Cheltenham, how I have missed you

PAUL EDWARDS: We should treasure a return to normal life as I treasured my return to Cheltenham on a wet Sunday afternoon, when I looked across Sandford Road towards the town’s hospital, which is situated barely a big six away from the cricket field

I’ve just returned from one of the best days of my season. I could have added “so far” at the end of that sentence but I know quite well that very little of whatever unfolds over the next three months will beat the Cheltenham Festival. In recent years there have been afternoons watching county cricket at Southport that compared with it. And certainly there were those games on the Isle of Wight and at Sedbergh, others too, maybe…and while I think about it, the last day of the 2019 Ashes Test at Headingley wasn’t too dusty.

But in all but one of the summers since 2014 I’ve turned up at the College Ground knowing that one of English cricket’s great institutions will be cared for by people who love it as much as I do. Is it any wonder I arrive in town on the day before the Festival and stroll around the perimeter of the cricket field simply to sniff the air and remind myself of the view over Cleeve Hill?

This year, though, is rather different. When I was last at Cheltenham, in 2019, home spectators were wondering if their side could win promotion, and dramatic victories over Leicestershire and Worcestershire set them on their way to a goal that was achieved by a joyous, rain-wrecked draw against Northants, who were also promoted, on the last day of the season.

But as we know, neither county took their place in Division One and now Gloucestershire’s cricketers are playing on this treasured patch of land with a chance of proceeding from their conference to the top division. In other words, they have a chance of winning the County Championship for the first time in their history. Yet even that does not quite account for my deep content on a Monday evening when rain is forecast and we may not even get too much cricket in the morning. To explain myself I need to take you back a few days and to some dark memories.

^{Gloucestershire last played at Cheltenham in the County Championship when they were chasing promotion in 2019}

Sometimes our more obvious thoughts are also the most shocking. Last Friday I was in a car crossing the M62 en route to the T20 Roses Match when the realisation suddenly hit me that a year ago I had seen no cricket at all since the previous September.

Memories flooded back and I am hardly being presumptuous in thinking that those reading this piece will share them. (I confess that to a degree it is a comfort you do.) Perfect weather and empty cricket fields, the club locked and bolted, drifting around town on Saturday afternoons, taking care not to get too close to anyone, masks everywhere, news bulletins filled with desperate statistics, phone calls to and from friends simply to check we were alright. Is it only a year?

Let me say at once that I would not have included such recollections in this week’s column if the state of affairs I outlined was unchanged. But it seems we are emerging, albeit hesitantly, from the greatest collective crisis I hope any of us have to face. Suddenly I recall my joy when walking up to Chorley’s ground in mid-July to watch my first game and report on a pre-season friendly for a national newspaper that hadn’t covered club cricket for perhaps 40 years.

I would have been proud if I hadn’t been so grateful. And again, those reading this piece might now be prompted to remember their own first match of last season. I would suggest it’s vital we keep such memories safe. It might be a dreadful old cliché to say that crises make you realise what you value in life but one reason why things are called clichés is that they happen to be true. Only too true, in many cases.

As we know, in early August county cricket did return but there was never any question of crowds attending matches. Live streams became a lifeline and they remain so for very many supporters. At last we could pin the lie that no is interested in county cricket. But we also pinned another lie: that no one would notice if there were no spectators at games.

But in a way that brings me back to the Cheltenham Festival. You see, I think the game currently under way between Gloucestershire and Middlesex is the first outground match since 2019 that spectators have been permitted to attend.

There has been social distancing, well-ventilated tents i.e. no sides to them, and other precautions. But there has also been great joy, most notably when Miles Hammond was making a fine 75 on this first afternoon. Perhaps there have been all the things we once took for granted and will do so no longer.

At least part of the reason I have been shorn of my own complacency lies in my previous memory of an outground match, the only one to be played in 2020, when no spectators were allowed. It took place at Aigburth early last September when Lancashire beat Derbyshire in a wonderful game that ended deep in the last session of the fourth day. But as I remember writing last year, nobody who was not paid to be at that game was allowed to watch it.

The atmosphere at Liverpool seemed redolent of a private country house match in the inter-war years, a game in which servants brought refreshments to the privileged participants. Yes, it was a delight to watch the cricket but the pleasure was commingled with pain. Such memories do not obsess me but they have thrown this season into ever sharper relief. There is nothing self-indulgent in that; it might even be helpful.

^{The Cheltenham Festival has returned, with Gloucestershire facing Middlesex}

And also today we have heard that most restrictions on mixing and hospitality are likely to be removed in less than a fortnight’s time. It seems probable that the Test matches against India and other big games will be watched by capacity crowds. That is welcome news but one hopes it is accompanied by respect for those people who will still wear masks and those organisations that still limit attendance.

Recognition of humanity’s diversity has been one of the themes of the last year. It has been accompanied by an awareness of our own vulnerability and a recognition of our astonishing resourcefulness. In such a context watching a cricket match may seem almost trivial but it is one of the many ways in which we will resume what we will call normal life. We should treasure it as I treasured my return to Cheltenham on a wet Sunday afternoon when I looked across Sandford Road towards the town’s hospital, which is situated barely a big six away from the cricket field.