Cricinfo - Blogs - Different Strokes

The MCC member’s view of cricket is an impressionist painting, the Yorkshireman’s a sheaf of detailed engineering blueprints. Suggest at Lord’s that Ashwell Prince reminds you of that West Indian fellow Gomes and someone will nod understandingly. The Tyke will snort and give a point-by-point dissection of exactly how Gomes’ technique was different, his range of shot completely other and generally make it clear that you do not know what you are talking about. Only when countered with an encyclopaedic treatment of the parallels will a grudging truce be offered.

But what makes Headingley Headingley is the West Stand. This is where Sir Drinkalot and Amy Winelake (and their clones) are spending their Saturday. Round the ground at lunch, I spotted three separate groups wearing t-shirts proclaiming this to be some lad’s stag do. Enough of them know enough to spot when England are doing particularly well or badly and can organise suitable cheering, but for many the cricket is almost irrelevant.

They spend the morning session quietly enough, sluicing down the beer which will sustain them through a hard afternoon. Thereafter, the rival groups indulge in posturing and taunting each other. They used to make beer snakes, formed by stacking the hundreds of empty plastic pints, but there are signs at the gates now warning that such manufacture will result in ejection from the ground and only one is attempted. They practice the toxic variant on the Mexican wave which involves tearing up newspapers and anything else to hand and chucking them up in the air, the prevailing wind ensuring that the debris will interrupt play as the batsmen clear the wicket of litter.

And so they while away the afternoon, getting louder and drunker, some of them get thrown out or arrested for disorderly or violent behaviour, while a few yards away there is a cricket match going on. It is simply an extension of their normal Friday night routine of wandering around in packs and getting bladdered – they’re just doing it at the Test rather than at the Scarbrough Taps in the centre of town.

And it’s impossible for anyone else to concentrate wholly on the cricket while they’re at it. Your eye is ineluctably drawn to the knot of policemen burrowing their way into the noisiest bunch or the huge clump of balloons they have launched for no obvious reason. If this coincides with a wicket falling or a brilliant shot, the distraction is highly annoying, but at times when the cricket is flaccid one can almost be grateful for their unquenchable enthusiasm – at the safe distance of 180 yards in the members’ area it can even be amusing.

But why they come remains a mystery.

What do you expect from folk who traditionally sing about venturing 'atless on to Ilkley Moor only to catch your death of cold, resulting in having to be buried there, with the worms coming to eat you up, with the ducks ( no cricket link here ) then eating the worms, your fellow-men then eating the ducks ( still no cricket link )and, in doing so, end up eating "thee " ???. This article demonstrates yet agin that " There's nowt so queer as folk ". Once a Yorkshireman, always a Yorkshireman. [ Ian - born Leeds 1947, now a South African baed cricket supporter ].

Great article Mike. Perhaps my earlier posts about Brisbane and Australian crowds are not isolated to this neck of the woods then.

It would be good to hear some stories from the West Indies, South Africa and Pakistan. Do they have any particularly regional variations on crowd behaviour or culture? Does one city differ from another consistently?

As per Mike's closing comment: why do they come to the cricket? There must be cheaper places to get Elephants Trunk without all the rules and regulations of the stewards? I don't go to the pub and play cricket in the front bar.

In my experience the place where least attention is paid to the cricket is Lord's. The clientele may be richer, belonging to more rarified socio-economic groups, but they all dress like buffoons in their ill-matched primary colours, if they are not in their City-boy day off uniforms; but after paying 75 quid (at least) they spend two-thirds of the day necking industrial quantities of Pimm's/champagne/beer on the lawns, braying at each other in their public school drawl, or picking at their Crackberries. Why do they come to the cricket? It remains a mystery.

@stevie: If MCC members were paying 75 quid to hang around in the gardens getting drunk, it might well be a mystery why they were there. But since their annual subscription entitles them to use the facilities of the ground on any day of the year (except Christmas Day), they aren't actually paying anything at all to come and socialise with their friends while there's a Test match on. I can't see the mystery in that.

@carrots: I know quite a few on the West Stand do know and appreciate their cricket, just as they did in the MCG's old Bay 13, but the collective impression given to those of us in the rest of the ground is rather less charitable.

I recognise the portrait here, but I see no problem.As you yourself said, the West Stand is what makes Headingley Headingley. I have, for years, religiously watched and appreciated the cricket at my home ground, and always from the West - it is an experience I would not swap for any other. Equally, knowing many who frequent the less vibrant areas of the ground, I find them all tolerant, bordering on encouraging of those who decide to enjoy themselves on the West. The Yorkshireman you portray may be a stickler for cricket comparisons, but in my experience, they are not so rigid about peoples enjoyment of the game.