Between trains in Cambridge and an hour to kill, what do I do? Sit and read, go for a cup of tea or visit Fenners, its only ten minutes from the station and in early May there should be a match on. I hurriedly walk the half mile and walk into the ground, yes there is a match, against Middlesex. I sit down and take in the scene, only a scattering of spectators and the match drawing to a peaceful close. A wicket falls, one of the Middlesex openers is out and out from the bushes leaps a vaguely familiar figure clad in a track suit, punching the air and wildly jumping around celebrating the wicket. He begins to walk towards me. There is only one cricketer with a walk like that, Derek Randall. As I ponder what he is doing at Fenners in early May, a bearded figure comes through the gate and starts walking around the ground. I had not seen him for over ten years but he too looked familiar, Mike Brearley. The two figures greet each other and ask what on earth the other is doing on the ground. Randall the recently appointed Cambridge coach and Brearley who had just dropped by to see his old team batting. They both turn towards the pitch and watch Mike Gatting try to get into some early season form. What did they talk about? The Centenary Test and Randall’s epic innings former team mates and past glories the state of English cricket today? I do not know. I quietly stole out of the ground content that I had seen a little cricket and witnessed a scene which makes cricket such a special and sociable sport. The meeting of friends, and the role of heroes.
Reproduced from The Journal of the Cricket Society.
Volume 18 Number 1, Autumn 1996.
