Cricket - all emotions included

It's been three weeks since I've written. Three weeks that have been busy and amazing, following the birth of my grandson. It's also from a work standpoint been the busiest three weeks of my year, incorporating the exam paper marking period and my delivery of a conference for politics teachers' in London.

However as I took a tea break in London last Monday, I looked at my phone and received a text message from a friend of mine who is also a member of Surrey CCC. I had to read the message twice and then look back again, it told me of the death of Tom Maynard.

It was only later in the day, on my journey home that reading the free newspaper I learned that Tom had died in what could be described as unusual circumstances in the early morning. If I was stunned I wondered how his family and his friends, especially the players at Surrey, were coping. Later in the week it was announced that Tom had died of electricution before being struck by an Underground train.

The next day England played the West Indies at the Oval in a ODI. Before the match the players and the crowd at this stage around 15,000 stood in total silence for "a minute's silence".  At times throughout the day I thought about Tom, a life and a cricketing future cut short. At the Oval the crowd witnessed an innings of brutality from Chris Gayle, who launched five sixes to all parts of the ground, including the roof of the pavilion before being given out lbw to Graeme Swann.
In the afternoon in contrast we witnessed Alastair Cook, for a period not deemed a one day player, construct a match winning century.

The West Indies this summer have been deprived of the services of Gayle, Pollard, and Bravo batsman who could have gone some say to even up the contest between England and the tourists. Of course test cricket in a cold May -June in England can't compete with the rewards of the IPL. For purists like myself, that's yet another tragedy. Gayle's loss to test cricket has tilted the cricket world towards the shoter forms of the game.





But on the day, it was enough to enjoy Gayle's cameo which for a short time, took my mind away from the events in SW19 the morning before.


Some days later , Tom Maynard's Surrey colleague, Matthew Spreigel published a fitting tribute to Tom on the Surrey website, I copy it below:

Surrey all-rounder Matthew Spriegel has paid tribute to the late Tom Maynard, writing a moving tribute for kiaoval.com.

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Having read some of the moving tributes to Tom over the last few days, I feel under huge pressure to make sure I do him justice in the next few paragraphs. Then I thought about it, there is nothing about Tommy I could write that could make him sound other than fantastic, as a player, a teammate, a friend but above all as a bloke.
When I got the awful news, soon after waking up on Monday, I went numb. I couldn’t comprehend the news, if I’m honest I still can’t. Then it hit me, sitting in a café in Clapham, I burst into tears.
My phone had run out of battery so asked them to charge it up, when I got it back, the news was publicly announced and it was going crazy. He had died. For a moment I looked around with blurred vision and couldn’t understand how people were getting on with their life, did they not know?
I can’t even imagine what his family have been through over these past few days. I have never properly been introduced to Matt, Sue or Ceri and I’m not going to claim I know them. However what I do know is how close they were as a family, I only hope they can draw comfort from the unbelievable response of the public. I have read so many messages from friends, fans and people who had never even met him which shows what an impact he had in his 23 years.
When he arrived at Surrey 18 months ago we headed into pre-season as rivals, we were both competing to try and get into the Championship side. I had played against him a few times, but we didn’t know each other that well so it was always going to be an interesting battle.
On the first day of pre-season he pulled me to one side and said: “Listen bud, we are very similar players and I can see myself competing with you for that middle order spot, whatever happens lets work hard together and be happy for each other no matter what happens.”
I was blown away, and of course he went on to play every game for us and have a fantastic year. I will never forget what he said to me that day.
Tommy had an unmistakable presence. Even the first two T20 games this season he missed because of an injury, you could tell he wasn’t there. I can’t bear to think about what it’s going to be like walking into the changing room without him being there.
Despite him being two years younger than me I would always turn to him for advice about anything, he was so approachable. I have to walk past his spot to get to mine and to listen to another one of his stories and hear his infectious laugh was always a great way to start the day.
We will never know how far he could have gone in the game, but what I know is that he had the hunger, desire and commitment to go with his undoubted god given talent to go all the way to the top. I was lucky enough to see him play the sort of innings that would turn games on their head and play shots that I could only dream of.
Surrey are no strangers to tragedy, with Graham Kersey, Ben Hollioake and now Tom being taken away from us. I have to take this opportunity to mention how good both Surrey and the PCA have been in the past week in assisting us in this terrible time.
Saying its going to be an emotional few weeks, months and years is a ridiculous understatement. The guys are hurting, and why wouldn’t they be we have lost our mate, role model and the life and soul of the party! But, its not just us, he has brought the cricketing world to its knees. The guys at Glamorgan will be in the same position as us, as will so many players around the country because of the person he was.
Yesterday I was looking through my phone to see if I had any pictures of us together, nothing. All I found was the video of our team song after winning the CB40 final last year, that’s all I need. He was on the table, conducting the boys, belting out our team song into an empty Champagne bottle whilst throwing out some of his trademark dance moves.
Everyone will have there own memories of Tommy to treasure and I feel so lucky to have so many. You will be sorely missed.
Rest in peace mate x

2nd June - Born Day

On 2nd June at around 8pm, our grandson Matthew was born. I must admit my initial thoughts were focussed on the health and welfare of our daughter who had not experienced  a pleasant day up to the birth.

I'm not what you call natural grandparent material; anyone who knows me from my work life will know that I do not naturally bond with young children. However my immediate thoughts were that my family had its first 21st Century man.

Birth reminds us of our own mortality, something that we really need no reminding about, so inevitably we try to shuffle such thoughts to the back of our minds.

Drifting off to sleep some time around midnight, I received a call from my son in law to say that our daughter was losing too much blood and might need a blood tranfusion. In minutes we were heading to the hospital, me driving. The rain lashed down as we made our way through a near deserted Chelmsford.

Fortunately my daughter didn't require the transfusion. We were able to talk and see our grandson for the first time. After what had been a traumatic day for him too. He slept soundly, just turning occasionally to stretch out his arms.

Here was a new born baby only 5 hours old. After a stay of about a hour I drove home my eyes on the road, but my mind very much returning to an issue that I'd reconsidered only a couple of days earlier.

When my mother was born in 1925 the world's population stood at 2 billion, last year it reached 7 billion, projections suggest that by the time Matthew is an adult it will be heading towards 9 billion.
My mind turned to the type of world Matthew will inherit, the problems his generation will face.
Will "his people" be able to feed themselves, by that I mean everyone across the world. Will poverty and starvation be a thing of the past or a recurring curse ? Will there be enough water to drink ? How will they light and heat their homes ? How will they learn ?

Recent talk of "future people" hit me between the eyes last night, as future became present. Those of us capable of ensuring that there are necessary resources for future generations need to make them a priority. My grandson Matthew should inherit a world not beset with the problems that mine and previous generations have created.

Utopianism and Green Politics

I travelled to Norwich for the second time during May. This time it's not for political campaigning, instead I headed to UEA to listen to Jonathan Porritt deliver a lecture in a series called Philosopher Kings. porritt's theme was "Utopianism and Green Politics"

In the late 1980s when I started researching environmental policies and politics while working for a MEP on the European parliament's Environment Committee, Jonathan Porritt was very much the public face of the English Greens.

While the German Greens were making electoral headway in a country with a proportional system, Porritt appeared to plough fallow land back home. In 1989 in the Euro elections the greens polled 15% of the vote, but with the UK still rooted to FPTP for Euro elections at this time, they won no seats.

Over 20 years have passed, and I spent the two hour train journey reading Porritt's "Going Green". Obviously the book is to an extent time framed, but it is a readable account with sharp observation.
Before the evening I sense that Porritt while maintaining his membership of the party seemed rather tangential to it, and its leftward path under the leadership of Caroline Lucas.

Porritt's talk was always thought provoking, never allowing the listener to settle into their comfort zone. He challenged a largely green sympathetic audience of approaching 300 , to ask why their message had not created a positive narrative with the electorate. He argued that as a party we failed to appreciate or accept the aspirations of the people. It was no good simply blaming FPTP.

He said that the bulk of the population accept the environmental problems that the earth faces, but not our solutions.He challenged orthodox views on technology. Could technology be the friends of the Greens ? All to often he said we appeared either technosceptic or worse technophobic.

Of course from a green perspective technology can't resolve all environmental problems unless consumption is tackled as well. In reply Rupert Reed argued that it wasn't greens who were utopian, it was those who thought we could continue on with the "business as usual" approach. He talked of "unspeak", the development of language and concepts that imply that it is possible to tackle issues such as climate change without drastic action, the term "sustainability" he argued was a perfect example of "unspeak". While accepting that Greens are often seen as foretellers of doom,he said we needed to raise the alarm, rather than simply being alarmist.

Rupert Reed  pursued the view that growth offered no solutions, that more stuff was no solution.
As I travelled back to Essex, this theme held my attention. I tried to think through the contradiction. At first glance people do want more stuff, especially in the field of technology, how can the Greens sell their message when coming up against what seemed a huge barrier ?

The more I thought, the underlying issue seemed to be the reduction in the size of public as opposed to private provision. Today culturally we've accepted that the public provision won't be there, so we seek out private solutions. In the days before the Porritt lecture I wanted to prepare myself by reading some of his writing. Did I go to the local library ? No, I bought the book (admittedly second hand). On our allotment I had a discussion regarding grass strimmers. The ones the allotment holders buy are next to useless, and are anyway underused. Why don't we club together and buy a quality tool, that we can all access ? As I got off the late night train  people left public transport that was both efficient and clean, and jumped into their private cars. Why ? Because the idea of late night rural public transport would be considered unrealistic in the UK.

Until we tackled the lack of community and public provision, together with the distribution of wealth in our society, our hopes of opening the electorates' eyes to the limits of growth will be a utopian dream.

!0 years after

The past and future of AFC Wimbledon

This week has marked the 10th anniversary of the birth of AFC Wimbledon. On 28th May 2002, the FA killed Wimbledon FC and sanctioned the franchising of football. The decision to allow Milton Keynes Dons defied the concept of clubs having roots in a local community. Wimbledon was to be uprooted and thrown 60 miles away up the M1. Not surprisingly Dons fans adopted the mantra " never forgive,never forget".

The three man commission who presided over the execution of Wimbledon FC declared that the formation of a club such as Wimbledon Town would "not be in the wider interests of football."

Two days later hundreds of us, angry and frustrated, crowded into the Community Centre in St Georges Road SW19 determined to fight the move to Milton Keynes and also to build an alternative. Within days trials were being arranged and a place in a football league was being secured. It's ten years ago and now I'm so pleased that I wrote a book to remind myself of that first year. My book, "A unique solution," is I hope a fans book, the story of a Wimbledon fan who threw himself into AFC Wimbledon.
In the those months I travelled around the counties to the south and west of London to clubs barely known in their own localities. I watched as journeymen non league footballers became our heroes, playing in front of gates of around 300.

Naturally as the club secured promotion after promotion we have grown and evolved. Arguably we've become more professional. Nevertheless I still feel there's something of the village store as opposed to the supermarket about AFC Wimbledon.

How appropriate therefore that just days before the 10th anniversary about 70 of us gathered at the same community centre to discuss how we could raise up to £2 million to help develop the ground to ensure our survival in the football league. At that moment I'm reminded that as well as negtiating several promotions in the last ten years we have also bought a football ground, extended the main stand and roofed and extended the home terrace.

In many ways it's been an amazing journey that I wouldn't have missed being a small part of, and one that has of course not ended. In fact possibly the most difficult parts still lay ahead.