Lancashire County Cricket Club

Belated congratulations to Lancashire on winning the County Championship. I've woken up every morning since having to check I hadn't dreamt it. Absolutely fantastic.

And the work on rebuilding Old Trafford has begun in earnest so that the ground will be a fit stage for a team of champions to play on. It's sad in some ways because I have so many fond memories of the old ground from first going as a young lad in the late '60s early '70s, but we do need to build for the future. This season I've been to Headingley and Edgbaston to watch Lancashire and those two wonderful grounds really brought home to me how desperately in need of redevelopment Old Trafford is.

Many congratulations and a huge thank you to all at Lancashire for a wonderful season.

Lancashire v Gloucestershire and Dickie Bird

Now then, which one's me?

On July 28th 1971 I was enjoying the summer holidays. I'd passed my 11+ and was starting, in the September that year at Xaverian College in Rusholme, where we would finish school at 3-30pm and then go on to watch the last couple of hours of cricket at Old Trafford before going home. But on July 28th we had a whole, carefree day to watch Lancashire v Gloucestershire in the Gillette Cup semi-final.

Tomorrow I'll be on a trip down memory lane with Lancashire again playing Gloucestershire in a one day game, but this time preceeded by a sportsman's lunch with Dickie Bird as special guest. Dicki Bird is probably the world's most famous umpire and was umpiring on that historic day in 1971. The lunch is especially to comemmorate 40 years since that glorious day, the most exciting day's cricket I, and many others have ever witnessed.

Tomorrow will be a day for wallowing in nostalgia. The reminiscing began last month at the last lunch I attended. A group of us, grey haired, bald or both stood with pints of Thwaites bitter recounting whereabouts in the ground we were on that July day, and night as it transpired. In most cases we were sat somewhere on the grass between the boundary rope and the perimeter wall around the pitch. What we all remembered perfectly clearly was the sheer joy carrying us across the pitch to swamp the victorious Lancashire players as they tried to leave the field after an historic win. As 10-00pm approached the players were still on the pavilion balcony celebrating with the thousands of joyful cricket fans still crowded onto the field in front of the pavilion singing and screaming with sheer joy. My mum and dad knew why I was so late home that day, because it had made the News at Ten.

Roll on tomorrow, and reliving every glorious moment.  Don't worry if I'm a bit late home Jules!