Journey's End

 posted by John Winn

When Fred Trueman of Yorkshire bowled the first ball of a championship match to Edwin Cooper of Yorkshire at Scarborough in August 1951 he set in motion a chain of events that finally reached its journey's end on Sunday at Taunton when Will Davis of Leicestershire  bowled to Devon Conway of Somerset. It meant that I had seen at least one ball of the 153 matches required to see every county play every other county in championship cricket. Before this season Somerset and Leicestershire had not faced each other in the championship since 2007 and had it not been for the new format who knows when they might have met.

Last week the Somerset ticket office came under intense pressure with covid restrictions impinging  on two T20s, a women's international and the championship fixture. My tickets for the first two days had been purchased in April on the understanding that they might not be valid if restrictions still applied at the time of the match. The PM's announcement a couple of weeks ago that July 19th, not June 21st was the crucial day meant an enormous amount of work for SCCC and although I had received confirmation that my tickets were valid when I left home on Saturday they were still not in my possession. Something of a leap of faith then to make the 280 mile journey to Taunton, still hopeful that they would come in the form of e-tickets to my phone. In the event they did not for they were delivered to my home by Royal Mail after I had left on Saturday. 

Thankfully my wife was able to send me photographs of the precious documents and it was with this evidence that I presented myself at the Sir Vivian Richards gates on Sunday morning shortly after 9:00. 'No problem sir' I was told you need to go to the next gate which I duly did and from there I was sent to the Brian Rose gate which provides access to The Somerset Stand. Here I joined a short queue and when the gates opened on the stroke of ten a brief explanation of my situation was sufficient to convince the gateman of my story and in I went. 55 minutes later in lovely sunshine Conway faced up, 'play' was called and the rest as they say is history. 

Of course as a seven year old boy I had no intention of trying to reach the target of 153 and it was not until 1990 when I read an article about a man who had done it home and away that I seriously set about ticking off a few matches. I had only seen about ten of the matches at this point but I reached the mid point in 1997 when I saw Sussex play Gloucestershire at Hove and made steady progress over the next few years until by the end of the 2018 season only two matches remained both of which involved Somerset, with Gloucestershire and Leicestershire their opponents. Despite Covid and dreadful weather at Bristol the two outstanding matches are now ticked off. My travels have taken me to 47 different  grounds, about half of which are no longer in use, with Hove clocking up the most relevant visits (10) followed by Derby (9). 

Once my initial excitement had died down I settled down to watch the cricket for the next two days, more of which next time.