Half Cock at Headingley

posted by John Winn

First Class Cricket back at Headingley yesterday and blessed with pleasant sunshine, plenty of familiar faces in the crowd, and the chance to see Yorkshire's men make easy work of Leeds/Bradford's boys which they duly did with Lees adding to his tally of first class centuries and young Coad impressing among the bowlers. So what's to grumble about, well just one or two flaws in the admin. Arriving late after a dash back from Cumbria I was confronted by a closed entrance on Kirkstall Lane so having legged it round to St Michael's Lane where my entrance was noted by a steward with a clicker, two more stewards were available to check my membership card before I could enter the members' pavilion, although none if I had chosen to enter from the other side. Scorecards? Yes, but only available from the club shop and the museum, the latter of which was locked, so back past the man with the clicker who, even though entry was free, issued me with a pass out which I duly returned to him about 1 minute later.

Refreshments? Available from the East Stand bar, so in theory only to members, a cup of coffee for £2:20 and my friend Les Pennington had to shell out a fiver for the same plus a Mars Bar and a bag of crisps. Welcome to the new season and the Headingley experience. But enough of carping, it was good to meet up with old friends, some of whom I had not seen since Somerset came to town last September. All appeared to have wintered well and there was plenty to talk about, the fate of the south stand and the cost of its replacement, the city based T20, the Yorkshire injury list, Darlington's stuffing at Fylde the previous day and so on. And having got the grizzling off my chest I'll be back there today in the hope that the early morning mist will obey the forecast and clear. Then  three days off before returning for what BBC Radio York considers the start of the season on Friday when Hampshire, the luckiest team in the world, are Yorkshire's first visitors in the 2017 County Championship. For what it's worth the forecast is for light cloud, some sunshine, 12 degrees and a dry day, see you there.