It was June, the football season had just finished, the sun would be out
and Essex cricket week began at Valentines Park.
Teachers and kids would head over to the park in the weekdays, once
school had finished, to watch the likes of Graham Gooch, John Lever, Keith
Fletcher, Keith Boyce and Ken McEwan thrash the opposition around the field.
On the weekends, we would spend the whole day at the park.
On Saturday there could be a carefully built hundred from Fletcher. But
on Sunday, it was the 40 over one-day rush.
One particular Sunday memory was when Sussex were the opponents, with
their overseas stars Imran Khan and Garth Le Roux in tandem. The two formed a
fearsome bowling partnership but could also bat. I remember well Le Roux and
Imran thrashing the ball around as they chased a distant total.
My fondest memories of the Essex Week cricket came in the 1980s and
early 1990s, when Essex were becoming a formidable force in all forms of
cricket. The team won the county championship no fewer than six times between
1979 and 1992.
Cricket week though disappeared, as the county game took on its four day
format. However, Essex continued to visit and entertain.
But by the noughties the popularity of the cricket week seemed to be
waning or at least the money coming into the coffers began to fall. So with the
costs rising, Essex decided to discontinue Valentines Park cricket in 2002.
Thus, Ilford joined other redundant local arenas, like Leyton, that had previously
hosted Essex cricket over the past decades
The counties have tended over the years to reduce their outreach via the
likes of festival weeks, confining themselves in most part to the centrally
placed county grounds. This however is a rather short sighted policy. Cricket
needs to be seen in order that future generations can be attracted to play the
game.
It was a fateful decision when the cricket authorities signed their
collective soul over to Sky sports thereby removing the game from the tertiary
channels where everyone was able to watch – without needing to have special
subscriptions etc. the move to Sky was the start of cricket moving to the
sporting backwaters.
Cricket needs to reconnect. This means teams getting out of their
central bunkers and taking the game to the different corners of the counties.
Reconnect with people of all ages, particularly those youngsters who will be
the sports life blood of the future. A return to tertiary channels would also be
welcome, though maybe less easy to attain.
Let’s hope it happens, Essex cricket is now on
the up again, winning the country championship last year – the first time since
1992. How wonderful it would be to see county cricket again in Valentines Park
and other local venues in the coming years."Time for Essex cricket to return to Valentines" - published Wanstead & Woodford + Ilford Recorder - 14/6/2018
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