TV Sport 9: The Boys of Summer
There's just been so much. I've just watched such an awful lot of sport, it's been rather hard to narrow this strand down. What ten moments of sport that I've watched have I enjoyed the most? Really and truly.
Well, enjoyed is the wrong word for this one. I enjoyed it only so much. And it was also a strange, fractured, watching experience for me. But 2005 was a summer when cricket was truly joyous and life-affirming, for me and, for the last time in England, for countless millions of others.
Cos after that, of course, Sky came and stole our cricket for good. Fuckers. I gave in a couple of years later, and more than Premier League football or Boxing or Sunday Supplement (croissants and all), it was the absence of live test cricket on terrestrial TV that forced me to the dark side.
The Ashes on 2005 were on Channel 4, and they did a phenomenal job of it. Mark Nicholas, Richie Benaud, Michaels Slater and Atherton, Tony Greig, Geoff Boycott, Simon Hughes, their voices go hand in hand with the memories of that summer. I bought the DVD and rewatched several times. Well, I needed to. I'm not quite sure how much of the actual cricket I actually watched, certainly in my right mind.
Still, that was the last time cricket truly grabbed the nation - viewing figures on Channel 4 touched 10 million, which is incredible. It stands as the greatest series of our lifetime, maybe of all, as a defining, turning point in the history of cricket, it was every bit as good as it could possibly have been.
Let's look at the context, cricketing, national and personal. Australia had dominated world test cricket for over 10 years, and had won every Ashes series since 1989. Every two years, they demolished England, northern or southern hemisphere. In 1997, England had manged to win two tests, but otherwise, it had been no competition. In 2005, they were still a great team with no sign of fading. At least, this time, England were genuinely on the up. Gradually, from 99 to 2003, and then rapidly in the couple of years after that, they'd developed from the worst test team in the world to the second best. We dared to hope. We had the new Botham. Could Flintoff rise to it?
And it wasn't just Flintoff, it was a good solid, confident settled team. Except something significant and potentially unsettling came into it for the Ashes, replacing the stalwart Graeme Thorpe. KP - skunk hair and all, was picked for his debut for that first test.
And something significant happened in London just two weeks before the series was due to start. First, on 6th July, joyful scenes greeted the news that London had been awarded the Olympics. But then, on 7th July, the awful shock of the tube bombings, which upset everything we Londoners felt about our city. It was profound, it was unsettling, it was horrible.
Would the first test of the Ashes, at Lords, even go ahead, we briefly wondered? The first test did begin, on 21st July, the same day, of course, four more bombs went off across London, except this time they failed to detonate, thank goodness. But London was a troubled place that summer. We needed something.
I needed something too. My life had ground to a standstill. I retreated to my flat in Clapham to lick my wounds and hide after the PGCE I'd been doing went to shit. I was 26, almost 27, embarrassed and clueless. But, at least, I was free of the stress of the last year. I drank a fair bit and watched a lot of TV, which felt great, frankly. And the Ashes were coming. On Channel 4. So long as terrorists didn't ruin it.
People talk about the first morning, how England laid down a marker, how the bowlers tore into Australia to show they weren't weaklings anymore, and sure, ok, but England were hammered in that first test. Same old England, Ricky Ponting is reported to have sneered afterwards.
It felt like that. Flintoff contributed nothing. He seemed to shrink at the challenge. The only bright spot was this weird new South African, who hit two exciting 50s amidst the general chaos. But still, same old England, same old immense Australia.
I'd planned a holiday, my first music festival, in at the deep end at Benicassim in Eastern Spain. Six days at Benicassim, four days in Barcelona afterwards. I'd planned it to celebrate qualifying as a teacher, but I needed it more now. An escape. It meant missing the second test, but, frankly, the way the first had gone, I didn't mind too much.
On the Wednesday, I travelled with John, then with Gregor, Ania and Rob. We drove down from Girona to Benicassim, arriving late at night and pitching our tents on rocky ground in the darkness. I'd never pitched a tent before, Rob needed to help me. Then we drank till about 3 to acclimatise ourselves to the festival. It was all a bit surreal. We woke at about 7 to the most ridiculous heat pounding into our tents. Welcome to hell, to torture. What kind of holiday have I brought myself to?
This was a pre-smartphone world. The campsite had an internet tent, but texting a friend on my old Nokia brick was the best way to find out what was going on in the cricket. Except there was nowhere to charge, no charger anyway, and my old Nokia brick only had enough battery for about one day.
The holiday improved once night fell on the first night of music. In fact, it was awesome. And with that last bit of battery, I received a text from Mikey telling me that first day of the Edgbaston test had been a rather odd marvel. England had racked up 400odd in a day, Flintoff had got a 50 - he was in the game. Glenn McGrath had stepped on a ball and was out.
As the days passed, the festival got better and so did the cricket. All I could do was check the internet when the festival site opened at 4 every afternoon, but by close of play Saturday, England were certainties to win. Australia needed over 100 with only 2 wickets left.
Phew. My phone was dead. I'd also lost my wallet (I've just remembered that ... mental, I think it was nicked) I had no means of finding anything out on the Sunday . Then Gregor mentioned he'd been walking behind some English guys and he thought he'd overheard that Australia had won, or were just about to win, something like that.
Oh God.
In the preamble to this whole blog strand, I mentioned how sport can be joyful in various ways, sometimes through prolonged experience, sometimes just through hearing something on the radio or checking the internet.
I got to the internet tent to check the inevitable doom, got to the BBC website, and saw, within that second "England win dramatic test by 2 runs". It wasn't till weeks later I was able to watch back that last day in all its bizarre glory, the treading on the stumps, the Kasprowicz glove, the Flintoff/Lee moment. But, hell yeah! Game on!
Despite everything, this was shaping up to be some summer. We left Benicassim on the Tuesday for a slightly more relaxing slight detox in Barca - my first time. We had a lovely apartment in the middle of town and it was chilled and great.
And on the Thursday, roaming around town, we found an "Irish pub" which was showing the cricket and there I spent much of the next couple of days. Well, what do you expect? What else would one do in Barcelona?
Anyway, I was back in the UK in time to see Australia's astonishing matchsaving last day, and though part of us thought "shit, that's the chance gone", the team clearly thought "we're as good as this lot, we'll get another chance". And so it proved.
So the 4th test. The 4th, at Trent Bridge, was a good one. Freddie got a 100, England pretty much dominated, but were set an awkward 130 as Warne and Lee raged with the bat against the dying of the light. Went round to friend's in North London to watch the denouement. A few of us there. I couldn't cope. I had to walk. Walk round Islington. Sit in the garden with my headphones on. It all began to go wrong. Surely not.
I made it back to the TV, just, for The King of Spain's moment of glory (this is a cricket joke, don't worry). 2-1! We couldn't lose the series. But the Aussies could still retain with a draw at the Oval, with a fully back-to-his-best McGrath.
This was ALL SO EXCITING! And mattered to me SO MUCH! Really. When you ain't got nothin', you got nothing to ... no, bullshit, Bob, you've got sport! That's why sport is awesome.
I was not alone. It was all I remember talking about. Everyone I knew was enraptured by it. The 5th test was a bit dodgy, a bit weather-affected. It came down to the last day and all England needed to do was bat for most of it and all would be fine. But it's never that simple. Warne and McGrath, for goodness sake. Wickets fell, including the beloved Freddie. I was at home alone in Clapham. But again, I couldn't cope. I tried to hide in my room, but that didn't work. I tried to go for a little walk, but was lured back. I ended up spending an hour of that afternoon just sitting in a corner of Clapham Library, the only place where time could pass at a normal rate.
I got back and found out what had happened. Warne had dropped Pietersen. Pietersen had taken on Lee and survived. I watched Collingwood, I watched Giles. I watched Pietersen get his 100, the declaration, the ceremonial removal of the bails. The Ashes. The actual Ashes!
And I went along to Trafalgar Square for the parade, yes I did, because I had no job to go to. Trafalgar Square was packed. For cricket! As if it was football. I went to a Bob Dylan tribute concert a week or so later and Roy Harper sang 'When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease' and he called the players "the boys of summer". I loved that. Trescothick, Strauss, Vaughan, Bell, Pietersen, Flintoff, Jones G, Giles, Hoggard, Harmison, Jones S, Collingwood (Gary Pratt). Just 12 players used, which was surely the key.
That summer seems like a turning point in my own life now. I picked up a bit from there. Perhaps it's where I started to invest a little toooo much in sport. But I'll always have a soft spot for the boys of summer.
Well, enjoyed is the wrong word for this one. I enjoyed it only so much. And it was also a strange, fractured, watching experience for me. But 2005 was a summer when cricket was truly joyous and life-affirming, for me and, for the last time in England, for countless millions of others.
Cos after that, of course, Sky came and stole our cricket for good. Fuckers. I gave in a couple of years later, and more than Premier League football or Boxing or Sunday Supplement (croissants and all), it was the absence of live test cricket on terrestrial TV that forced me to the dark side.
The Ashes on 2005 were on Channel 4, and they did a phenomenal job of it. Mark Nicholas, Richie Benaud, Michaels Slater and Atherton, Tony Greig, Geoff Boycott, Simon Hughes, their voices go hand in hand with the memories of that summer. I bought the DVD and rewatched several times. Well, I needed to. I'm not quite sure how much of the actual cricket I actually watched, certainly in my right mind.
Still, that was the last time cricket truly grabbed the nation - viewing figures on Channel 4 touched 10 million, which is incredible. It stands as the greatest series of our lifetime, maybe of all, as a defining, turning point in the history of cricket, it was every bit as good as it could possibly have been.
Let's look at the context, cricketing, national and personal. Australia had dominated world test cricket for over 10 years, and had won every Ashes series since 1989. Every two years, they demolished England, northern or southern hemisphere. In 1997, England had manged to win two tests, but otherwise, it had been no competition. In 2005, they were still a great team with no sign of fading. At least, this time, England were genuinely on the up. Gradually, from 99 to 2003, and then rapidly in the couple of years after that, they'd developed from the worst test team in the world to the second best. We dared to hope. We had the new Botham. Could Flintoff rise to it?
And it wasn't just Flintoff, it was a good solid, confident settled team. Except something significant and potentially unsettling came into it for the Ashes, replacing the stalwart Graeme Thorpe. KP - skunk hair and all, was picked for his debut for that first test.
And something significant happened in London just two weeks before the series was due to start. First, on 6th July, joyful scenes greeted the news that London had been awarded the Olympics. But then, on 7th July, the awful shock of the tube bombings, which upset everything we Londoners felt about our city. It was profound, it was unsettling, it was horrible.
Would the first test of the Ashes, at Lords, even go ahead, we briefly wondered? The first test did begin, on 21st July, the same day, of course, four more bombs went off across London, except this time they failed to detonate, thank goodness. But London was a troubled place that summer. We needed something.
I needed something too. My life had ground to a standstill. I retreated to my flat in Clapham to lick my wounds and hide after the PGCE I'd been doing went to shit. I was 26, almost 27, embarrassed and clueless. But, at least, I was free of the stress of the last year. I drank a fair bit and watched a lot of TV, which felt great, frankly. And the Ashes were coming. On Channel 4. So long as terrorists didn't ruin it.
People talk about the first morning, how England laid down a marker, how the bowlers tore into Australia to show they weren't weaklings anymore, and sure, ok, but England were hammered in that first test. Same old England, Ricky Ponting is reported to have sneered afterwards.
It felt like that. Flintoff contributed nothing. He seemed to shrink at the challenge. The only bright spot was this weird new South African, who hit two exciting 50s amidst the general chaos. But still, same old England, same old immense Australia.
I'd planned a holiday, my first music festival, in at the deep end at Benicassim in Eastern Spain. Six days at Benicassim, four days in Barcelona afterwards. I'd planned it to celebrate qualifying as a teacher, but I needed it more now. An escape. It meant missing the second test, but, frankly, the way the first had gone, I didn't mind too much.
On the Wednesday, I travelled with John, then with Gregor, Ania and Rob. We drove down from Girona to Benicassim, arriving late at night and pitching our tents on rocky ground in the darkness. I'd never pitched a tent before, Rob needed to help me. Then we drank till about 3 to acclimatise ourselves to the festival. It was all a bit surreal. We woke at about 7 to the most ridiculous heat pounding into our tents. Welcome to hell, to torture. What kind of holiday have I brought myself to?
This was a pre-smartphone world. The campsite had an internet tent, but texting a friend on my old Nokia brick was the best way to find out what was going on in the cricket. Except there was nowhere to charge, no charger anyway, and my old Nokia brick only had enough battery for about one day.
The holiday improved once night fell on the first night of music. In fact, it was awesome. And with that last bit of battery, I received a text from Mikey telling me that first day of the Edgbaston test had been a rather odd marvel. England had racked up 400odd in a day, Flintoff had got a 50 - he was in the game. Glenn McGrath had stepped on a ball and was out.
As the days passed, the festival got better and so did the cricket. All I could do was check the internet when the festival site opened at 4 every afternoon, but by close of play Saturday, England were certainties to win. Australia needed over 100 with only 2 wickets left.
Phew. My phone was dead. I'd also lost my wallet (I've just remembered that ... mental, I think it was nicked) I had no means of finding anything out on the Sunday . Then Gregor mentioned he'd been walking behind some English guys and he thought he'd overheard that Australia had won, or were just about to win, something like that.
Oh God.
In the preamble to this whole blog strand, I mentioned how sport can be joyful in various ways, sometimes through prolonged experience, sometimes just through hearing something on the radio or checking the internet.
I got to the internet tent to check the inevitable doom, got to the BBC website, and saw, within that second "England win dramatic test by 2 runs". It wasn't till weeks later I was able to watch back that last day in all its bizarre glory, the treading on the stumps, the Kasprowicz glove, the Flintoff/Lee moment. But, hell yeah! Game on!
Despite everything, this was shaping up to be some summer. We left Benicassim on the Tuesday for a slightly more relaxing slight detox in Barca - my first time. We had a lovely apartment in the middle of town and it was chilled and great.
And on the Thursday, roaming around town, we found an "Irish pub" which was showing the cricket and there I spent much of the next couple of days. Well, what do you expect? What else would one do in Barcelona?
Anyway, I was back in the UK in time to see Australia's astonishing matchsaving last day, and though part of us thought "shit, that's the chance gone", the team clearly thought "we're as good as this lot, we'll get another chance". And so it proved.
So the 4th test. The 4th, at Trent Bridge, was a good one. Freddie got a 100, England pretty much dominated, but were set an awkward 130 as Warne and Lee raged with the bat against the dying of the light. Went round to friend's in North London to watch the denouement. A few of us there. I couldn't cope. I had to walk. Walk round Islington. Sit in the garden with my headphones on. It all began to go wrong. Surely not.
I made it back to the TV, just, for The King of Spain's moment of glory (this is a cricket joke, don't worry). 2-1! We couldn't lose the series. But the Aussies could still retain with a draw at the Oval, with a fully back-to-his-best McGrath.
This was ALL SO EXCITING! And mattered to me SO MUCH! Really. When you ain't got nothin', you got nothing to ... no, bullshit, Bob, you've got sport! That's why sport is awesome.
I was not alone. It was all I remember talking about. Everyone I knew was enraptured by it. The 5th test was a bit dodgy, a bit weather-affected. It came down to the last day and all England needed to do was bat for most of it and all would be fine. But it's never that simple. Warne and McGrath, for goodness sake. Wickets fell, including the beloved Freddie. I was at home alone in Clapham. But again, I couldn't cope. I tried to hide in my room, but that didn't work. I tried to go for a little walk, but was lured back. I ended up spending an hour of that afternoon just sitting in a corner of Clapham Library, the only place where time could pass at a normal rate.
I got back and found out what had happened. Warne had dropped Pietersen. Pietersen had taken on Lee and survived. I watched Collingwood, I watched Giles. I watched Pietersen get his 100, the declaration, the ceremonial removal of the bails. The Ashes. The actual Ashes!
And I went along to Trafalgar Square for the parade, yes I did, because I had no job to go to. Trafalgar Square was packed. For cricket! As if it was football. I went to a Bob Dylan tribute concert a week or so later and Roy Harper sang 'When an Old Cricketer Leaves the Crease' and he called the players "the boys of summer". I loved that. Trescothick, Strauss, Vaughan, Bell, Pietersen, Flintoff, Jones G, Giles, Hoggard, Harmison, Jones S, Collingwood (Gary Pratt). Just 12 players used, which was surely the key.
That summer seems like a turning point in my own life now. I picked up a bit from there. Perhaps it's where I started to invest a little toooo much in sport. But I'll always have a soft spot for the boys of summer.
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