LEE PAYNE

Tag: london

  • My 100th blog post – my favourites from the last 13 years

    In the game of cricket, a century is a significant milestone. Compiling one hundred runs with the bat is very difficult to do and the greats of the game are measured against each other by how many centuries they made. Sadly, despite it being my favourite sport, I have never been good enough at it to get anywhere near 50, let alone 100.

    I have made a century of a different kind, though. This post, the one you’re currently reading, is the 100th I’ve made on my blog! When I started it I was 17 and coming towards the end of sixth form, which feels a very long time ago now. Often several months have passed between entries, but it has always been there as a place to write when I’ve wanted to get something out there. The vast majority of them have been almost entirely ignored, which is par for the course, but a few have unexpectedly gained traction.

    To mark the occasion, I thought it would be interesting to look back over the previous 99 posts and pick out a few that mean a lot to me. Yes, I know it is self-indulgent, but my name is literally at the top. I’m not forcing you to be here!

    Click on the heading to see the post.

    15/3/2010 – The first post: Beckham’s World Cup heartbreak means he must rethink his retirement plans

    The post that started this blog off was a piece of football writing. This was five years before I began writing a regular column for the Eastern Daily Press but it has always been sports journalism that has interested me. Published on 15th March 2010, it strikes me that the style of my writing has not actually changed that much. I think it has just developed to be a bit looser – that first post comes across as a tad uptight (not unlike me really!) and while I appear to be quite happy to express my opinion on the injury David Beckham had suffered playing for AC Milan, putting not only his participation in the 2010 World Cup but also his entire England career at risk, I get the feeling I’m trying too hard to sound like I write for The Guardian. I’ve definitely developed my writing so I can adapt to whatever publication I’m writing for.

    A couple of things about this piece: Beckham never played for England again. My choice to replace him, James Milner, did indeed go to the World Cup that year but (spoiler alert) it did not go well for England and they were knocked out by Germany in the Last 16 – that match that contained Frank Lampard’s ghost goal, hastening the introduction of goalline technology. I also note that my radio station of choice back in 2010 was BBC Radio Norfolk. Not long after this I discovered Chris Moyles on Radio 1 and my life changed. Why, oh why, did I not get into that sort of thing sooner!?

    22/5/2015 – Part of my Norwich-mad dad will be with me at Wembley

    I have written about it in various places before, but my dad died in 2014. Six years after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 69. On 22nd May 2015, I wrote this piece about wearing my dad’s old Norwich City shirt to the Championship play-off final at Wembley Stadium. Dad was a lifelong Norwich fan and when my mum and dad split up the main thing we did together was go to Carrow Road with our season tickets. To this day I sit in the same seat, but I sit alone, with my dad’s to my left now taken by somebody else. In May 2015, Norwich had made it to the play-off final, having beaten arch rivals I***ich Town in the semi-finals, and were one game away from promotion to the Premier League. 40,000 Norwich fans made to the trip to London for the occasion, me included. I thought it would be fitting to wear dad’s shirt in his honour on the day.

    My dad in his room in his care home, a Canary from beginning to end.

    Having shared the story on social media, it proved popular and gained the attention of a journalist from the EDP, who contacted me to write up the story for the paper. I can’t seem to find the article on their website, but I promise you it happened. Norwich beat Middlesbrough 2-0 and made it to the top flight.

    14/9/2015 – It’s time to start talking about Wes in the same breath as the Norwich City greats

    I picked this one because I like the way the writing flows and because I’ve plenty of use of this piece over the seven years since I wrote it. Wes Hoolahan, a diminutive Irishman, was my favourite Norwich City player for most of the decade he spent at the club. Full of skill, he could always make something happen and was there at some really good moments for Norwich. I was inspired to write this after he was the star in a 3-1 win over Bournemouth in the Premier League. He was 33 at the time and I felt I wanted to write about him while he was still around.

    Wes Hoolahan

    I was able to bring this back out again when Hoolahan announced he was leaving Norwich in 2018. It got a fair number of readers and is a piece I’m pretty pleased with.

    15/10/2015 – My Durham holiday photo treasure hunt

    Looking back, I was churning out writing pretty well in 2015. I’d had the successes of the dad’s shirt at Wembley story, Hoolahan and I’d also been chosen to write for the EDP’s new Fan Zone page. In October of that year, I went up to Durham to visit my former landlady, who was working there at the time. She set me a photo treasure hunt challenge – she gave me a list of things that I had to find and take photographs of. This was a great way to explore a city I didn’t know very well. As you can see from the post, I completed the task. This was my first real foray into personal blogging, something that I’ve done more of since and it has always proved reasonably popular – much to my surprise, as I’ve always felt I’m incredibly boring!

    3/12/2015 – In search of the Crystal Palace dinosaurs

    2015 again and another attempt at personal blogging. The dinosar sculptures in Crystal Palace Park in South London had always fascinated me and I had read loads about them but I had not visited them until December 2015. I spent one of the days I’d got off work to visit them and I blogged about my trip. I have been to see the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs several times since.

    25/10/2017 and 26/10/2017 – The pain at the Arsenal and Walking the line

    A two-parter. In October 2017, I made a solo (’twas ever thus) trip to London to watch Norwich City play Arsenal in a League Cup match at the Emirates Stadium. I blogged about the trip, with the first part being all about the football match and the second part being about my walk along a disused railway line the following day. Reading it you can tell I enjoyed myself and it makes me want to do something like this again.

    Walking along an old railway line in London, 2017

    5/3/2019 – ‘No one cares’ – the infuriating misogyny on the internet

    When I’m on social media, I’ve never been able to resist arguing with people when I see them posting overtly racist, sexist or homophobic material. Basically, I will call out the arseholes. People tell me the solution is to ignore it, but I haven’t managed it yet. I just continue calling them out until I need to take a break from social media completely to get my head together.

    Bored with seeing women-fearing blokey blokes taking every opportunity to be disparaging about women’s sport, I wrote this piece in 2019. I don’t claim to fight the feminist fight on behalf of women, I’m just a guy that likes sport and I don’t care whether those participating have willies or not. I wrote this so I could link to it when I was arguing with one of these blokey blokes, rather than having to write the same arguments out every time. It feels more relevant than ever now, with the England women’s football team becoming European champions last year.

    8/5/2019 – One year on: Tranquility Base Hotel& Casino by Arctic Monkeys

    This was the first time I had written about music and my love for Arctic Monkeys. The band changed my life when I discovered them, far later than everyone else had. They changed my hair style, they changed the clothes I wore, the way I saw music as an art form. I wrote this piece about the album they had released in 2018, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, and according to my stats it still gets occasional views from the many Monkeys fans around the world. I enjoyed writing it so much that I have since written about their other six albums: Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not (2006), Favourite Worst Nightmare (2007), Humbug (2009), Suck It And See (2011), AM (2013) and The Car (2022).

    24/10/2019 – We walked 14 miles… because we wanted to

    On the face of it, this is just another piece of personal blogging about walking 14 miles – Aylsham to North Walsham and back again – with my friend Katie. But when I read it back, I realised that it was actually about as gushing as I’ve ever been with the written word. It is really about friendship, and how the little gang that had taken me in when I’d been so alone (Katie, Megan and Sarah) had made such a difference to my life. Little did we know that the pandemic was just around the corner and our lives would change so much.

    9.4.2020 – Stay-at-home pubs, Coogan films and GTA: what I’m doing to deal with lockdown

    The pandemic was a strange time, wasn’t it? It all happened so quickly, and while it felt like it dragged on, it feels like a lifetime ago now. As supermarket staff, we were actually given letters to show to the police should we be pulled over and asked why we were out and about. Extraordinary stuff. And can anyone remember when Sainsbury’s was only open to NHS staff for an hour every morning, and they would play Captain Tom Moore’s charity version of You’ll Never Walk Alone over the PA system!? Strange times. Anyway, in April 2020 I decided to write about the things I was doing, watching and playing to get myself through lockdown. I think in years to come I’ll be glad I did this – it’ll be a sort of record of that (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime event.

    See also: 3/6/2020 – #GoodStuff – a few things I’ve been enjoying despite all of this

    7/9/2021 – Looking through my box of comics and feeling old

    A piece I wrote about an afternoon spent sifting through some of the many comics I keep in a box under my bed. Not much to say about it, but it got a decent number of readers and people seemed to like it.

    27/3/2022 – I bought a 58-year-old football magazine

    I don’t think I would have written this piece if I hadn’t done the comics one first. Last March, I went to a shop on the Dereham to Fakenham road called Corners (now defunct) and found this football magazine from 1964. I picked out some interesting things from it, most of which were along the lines of ‘weren’t things different back then?’.

    4/7/2022 – I’m nearly 30. Where am I going?

    I was full of angst about turning 30. I find it easier to write than I do to speak, so I blogged about it. Basically, I was about to hit that milestone and I had no idea what I was doing with my life. I am glad I wrote this. Turns out, being 30 feels very much like being 29, but this did me good. I later chose 30 songs that had been the soundtrack to my 30 years and blogged about that too.

    3/10/2022 – The theatre, the sights and the hilariously awful hotel – my 26 hours in London

    If I was a musician, this one would be described as my biggest hit to date. Last September, I went to London for a couple of days with my mum, her other half and their two friends. The hotel we stayed in was so awful it was actually funny. I have just checked the stats and 213 people have read this so far – that’s a lot, considering I usually get 10 pairs of eyes on something I’ve written if I’m lucky. This encouraged me to document my own life instead of writing about sport the whole time. A rule I stick to is never to construct situations purely for the benefit of the blog – like the way people on TikTok (bah) who go to places only to show off to their followers. I simply go somewhere, enjoy myself, take a few photos and spend a while writing about it when I get home. It seems to work.

    3/12/2022 – Christmas was better when I was a kid – and 12 years in retail might have something to do with it

    Finally, my attempt to get into the festive spirit. This piece about my memories of Christmas as a child seemed to strike a chord with people, who were reminded of cherished moments from the past themselves by reading it. I loved that I was able to do that for them. Some I hadn’t heard from in years got in touch to say they enjoyed it, which was a really lovely way to round off the year.

    There we have it then, my picks of the 99 posts I have written for this blog to date. I have pretty much decided that making a living out of writing isn’t going to happen, but I still get enough enjoyment out of it that I will carry it on as a hobby regardless. So, here’s to many more posts on this blog. I hope you’ll join me for the ride.

    If you have any thoughts about the posts I’ve shown you here, do feel free to leave a comment under this post or contact me. I’d love to hear from you!

    All the best,

    Lee

  • The theatre, the sights and the hilariously awful hotel – my 26 hours in London

    Sitting outside a cafe in Whitehall, with one of London’s finest Wasteaters in the background

    I’ve been finding things a bit tough recently, so a week off work was very welcome. Unfortunately, on only the second full day of my holiday, I woke up with a horrendous sore throat and spent the rest of the week somewhat under the weather, even spending one day in bed.

    Still, I was not to be defeated and after a bit of a walk at North Elmham and lunch in the grounds of Wymondham Abbey with an old friend from university on Wednesday, it was off to London on Thursday morning. I had bought my mum and her other half Dave (Stephen to me) a gift voucher for Christmas, enabling them to go to a show of their choice at one of the capital’s theatres. They, in turn, bought their friends one and planned to go to Jersey Boys together. I have loved going to London ever since a school trip to the Natural History Museum in 2006, and am reasonably good at finding my way around the city, so I tagged along as their guide.

    We caught our train on time from Norwich and it sailed into Liverpool Street without delay – so far, so good. It was then onto the Tube, headed for Victoria. Our hotel for the night was within walking distance. There are many hotels in London that look like The Grapevine from the outside. It’s common for an old townhouse to have been turned into a hotel. I’d even stayed in one on a visit last year, the Berjaya Eden Park overlooking Bayswater Tube station, and that was fine.

    The Grapevine was not fine. A sign on the front door told us to check in at The Sheriff next door, and we received the keys there. Not only the keys to our rooms but to the hotel itself. Despite check-in time being 2pm and it being just past then, I was told that my room (ominously, in the basement) was still being cleaned.

    To be fair to them, it was ready within about five minutes and, while the others went to their respective rooms, I descended to the basement. I was to be in room 19A!

    Come on in, sleepy head, a comfy bed lies just behind this, er, cupboard door!

    Ah. Had the door not had ’19A’ on it, I would have assumed it was a storage cupboard of some sort, and I don’t think that’s an unreasonable leap to make. My hopes were not high as I passed through the door. There was a kind of air lock between it and another door, which thankfully the key I had been given did unlock.

    Room 19A at the Grapevine Hotel

    I have never walked into a hotel room and burst out laughing before, but that was exactly my reaction to room 19A at the Grapevine. It was so hilariously bad, so miserable, so dirty, that laughter was all my brain would offer me. Being in the basement, I had feared that would mean no windows, but my eyes were drawn to light coming from behind a pair of curtains. The curtains were drawn, but hanging on to the rail for dear life. Some daylight would improve the situation I thought. I pulled the curtains and immediately discovered why they had been closed.

    The stunning views from my original hotel room window

    I wasn’t expecting to see Sydney Opera House, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, or even the sea – but my laughter became almost uncontrollable upon seeing the view from my window. I quickly shut the curtains again, deciding that darkness was preferable. My phone received a text.

    “Omg it’s appalling” were the words my mother had sent me. Any thought I might have had that it was only in the basement that the Grapevine became more Nits than Ritz was dispelled in an instant. Most people on arriving at a hotel would settle in, maybe have a shower, relax – it turned out that all we wanted to do was leave again as soon as possible, and sure enough as I went back outside mum and Dave’s friends were already on the pavement.

    We did that very British thing where we tentatively enquired about each other’s thoughts on the place, just in case one of us was a big fan of having curtains hanging off the walls. Once we’d established that we all thought the place was indeed an almighty shithole, we discussed how we would deal with the topic around my mum, who had booked this hotel in the first place. We adopted a policy of not playing a blame game, instead laughing about the whole situation and saying that it would be fine for just one night.

    As we walked towards Buckingham Palace past Victoria Station, I spotted a Greene King pub. I know it’s a bit rubbish to go for a chain when you’re in one of the world’s great cities for food, but after the introduction to the hotel, I was keen to stick with the tried and trusted. Thankfully, the food was tasty and we walked toward the theatre in good spirits.

    It still doesn’t feel real that the Queen has died, and this was the first time I’d been to anything royalty related since. My mum had never been this close to the Palace before. We couldn’t walk up the Mall as it was closed in preparation for that Sunday’s London Marathon, so we had to take a diversion that did eventually get us to the familiar sight of Nelson’s Column. The journey took in Pall Mall, a street famous for the many clubs and societies based on it. Men in suits came out of the Royal Automobile Club and the Army and Navy Club, often into sports cars parked outside.

    We arrived at the Trafalgar Theatre. It was going well for me. I might have been on the trip as the guide but I am well known for getting myself lost (missing my turn off the M11 to Harlow and ending up in Walthamstow being my most famous misadventure) so to have got everyone safely to the hotel and then to the theatre was a big success. We had coffee and cake sitting outside an impossibly posh-looking cafe opposite – people walked past in bow ties as I sat there in my joggers and wearing an England Cricket jacket.

    I wasn’t going to the show myself, partly because I have no interest in musicals. So, having left them at the theatre, I had about three hours to kill in London. I love the place, I have a fairly good knowledge of how to get around it, but I had never really been out in it at night before so decided to stick to well-populated and well-lit areas. I walked about seven miles in the end, taking in Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden, the West End, the Savoy, the South Bank, Waterloo Bridge, Chinatown and Piccadilly Circus. Here are the photos I took:

    I had a great time. As an introvert, one thing I love about London is how I can wander through it anonymously. There are so many people there, all doing their own thing, that no one notices you. I could go anywhere and no one would pay any attention to me. The only trouble was, I felt distinctly rough.

    I met the rest outside the theatre around 10pm, was told I looked “crap”, and our plans to go for a drink were abandoned. We made our way back to our lovely hotel in a black cab, no less – the first time I have ever been in a proper Hackney Carriage.

    From talking to the others, it appeared that, remarkably, I had actually got the best hotel room. I had a reasonable-sized bathroom, while they were struggling to put into words how small theirs was. I agreed to swap rooms with mum and Dave’s friends, so they could benefit from the extra space. I was upgraded to the ground floor and to room number 1. Was I moving up in the world?

    No. I now had a view out onto the street, at least, which was much nicer than the tip I had overlooked down in the basement. But inside, the room was just as filthy and ramshackle. The size of the toilet and shower needs to be seen to be believed, so here’s a picture:

    My mum demonstrates the size of the toilet in the Grapevine Hotel

    It’s quite obvious that the wardrobes in these rooms had been converted into toilets and showers, allowing the owners to market the hotel as having en suite rooms. I have never seen a toilet so small. My mum could have brushed her teeth whilst sitting on the throne, and we blokes had to stand at an angle to have a wee. That uncontrollable laughter from earlier in the day returned with a vengeance at my first sight of the loo-in-a-cupboard. It was quite a step down back into the room from the toilet, but I had nothing to worry about because if I tripped I would have landed safely on the bed.

    Here are some more photos of this marvellous accommodation:

    One saving grace was that the bed was clean, and I managed about four hours of sleep, about three more than some of the others. We’d left the Grapevine by 8.30 on Friday morning, having handed in the keys and told the guy on reception what a dump it was.

    Our train home wasn’t until 3.30pm, so we had a nice stroll around London, past many of the places I had seen the night before.

    We got to Liverpool Street without getting lost. The train home was on time, my job was complete, and none of us would ever forget our 26 hours in London. Or the Grapevine Hotel.

  • A winning start: what I learned from the Lord’s Test

    England vs New Zealand
    1st Test (of 3)
    Lord’s, London
    2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th June 2022
    Result: England (141 & 279-5) beat New Zealand (132 & 285) by 5 wickets

    I’ve looked it up. There were 281 days between England’s men completing an innings victory over India at Headingley on 28th August last year and scoring the winning runs to beat New Zealand at Lord’s yesterday. That forty week gap between Test wins was without doubt far too long for a nation that loves this form of the game as much as we do. It had included a third disastrous Ashes tour on the bounce, the well-intentioned but ultimately ludicrous decision to drop James Anderson and Stuart Broad, and the departure of the captain, the coach and the managing director.

    Joe Root was the player of the match

    It was fitting that Joe Root was the one to get England home. To say he is now able to play freely, unburdened by the responsibility of being captain, isn’t quite right. He was still the best batter in the team when he was leading it. At Lord’s, however, the smile was definitely wider and the shoulders a little lighter. His 115 not out to see England safely to their target of 277 was masterful and it was great to see him enjoying being out there. Root is a special one, who we will not truly appreciate until he is no longer there. He would walk into any previous England side and be one of the first names in a World XI of current male Test players. Surprisingly, this was his first fourth innings century, but it also got him to the landmark of 10,000 Test runs. Only thirteen others have ever reached that number and at the age of just 31 he could well have more than anyone else by the time he calls it a day.

    England got the bowling attack exactly right. Regardless of their age, Anderson and Broad are two of the best there have ever been and simply had to play. Anderson will always get wickets and won’t go for many runs, either. Broad is capable of incredible spells in which it feels as if he turns a match on its head all by himself, as we saw on the third morning when one of his overs brought about three wickets that meant New Zealand went from being in a very strong position to blowing the door open for England.

    Stuart Broad got England back into the match with an inspired spell on the third morning

    Had it not been for the staggering number of injuries currently hampering England’s pace bowlers (they have no fewer than six currently unavailable), Matty Potts probably wouldn’t have been in contention for the squad, let alone making his Test debut. I like the attitude from new coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes to give a young man in good form a go and he repaid them with seven wickets. I feel like I’ve seen enough of Craig Overton, the other contender for a place in the side this week, for now. Potts must surely play in the second match at Trent Bridge.

    The unfortunate Jack Leach was withdrawn from the game early on its first morning when he landed heavily attempting to stop the ball getting to the boundary and subsequently showing signs of concussion. The relatively recent addition of concussion substitutes meant that England were able to replace him with someone who could play a full part and they called upon Matt Parkinson, the leg spinner, who had to make his way from Manchester to London. Many had been calling for Parkinson to play in the match anyway, so for them the sight of ‘Parky’ being awarded his Test cap was welcome and overdue. He had been taken to the Caribbean but bafflingly left out, carrying the drinks while the bowling attack toiled. His first and so far only Test wicket was that of Tim Southee to bring New Zealand’s second innings to an end, but in a match dominated by the seamers little can be read into that. He simply has to be given another chance in Nottingham.

    The batting order is still a deep concern. Alex Lees and Zak Crawley opened, as they did in the Caribbean, but Lees is in danger of falling into the trope of looking good but not scoring many runs. His second innings 20 was, according to Michael Vaughan on the BBC coverage, the best runs he’d seen him make for England so far but then he made a terrible decision to leave a Kyle Jamieson delivery that thumped into his stumps and left him looking foolish. Crawley, we’re always being told, has so much talent, and he does – that 267 against Pakistan two years ago and the hundred he made on the West Indies tour earlier this year are proof of that. He’s not been consistent enough, though, and has a James Vinceian tendency to get out the same way all the time (caught behind or in the slips trying a flashy drive). His average is under 30. It seems incredible that England haven’t found the right opening partnership since Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook.

    Zak Crawley so often looks the part but needs more consistent runs

    Ollie Pope is another batter with undoubted talent. I have fond memories of his hundred in Johannesburg against South Africa, an innings that made him look every inch the Test player. He was brought into this match, however, as a number three – a position he’d never previously played in. Another couple of disappointing scores will not have helped to get certain sections of the public off his back.

    This is something I have noticed with the England team of late. Whenever they dismiss a team cheaply, some fans will laud the excellent bowling. If an England batter should be out for a low score, however, it is always because they are not good enough and should be dropped. I was watching the run chase on television and thought that Crawley and Pope – Pope in particular – lost their wickets to brilliant pieces of bowling that they could have done little to prevent. The reaction online was that both were useless and pathetic. I wonder how many of these commenters had actually seen the dismissals at all, or whether they were just waiting to see the fall of their wickets so they could criticise them.

    The next questionable member of the England top order was Jonny Bairstow. He had actually been one of the team’s form players this year, with a century in Sydney and Antigua, but had played no red ball cricket since the Caribbean tour because he’d been at the IPL. It was clear he hadn’t been able to switch his mindset away from the short forms, as a couple of scatty innings saw him bowled both times for not very many. One of the explanations often offered for why England seem to stick to the same underperforming batting line up is that there is no one else waiting in the wings. The early part of the county season has shown this to be untrue, with impressive performances from Harry Brook, Ben Compton and Josh Bohannon giving them genuine options. With the batting once again being spared its blushes by Root and Stokes, it feels like an opportunity was missed to give someone new a go at Lord’s.

    On a happier note, Ben Foakes showed exactly why I’ve been calling for him to be in the side for years. As much as I love Jos Buttler, he just isn’t a Test match cricketer and through his immaculate wicket keeping and digging in to support Root in the run chase hopefully Foakes has cemented his place for the foreseeable future.

    Ben Foakes provided perfect support for Root to see England to victory

    All things considered, this would be the team I would pick for the second Test:

    1. Alex Lees
    2. Zak Crawley
    3. Dawid Malan/Ben Compton
    4. Joe Root
    5. Harry Brook
    6. Ben Stokes (c)
    7. Ben Foakes (wk)
    8. Matty Potts
    9. Stuart Broad
    10. James Anderson
    11. Matt Parkinson

    I think Lees is worth persisting with. I was thinking of replacing Crawley with Compton, but feel there was enough in his performance at Lord’s to give him another go. Dawid Malan is a name that hasn’t been mentioned much recently but he was harshly dropped after the Ashes tour, where he was actually one of England’s better batters. Brook is in amazing form and deserves to play ahead of Bairstow. Parkinson needs another go, even if Leach is fit. The rest of the side are assured of their places.

    In fact, it’s highly unlikely that England will make any changes. As the old saying goes, ‘you don’t change a winning team’. What a pleasure it is to be positive about the England Test team again, to be writing about a win. In some ways we’ve learned very little – we’re still not sure about the top order, we know that Root is class and that Anderson and Broad are still the best – but in others we’ve learned a lot. Setting the summer up with a victory could be huge for this new England team. Let’s hope they can follow it up at Trent Bridge next week.

    Broadcasting is another great interest of mine and it was nice to see Sky Sports back, showing their first live England Test since last September after a winter of BT Sport exclusivity. The commentary team has changed a lot since last year. Michael Holding has retired, David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd has left, Rob Key is now the England men’s managing director of cricket and there was of course the tragic and untimely death of the great Shane Warne. Sky dedicated the whole Test to the Australian legend and his name was never far from anyone’s lips. The TV commentary box at Lord’s has been renamed after him and on the first morning the ribbon was cut live on the coverage. They also used the lunch breaks to show a documentary about Warne. 23 overs into the first day’s play there was an applause for him, a moving moment in which everyone on the field lined up shoulder-to-shoulder to commemorate an icon gone too soon.

    When the Australian Mel Jones resumed commentating after the applause, it was with an emotional break in her voice that was shared by everyone. Jones was part of the commentary team alongside fellow Aussie Mark Taylor (great insight), Kiwi Simon Doull, England white ball captain Eoin Morgan and the stalwarts Nasser Hussain, Michael Atherton and Ian Ward. Even with Mark Butcher going down with Covid before the match, the Sky team is still the best in the business. Holding and Lloyd were the subject of another documentary, Voices of Summer, narrated by the brilliant Charles Colvile. I urge you to watch it, which if you can do here:

  • Walking the line

    Three things I love are London, walking and disused railway lines. That makes this book seem like it was almost written with me in mind.

    2017-10-26 11.49.32

    The morning after the Arsenal v Norwich match I decided to do one of the walks in the book, starting at Finsbury Park.

    The park itself often hosts big name musicians. In 2014, my favourite band Arctic Monkeys played two gigs there and this week Liam Gallagher announced he would be playing Finsbury Park in June 2018.

    My walk followed the route of a planned extension to the Northern Line of the London Underground which was never completed.

    What I enjoy about disused railway lines is imagining what they once looked like, seeing how they have changed with the ghost of its past still evident. The first example of this was when I came across the building below.

    2017-10-25 09.44.00
    This used to be the station building of Stroud Green station

    Stroud Green station closed to passengers in 1954, but 63 years later its building is still intact. There’s no evidence of how the building links to the railway bridge above, so countless people must pass it every day without ever realising its former purpose.

    Further along where the track once was, there is a work of art inside one of the arches. When you’re walking alone, it’s quite creepy to be honest – even though I knew it was going to be there!

    2017-10-25 09.58.13
    Spriggan sculpture

    The most intact platforms on the walk are at Crouch End. As you can see from my photo, it’s obvious that trains used to stop here.

    2017-10-25 09.59.25
    Crouch End

    The thing I was most excited about seeing were the Highgate Tunnels. The imposing portals are now a sanctuary for bats. The ground in front of them was too muddy for me to walk across, so I had to zoom in from a distance, but you can still see them.

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    The abandoned Highgate Tunnels

    To rejoin the walk, I had to go up to street level. I was now in Highgate, famous for its middle class mums (as seen in the @Highgatemums Twitter account and book). The next thing to glimpse was the abandoned Highgate High Level station.

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    Overlooking the abandoned Highgate High Level station

    It was near impossible to get a good view of it, but the tunnels I saw earlier emerge here. In a BBC documentary made in 2013 to commemorate the Underground’s 150th anniversary, a Tube driver can be seen on the platforms.

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    Still from BBC documentary The Tube: An Underground History (2013) showing Highgate High Level station

    The walk ends at Alexandra Palace, where the World Darts Championships are held at Christmas every year. However, with a train home to catch I decided to stop after taking in this incredible view over London.

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    Looking over London

    I plan on going back to finish off the walk in the future, but I had a great time doing the bits of it that I did.

  • The pain at the Arsenal

    I have just returned from a brilliant trip to London, where I went to my first Norwich City away match at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium.

    The plan was to make an event of it, so instead of going straight there and straight back on the coach with other fans I went on the train on Tuesday morning, stayed in a hotel in Finsbury Park and came back on Wednesday lunchtime.

    I was aware that my hotel was within walking distance of the ground, but I didn’t expect to be able to see it from my window!

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    The Emirates Stadium was visible from my hotel room

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    Zoomed in

    I walked to the stadium well before kick off, to properly take in the atmosphere. I had been outside the Emirates once before, but that was during the day when there was no one around. It was a different sight all lit up with thousands of people there.

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    Outside the Emirates

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    Near where the away fans go in

    I made my way to the end where my fellow Norwich fans were going to be sitting, and immediately felt a warmth come over me seeing yellow shirts and hearing familiar songs – I was amongst my own people! With an hour to go before kick off, I went inside and found my seat, giving me my first sight of the pitch.

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    The view from my seat

    Before long the Norwich players came out to warm up at our end, to great applause. There is a real feeling of togetherness about the club at the moment. The fans are right behind the players, the players are putting the effort in for the fans and they are buying into what the manager is trying to do. It’s lovely to see. There were particularly loud cheers for James Maddison, who scored the winner in the derby on Sunday.

     

    Norwich's goalkeepers Angus Gunn and Michael McGovern warm up
    Norwich’s goalkeepers Angus Gunn and Michael McGovern warm up
    The Norwich players preparing for the game
    The Norwich players preparing for the game

    Arsenal have a sort of TV show on the big screens inside the stadium for pre-match, half time and post-match. I don’t really think it works. I’ve seen it done at cricket grounds, and often it’s hard to hear the presenter and a lot of the time you don’t want to because they are really annoying. Arsenal’s presenter didn’t win any friends amongst the Norwich fans by introducing us as Ipswich! That’s pretty much the worst thing you can say about us.

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    This bloke introduced us as Ipswich!

    Then it was the match itself. You probably know that the game went all the way to extra time, with the eventual score being Arsenal 2-1 Norwich. The Norwich players put in a very good performance, going in front in the first half when Josh Murphy finished nicely after running onto a great Maddison pass and defending excellently until the 86th minute when a young guy I’d never heard of called Eddie Nketiah tapped in from a corner 15 seconds after coming on as a substitute for Arsenal. He then scored the winner in the first half of extra time. Norwich had come agonisingly close to pulling off an upset – one they would have deserved – but it wasn’t to be.

    I was proud of the team, though, and very proud to be in the crowd. The nearly 9,000 Norwich fans that were there put the Arsenal fans to shame. Boxer and City fan Anthony Ogogo says he was racially abused by one of our number last night, which is totally unacceptable and that person is merely a sad individual who has nothing to do with this wonderful football club. I certainly didn’t hear anything untoward, and I think we represented the city brilliantly.

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    The Norwich players in a huddle after the game

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    The Canaries thank the fans for their great support

    My first experience of seeing Norwich play on another team’s turf was one I’ll never forget, and one I hope to repeat in the future. We may not have won, we may be out of the cup, but I got a real sense that the club is in good shape at the moment and that if we can carry on performing like we did on Tuesday night then we can achieve something in the league this season.