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Bill Cooper and his meddlesome instrument
© Getty Images
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I don’t think I can ever have been so pleased to hear the Barmy Army in full cry than I was on that final morning at Brisbane. “E-verywhere we go-oh!” came the chorus, just as Kevin Pietersen, England’s last hope, was dispatched by the fourth ball of the day. “The pe-ople want to know-oh!” they continued, in defiance of all evidence to the contrary. “Whooo we are-ah”, they blundered on, as the teeth of 100 journalists were set indisputably on edge.
They are noisy, nauseating, and unspeakably tuneless, and when you’ve heard that witless chorus once, you’ve heard it 1000 times - usually when you are right on deadline and desperate for some peace and quiet. And yet, for the first (but on today’s evidence, maybe not the only) time in my life, I was delighted to hear them break into song. Never mind the noise pollution, it was a victory for free speech, free spirits and futility - which, like kittens and warm-woollen mittens, are a few of my favourite things.
But if we thought the nonsenses at the Gabba had been forgotten amid the tranquillity of the Adelaide Oval, then today’s press release from Cricket Australia has confirmed once again that, in this country, good humour is an item to be surrendered at all turnstiles. “Cricket Australia clarifies Barmy Army trumpet,” read the improbable headline, followed by 16 (sixteen!) paragraphs of justification for the continued expulsion of the Army’s cause célèbre, Bill Cooper, and his meddlesome brass instrument.
“Cricket Australia and the South Australian Cricket Association today met with Barmy Army representatives to clarify venue entry conditions to Adelaide Oval ahead of the second 3 mobile Ashes Series Test match starting at the ground tomorrow,” began a statement that read more like a clause from the Treaty of Versailles. “The venue conditions, as set by the South Australia Cricket Association, state that trumpets and air-horns are not permitted into the ground.”
It’s all very well to have different rules and regulations enforced at individual grounds - let’s not forget, Lord’s has a list of do’s and don’t’s that is longer than the Laws of the Game - but Adelaide (and Melbourne, which has also joined in the ban) are surely missing a trick on this occasion. All the Fun Police in the world are not going to prevent the Barmy Army from doing what they were unable to do at the Gabba, and congregate en masse on the grassy banks beneath the scoreboard.
And once they have assembled there, they are going to be loud and insufferably noisy for the tranquillity-loving SACA members who have prevented this ban from being overturned. By the end of five days of aural bombardment, they’ll be wishing that Cooper, who learned his art at the Royal Academy of Music and has done stints with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, was on hand to provide even a semblance of musical talent to the occasion.
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