a mess. This trip had more importance than most to me. The 2002/3 adventure to Australia had been that hackneyed old cliche “a voyage of discovery”. South Africa had pushed my boundaries a little bit further. This trip was me with no-one at home to go back to and share the experiences with. It was a desperately sad time in my life, pre- the beloved (we had met in the Autumn but she had returned to the States) and post losing two rocks in my life. It was fair to say that although I was better than I was that summer, I was still a mental wreck. I needed to get away, and I put too much into wanting this holiday to be great that I probably did not stop to enjoy it as much as I should have. Events at the end of Day 2 were to cast an even greater strain on that mental health. It is then you discover how great friends are. Now married, this is, for the time being, the last big cricket tour I’ll do, and as such it will always have a special place in my heart, and this test will always be seared into my soul.

On other occasions, if I keep this going, I’ll refer back to 2002 quite a lot, but would like to leave things like the photo experiences and the people we met to another time, but such a key trip will come up repeatedly. That, together with a potted history of the cricket since then will appear in the second part of this prequel, which I’ll probably call “Context”.