I was put off cricket at secondary school when Jason Grady
used to throw the corky at your groin as hard as he could. He didn't bowl but
launched the ball at your nether regions as fast as he could (the teacher Diddy
Dumpling didn't seem to mind.) Being an all-boys school few people wore or
could afford protection. Bailey once brought in a groin box but I only remember
him keeping his egg sandwiches in it.
Lord's Cricket
Ground is the most prestigious place for cricket in the UK and when I've been
to London the coach driver usually points out a flat owned by Cliff Richard which
offers an unobstructed view of proceedings (not sure if this is true.) Who is
Lord? I didn't know he was and was sure he wasn't Jesus so I looked it up. It
was Thomas Lord and he was popped out onto the sheets in a narrow house in Thirsk
in North Yorkshire. On a visit to Scarborough I went to find the blue plaque. I
found Thirsk so appealing I've stayed there overnight in the motor home a few
times. At the centre is a large cobbled square and at the weekends a busy
nightlight hatches out. I put on the radio and sit in darkness with chips and
curry and a buttered muffin and people-watch.
I
found Thomas's plaque just off the main square and it's now a museum (closed
when I visited but it was dusk.) He was born in this house where I’m
stood in 1755 and played first-class cricket from 15 years. He wasn't here for
long though as when he was a boy the family moved to Norfolk and he grew up
there before heading south for work. He got a job as a bowler and general
attendant at the White Conduit Cricket Club in Islington, mixing with the
gentry.
He was 31 when keen cricketers the 9th Earl of
Winchilsea and the 4th Duke of Richmond asked Thomas to find a more private
venue. About a year later he acquired seven acres of land in Marylebone and
started his first cricket ground. Thomas’s cricket career pretty much began and
started here but eventually the lease on the land expired. He obtained an
eighty-year lease on two fields in St John's Wood and built yet another cricket
field and club. Four years later he was knocked back when Parliament
requisitioned the land so the Regent's Canal could cut through. Undaunted and
backed by the gentry Thomas then moved his ground to the present site in St
John's Wood (rolling up the turf and taking it with him.) He was 59 when the
placed opened in 1814 but he was wasn’t making enough money so he developed
part of the ground for housing (what’s new?) This didn’t leave him much room
for the actual cricket so a batsman called William Ward (also a director of the
Bank of England) bought the land for £5,000. Today we all known it as Lord’s
Cricket Ground. It should really be called Ward’s but the Lord’s name seems to
have stuck. After all his efforts I suppose he deserved a nugget of
immortality.
Thomas lived nearby until he was 75 and he
retired to West Meon in Hampshire where he’s buried (he’s on my list)...a few
metres away from the notorious spy Guy Burgess. He’d married and had children
and Thomas junior was also a first-class cricketer. I'll revisit Thirsk soon
and go inside the museum but whenever I think of cricket I flinch at the memory
of Jason Grady throwing a hard ball at my nuggets. I did a salute and left to
sit in the motor home and gawp at people.
It all started from here...