Uxbridge Festive Cheer

Our Groundie gives us a deep insight on his pre Uxbridge Festival fears and after thoughts.  This depicts some matters that go on behind the scene that we are not all aware of. This is a fascinating read.

When Kev asked me to do a festival report, my first thought was, oh no, people must be bored of these by now. However, rather than say no, I decided to try and approach it from another angle as these are a good way of spreading the word of exactly how important the festival is to a small club.

I have said all along that we need to not get complacent and that we need to compete, as there are other clubs who would be only too happy to take the festival away from Uxbridge. We need to make people feel important, to enjoy their time with us and to enjoy the occasion.
This season was, I believe, the best festival since the County Club returned in 2008. Not because it provided entertaining cricket, but rather because people appeared to enjoy their experience and to embrace the whole Uxbridge team

In May one sat at the Uxbridge AGM and listened to the committee explain just how important the festival is financially to the club and that to lose it would be a disaster.
We go back to the Sri Lanka game in May, when the outfield was completely white and club members were talking about the possibility of a serious injury due to a “dangerous” outfield, of course, that never happened and in fact no one mentioned it. Now a month on and one of my fiercest critics actually tapped me on the shoulder and said, “you have worked wonders on that outfield” when the truth is we had some rain at the right time. The ground looked amazing for the festival, yet often that leads to problems.

I will admit to feeling nervous this time, the pressure was on and I was not convinced that I had got it right.

For Kent, we were promised rain 30 minutes before the start, it actually arrived about 15 minutes after the start. The game was played through increasingly heavy rain, until the 18th over, when it was hacking down. Still out they stayed and when we took the covers out at close of first innings we were told to retreat. All this time the Championship pitch was open and getting wetter.

The Gloucs T/20 was great fun and it is terrific to have played a small part in history, even if it only lasts a short time.

The Championship is what it is all about for me. There had been much discussion about the pitch during the build up, first thoughts were to make it green but then the Kent game at Lord’s happened and we took a joint decision that people would be watching what Middlesex were doing with pitches. As it was, I made little change to the pitch other than to turn the grass a little more straw coloured. I have since read many comments about the pitch from people, all of whom are entitled to their opinion. What do annoy are people who are not even present making general statements about the ground without actually viewing it themselves. Uxbridge pitches now are very different to Uxbridge pitches of the past as one continues to learn. The hard facts are that we lost nearly an entire days play due to weather, without which, it would have been a result wicket. Matches should go into the fourth day and not be over in 2/3 days. Had Middlesex held their catches, Gloucs would have been out for less than 300 first time around and we would have been well into the game. But that is life. For me, it was a very good deck of which I am proud.

The Hants match summed up the T/20 games perfectly.
Conclusion. Did we compete? If there is a club local who can do better, then they deserve it because what happened at Uxbridge 2011 was the carnival came to town. Just as festival cricket used to be, people had fun. They embraced team Uxbridge from Anne and her staff, to Chris (The Womble) – sorry guys but my old mate Bob introduced that name 2 years ago – and the groundstaff. Members were quick to join in whether it was moving boundary boards when the groundsman had decided to move the rope after telling Lozza that he wouldn’t or stacking chairs after the event, all joined forces and were happy to do so. Our festival may not be as attractive as Cheltenham or Scarborough, but I am sure that many more members will be checking their diaries when next years dates come out, as they won’t want to miss a day.

Now that it’s all over there is time for reflection. The pitches were good, not unfortunately good enough for awards, but good enough for my satisfaction. I am a far happier groundsman at the finish than I was at the start, the festival has been a delight for me and the team and we love Middlesex coming to Uxbridge and would do it for nothing, which is just as well.

Final word for Angus Fraser because I managed to find a programme from the 4 day game which had been left in the press tent. On flicking through it, there were nice comments from Vinnie, but Angus wrote his entire article on pitches. He mentioned how he hated bowling at Uxbridge but went on to make some extremely humbling comments about recent pitches. There are all sorts of people who want to judge your work, yet comments from men who have played and succeeded at the very top level of the sport seem to carry so much more weight.

Thank you to all, particularly the Vermin Corner, never before have I heard the loudest cheer of the day reserved for the groundsman coming on with the roller or carrying off the stumps. You are the people who make the festival quite what it is.