Reasons to be cheerful, not many.

posted by John Winn

Every cloud and that sort of thing but it was well into Tony's last posting before the 'glimmer of good news' broke through the cloud of disappointment shrouding the publication of the 2018 fixtures last week. Many have taken to twitter since to express their particular frustrations. A Lancashire supporter has pointed out that the curtain will close on championship cricket at Old Trafford not later than the 25th of July, the last scheduled day of the Roses match after which there will be there three T20 games and possibly a quarter final in that competition. Might just be worth popping over the Pennines on July 25th to hear the first cry of 'winter well'. Our Hartlepool correspondent has been in touch steaming at the prospect of almost half Durham's home championship games being after the August Bank holiday and that the floodlit game with Warwickshire will be played in mid summer week at a ground which is 54 degrees north and when at that time of year the sun does not set until 9:45 pm.

Four of Durham's seven home fixtures clash with games at Headingley or Scarborough and they have missed out on a trip to Lord's as they will play Middlesex only once, at The Riverside on September 24th. Some consolation for this comes by way of Durham being part of the Cheltenham Festival with a match against Gloucestershire beginning at that splendid venue on July 22nd. I last saw my native county play there in 1997 when my friend Peter Sixsmith, currently appearing as Santa Claus on the Weardale Polar Express, and I met up for the first day of four. Durham won the toss and chose to bat and were skittled out for 86 with only John Morris and Nick Speak making double figures. Things perked up when Simon Brown and John Wood took early  wickets but centuries from Mark Alleyne and Jack Russell saw the West Country men to 471 for 6 declared. Durham fared much better in their second innings with current coach Jon Lewis hitting 81 and David Boon 66. This was enough to take the game into the fourth day and had they survived just a little longer they would have been saved by heavy rain. Alleyne was man of the match with nine wickets to go with his 169. 'Glos' took the maximum 48 points from the festival, they had beaten Derbyshire easily the previous week, points which took them to the top of the table. Their season fell away with no wins after mid August and they finished seventh. Champions were Glamorgan and Durham passed the wooden spoon to Sussex. Surprisingly perhaps, for T20 had not been invented, the season finished just one week earlier than it will in 2018.

What of Yorkshire twenty years ago? Wisden reports that they had given up on the possible move to Wakefield and begun talks with their landlords 'to see if the existing ground could be redeveloped'. Wisden also claimed that there was open disagreement between captain David Byas and the committee over the future of Peter Hartley and 'David Bairstow's tragic death cast a pall over the county'. After all this sixth place in the championship was not such a bad effort.

Those of our readers who know Eddie Marshall, Darlington Eddie, and Mick Carney will be sorry to hear both have been ill recently. Eddie has been discharged from hospital and is in a care home prior to returning home but the last I heard Mick was still in hospital in Sunderland. We wish them both speedy recoveries.

Finally can I give a plug to a newly published ACS book, Cricket and Cannons, which covers the playing of cricket during the Crimean War. The author is a good friend of mine, David Shimwell, we shared a flat when students at Durham University, and the book 'deftly combining military and cricket history, provides a fascinating and original insight into cricket taking place in the mid-Victorian era'. David is a Peak District man, his uncle was my wife's primary school headmaster, but he lives in North West Durham and is regular watcher at The Riverside. Go to the ACS Website at http://acscricket.com for further details.