Lord's to Langbaurgh

Posted by John Winn
Tony has nicely rounded off the season in yesterday's posting and expressed his personal disappointment that ill health prevented him watching cricket for a large chunk of the summer. How good it has been to read his postings again this last few weeks with the added bonus of photographs.
I have thoroughly enjoyed my first season of contributing to the blog and can't really complain about the amount of cricket I have seen. Totting it all up I have seen exactly the same number of days 'representative' cricket (First Class, second eleven, under 17 etc),as in 2010 and about the same amount of league cricket too. The lovely weather of April and early May got things off to a flying start and I managed to tick off six of the seven 'listed matches' that were available to me without any serious interference from the weather. The various promotions and relegations in the county championship have thrown up a bumper crop of such matches for 2012, twelve in all, and mostly in the south of England which will test the bank balance, the rail network and my stamina, but the publication of the season's fixtures will ignite my passion and come April I will be raring to go.
Looking back over this season my highlights included a day at The Cheltenham Festival, visits to six of the test match grounds, and by contrast time spent at delightful places like Newburgh Priory, Escrick Park and Bolton Percy. There have, of course, to be disappointments, among them Yorkshire's relegation, Durham's poor August which cost them the championship and worst of all ringing up Marske CC to be told they were playing but to get there and find they weren't.But worse things happen at sea, never mind Marske by the Sea.
Writing for a blog is a strange experience, one has no idea how many, if any, read them, who they are and what they make of one's contributions. Except a few kind souls have been good enough to say they have enjoyed them, to them many thanks.Having started the season as an 'umpire from Lancashire', see Tony's posting of the April 11th, from which position things could only get better, I have enjoyed making some new friends. Those of you old enough to remember 'The Lone Ranger' will perhaps recall that at the end of every show as he rode away to the strains of William Tell, somebody would say 'Who was that man?' It would be nice to think that,on my departure from a cricket ground, fewer pcws ask that question than was the case in the spring.
One or two people have suggested that they would welcome occasional postings during the winter and to this end I have one or two ideas in mind so if 'Strictly' or 'The X Factor' are not your bag then it might (just) be worth checking out the blog. In the meantime may I recommend you go to You Tube and enter Cricket 1950 John Arlott into search and you will find a delightful film, lasting just over 15 minutes, narrated by Ralph Richardson and with contributions from Arlott, based round the Lord's test of 1948.It is a gem. Winter Well!