Deckchair Days

I've nicked this link from the White Rose Forum to a Full Toss article.

https://www.thefulltoss.com/england-cricket-blog/deckchair-days/

It is essentially about playing cricket at venues which are full enough to generate atmosphere, the suggestion being that championship cricket takes on a different character when everyone is around the boundary's edge at an outground.

The author (John Bartholomew, possibly nom de plume) is clearly a Surrey fan as he uses The Oval, Guildford and Whitgift as comparators. He also refers to a suggestion he made a t a members' forum about "deckchair days" at The Oval. Indeed the author may be on this board somewhere! Let's see, someone who prefers the atmosphere for the CC at outgrounds like Guildford...

Not me - give me the Oval any day. When someone says "I prefer Guilford/Whitgift" all I hear is someone saying "I prefer grounds to be harder to get to, with inferior facilities, seats which give you a rubbish view, and a pitch that is so poor that it spoils the game". And that's without mentioning the sodding private zoo that the spoilt little Lord Fauntleroy's have at Whitgift FFS!

I love it when the Oval is half empty on a summers day, I can slap on some sun cream, put the headphones in and watch the game whilst sipping on a bottle of red. You can go to sleep without anyone asking you to move or without any disturbances. I find this a wonderful antidote to the rushed pace we live at. Whilst the excitement from a full stadium is nice (whether its an international or Twenty20) I think my favourite times at the oval are much quieter days.

Roll on summer....

Howzat

I agree though I think Mr Bartholomew was thinking of a 95% empty Oval rather than half empty. The exception, of course, is the outground a few minutes walk from my house, which rather annoyingly is no longer used for first team games. If I were a Yorkshireman I expect I would make an exception for Scarbados too.

I'd quite like to see a few hundred trying to get deck chairs through the ticket barriers at the tube station though.