The slightly prententious title to this week’s piece is not me trying to come across all earnest – it’s actually a lyric from the Arctic Monkeys song Anyways (which you can listen to below).
I’ll be honest, I have been finding things a bit difficult recently. My anxiety remains, thankfully, at arm’s length but it is its ugly brother depression that’s been gathering in a cloud over me.
That voice inside my head has been getting louder. ‘You’re useless’. ‘No one likes you’. ‘God, you’re such a loner’. I’ve been trying to use the techniques I was taught during my CBT sessions to shut that voice out, but it’s been difficult. Things came to a head on Sunday when work felt like an almost impossible task. I wasn’t fit for human consumption. I hid myself away in the kiosk. On the positive side, with some help, I got through it and was much better on Monday and Tuesday. But it can be jarring to think that the darkness can encroach at any moment. You’re never safe from it.
So much for Project Happy, eh? Well, anyway, that can wait for now. The best thing I can do is look after myself right now and tackle it again when I’m feeling brighter.
A book I recommend: I don’t read a lot of fiction but recently I’ve been engrossed in Danny Wallace’s 2012 novel Charlotte Street. I found it in a charity shop. The protagonist, Jason, sees a girl drop what she was carrying onto the pavement while she’s getting into a taxi and stops to help pick her things up. They exchange a lingering smile, then the taxi drives away. But Jason doesn’t notice that he’s still holding something of hers – a disposable camera. And from there an obsession begins!
A song I’m into: Stockport indie band Blossoms released their new single this week, a collaboration with Jungle called ‘What Can I Say After I’m Sorry?’ – the video for it features Everton manager Sean Dyche. Yep. I’ve been playing it on repeat since it came out and constantly have the chorus stuck in my head. Listen below!
If you’ve made it this far, thanks very much for reading and I’ll see you again soon.
It’s a new year, and I begin 2024 under both a literal and metaphorical cloud.
Here I am, soaked through and knackered, pushing trollies in the work car park last night. I took the photo because I didn’t think it would be believed that I actually had to go out there during Storm Henk. After an incredibly busy Christmas period, I am shattered. There are still two months until I get a week off work. I sense that I am on a downward slope.
Anyway, that’s enough self-pity. Here’s a few things that have caught my eye this week.
Daft news story: in the media, there are two ‘silly seasons’. One is in August, when everyone is on their summer holidays and nothing much is going on. The other is that weird week between Christmas and New Year. Last Thursday I was in a cafe with my mum and stepdad when my phone vibrated. The big breaking news story was that grand old Blackpool Tower was on fire! A bona fide English landmark was going up in flames! Not quite. It turned out to be some orange netting at the top of the tower blowing about in the wind. There was no fire. The media made a hasty retreat. In less than a week, the Blackpool Tower ‘fire’ has become a meme.
I once wrapped orange netting around the top of the Blackpool tower and fooled the whole country into thinking a national landmark was on fire. pic.twitter.com/vjP90uaBIG
A sporting sensation: Luke Littler, who is 16 but – let’s be honest – looks about 35, has taken darts by storm by cruising into the final of the World Championship in his debut year. Impressing everyone with his consistent high scoring and seemingly nerveless disposition, Littler only became world youth champion in November but has beaten Raymond van Barneveled and Rob Cross, who have six World Championship titles between them, in the main event. He plays the world number one and pre-tournament favourite Luke Humphries at Alexandra Palace in London tonight.
I love the darts. I used to watch it with my dad when I was a kid. Even now, I think the Christmas period only really starts when the World Championship begins. It’s immensely entertaining, and fantastic to watch people who are good at things do what they do. Last year, an incredible leg in the final between Michael Smith and Michael van Gerwen saw both players on course for a nine darter (the perfect leg of 501). van Gerwen missed the double 12, but Smith hit it. That got everyone talking – this year it’s Luke Littler that has captured the imagination.
A book I’m reading: my Christmas presents this year consisted mainly of books, which is fine by me. One of them was Everything To Play For: The QI Book Of Sports, which I’ve been thoroughly enjoying because it avoids the dreaded sporting cliches and takes a step outside of the bubble us sports fans tend to be in to take a forensic look at what sport actually is, how it began and why it exists. I recommend it, even if you don’t like sport, because it will explain to you that sport is far from a pointless activity and that it is actually built in to the human psyche.
Thanks for reading my musings this week. See you again soon.
My latest musings on Norwich City Football Club are in today’s Eastern Daily Press and Norwich Evening News.
You can read it online here. I know I’ve posted this rather late to encourage you to buy a paper, but in further I’d urge you to consider it – local papers are really important and they won’t be around for much longer if everyone keeps getting all their news online for nothing.
Here is what my column looks like in print. I’ve no idea who the bloke in the photo at the top is – it’s definitely not me but I can assure you they are my words! They must have made a mistake at the paper.
In the column I talk about Norwich’s 1-0 defeat to Sunderland on Sunday, how irritated I was at the result and how I feel it’s the final nail in the coffin for our hopes of making the play-offs. I also make my feelings clear on the use of pyrotechnics by the crowd, an offence for which three City fans have now been banned from attending matches.
The events of the last week will, I think, prove to be a watershed moment for Norwich City Football Club.
Former Huddersfield manager David Wagner is the new man in charge of Norwich City
The displeasure and the disconnect felt by the fans was not only about the club’s repeated inability to put up a fight in the Premier League. It was deeper than that. We felt like we were being taken for granted. The people in power had shut themselves away and lost touch with us. The head coach just didn’t seem to ‘get’ Norwich.
I found myself in the unusual position of directly calling for the manager to be sacked. Norwich isn’t a club that is known for wielding the axe. A manager tends to be given enough – some might say more than enough – time to make their mark and see out a tough time. The end comes when a natural conclusion is reached.
Only thirteen months into the job, however, Dean Smith had to go. Many were sceptical about his appointment in the first place. He would have had to hit the ground running to get those people on board. It wouldn’t have taken much to turn the atmosphere toxic.
On the pitch, Smith failed. It is as simple as that. He was given the job to keep Norwich in the Premier League and they were relegated with a whimper, rock bottom. Then it was to get them straight back up. He left with the automatic promotion places a long way away.
These players haven’t become bad all of a sudden. Several of them have won the Championship title twice with us before. It’s unrealistic to expect them to stroll to a third, but for that squad to be in mid table, looking average at best, is not good enough. Teemu Pukki is a striker with a proven record at this level who would be picked by any other team in the division, yet he is having a quiet season by his standards. Max Aarons had been touted for a lucrative move to some of the world’s biggest clubs, yet his form this season has seen him at times unable to get into the starting eleven. Marcelino Nunez arrived in the summer with a legion of fans in his native Chile, excited about their man showing the English game what he was capable of. He displayed his skill and flair early on but has gone off the boil as time has gone on. My only explanation for this is the way these players have been coached. Dean Smith (and his assistant, Craig “Shakey” Shakespeare) have taken good players and made them worse.
The fans became bored of the ponderous, directionless style of play. As the situation came to a head, they would boo when the ball was played back to the centre halves or goalkeeper. We actually did a lot of playing out from the back under the much loved Daniel Farke, but it always felt like there was a purpose to it. We have memories of many beautiful goals, a culmination of tens of passes, to prove it. The football under Smith was too predictable, too easy to play against, too lacking in entertainment.
When planning to write this, I looked up the records of Norwich’s previous managers and discovered that the percentage of games that we won under Smith (28.57%) was the worst for a permanent coach since the 27 game spell of Gary Megson (18.5%) in 1995-96.
On the pitch, Smith was a write-off. He might be a ‘good bloke’ and a ‘good coach’ – the Aston Villa fans showered him with love when he first came to Norwich, but months down the line admitted that he didn’t really have a plan for a Villa side that didn’t have Jack Grealish in it. He will probably get another job soon (he has already been linked with the vacant position at Portsmouth) and enjoy some modest success. I don’t have any ill will towards the guy now he’s gone. Some managers fit a club and some don’t.
The dull performances and bad results on the field made me refuse to go and watch our home games for two months. I saw the defeat to Luton on 18th October and didn’t return until the draw with Reading on 30th December, the first game after Smith’s sacking. But it wasn’t the actual football that hurt me the most.
The relationship between a football club and its fans is special. Mess with it at your peril. It isn’t about eleven men or women trying to kick a ball into a net. Your football club represents your home. It represents you. For a lot of us, the team’s achievements are our achievements. We feel personal success when they do well.
Norwich is special. The people of this fine city, this fine isolated city, are fiercely proud of it. That is reflected in the football club. We are a club that has always done things differently, where the fans have not been treated as customers but as the lifeblood of the whole thing.
Daniel Farke completely got that. It might seem shallow, but the way he would always applaud every section of the stadium at the end of a game made us feel valued. I was never expecting Dean Smith to wave his arms around and give it the full “olé” to all four corners of Carrow Road, but the bloke never even came on the pitch. It was just a small sign that he was there to work with the players and not with us. He probably never saw it that way but that’s how it felt. That approach never had a long term future at Norwich City.
Daniel Farke always showed his appreciation for the Norwich fans
Smith didn’t seem to like us and his uninspiring press conferences didn’t help either. I became resentful. I didn’t want to look down from the Barclay and see him on the touchline as the face of my club. I used my platform, a column once a month in the Eastern Daily Press, to say the club needed a new manager. I did it twice, actually, and the second time I was stronger. Strong enough that I wondered if they would print it without toning it down. To their credit they did. I obviously had no part to play in Smith leaving, the tide was already going that way, but a week after the second column he was sacked. I could look at my club with optimism again.
The most pleasing thing, for me, was something that the sporting director Stuart Webber said in an interview with Sky Sports on Monday:
“I’ve been here for six years. I’ve had a great time here, a great fanbase with great numbers that turn up. But I probably didn’t appreciate quite how important that connection between the head coach and the fanbase until it wasn’t there.
I’d only known that with Daniel (Farke). We finished 14th in the first season but ultimately the fans wanted to believe in him because the fans had that connection.
It’s not about having a happy clapper that walks on to the pitch to keep the fans happy because that doesn’t work if there’s no substance behind his work.
We as a football club have to be aware that it’s important we get someone that really understands the community, the fanbase because it’s a little bit unique in that respect.”
— Stuart Webber
It seems that, at last, the penny may have dropped. It is not enough to just bring in a manager with strong footballing credentials, they have to be able to connect with the fans.
A shiver went down my spine when I heard the names of Steve Bruce and Chris Wilder mentioned. Two men I certainly don’t want leading my club. But it would appear that they were only rumours, and rumours that were always wide of the mark.
In the end, Webber has returned to someone he has worked with before. Someone he has had success with before. Someone born in Germany. Someone who has previously managed Borussia Dortmund’s reserve team.
Alas, it’s not a stunning return for Daniel Farke. It’s actually a friend of his and his predecessor in that Dortmund job. It’s David Wagner.
Wagner is best known in this country for his time in charge of Huddersfield Town, where he led them to a surprise Premier League promotion via the play-offs in 2017 and then, even more impressively, kept them there with a successful battle against relegation. It was the first time Huddersfield had been in the top flight since 1972. He left in the January of Huddersfield’s second Premier League season with the club eight points adrift of safety, but he remains well liked for his achievements in West Yorkshire and for the Gegenpressing style of play he implemented.
In Wagner, Norwich have a manager in place who is hungry for success after a couple of short spells at Schalke and Swiss side Young Boys. He is likely to have a clear plan for how he wants his team to play, and that plan is likely to have Pukki licking his lips. He will also have the backing of the fans.
This feels right. It feels like it might work. We might just have the manager we need. And if out of all of this we have a hierarchy that will never again underestimate the importance of the fans to Norwich City, these are good times indeed.
All the signs point to these being bleak times: a lot of us can’t afford to put the heating on, Covid is still refusing to go away – like a double glazing salesman who won’t take no for an answer – and Sky News has a permanent graphic in the top corner of the screen telling us which set of workers is on strike today. At the time of writing, it’s the postal workers.
Yet, despite all of that, I was cheerful and optimistic when I drove home from work for the last time before Christmas last night. I’d even made a playlist of my favourite Christmas songs to soundtrack my 30 mile journey. I’ve written about this banger by The Darkness before but I also highly recommend White Wine In The Sun by Tim Minchin.
For those of us in retail, the busiest period of the year is almost over. We won’t struggle to find a space in the car park, have five trolleys full of left behinds or have to put up with god awful Mariah Carey covers any longer once the doors are closed on Christmas Eve.
Ignoring the utter misery that is January, we also have the new year on the horizon – a chance to reflect on what’s gone before and what we want to happen in the year ahead.
Thinking about it, my 2022 has been about establishing a base, mentally, from which I can build on. Due to factors, I had to move back in with my mum in the spring. Having just turned 30, this is hardly something to be proud of but my mental health has improved dramatically by having a warm, loving and stable home life. I now feel that I can make decisions about the future direction of my life with confidence.
I would like a new job. I think I’ve said ‘this Christmas will be my last in retail’ every year since about 2012 but maybe this really will be it. That’s very much a work in progress though. We’ll see how that goes.
I’ll end this piece with a few photos from my year. Thanks for reading, and however you’re spending Christmas, I hope it’s a happy one.
With mum on a chilly January walk on the beachMy positive Covid tests when it laid me low in FebruaryMy first day out of isolation, MarchA car catches fire in the car park at work, MarchBreakfast outside at the now-defunct Corners near Dereham, AprilDay out in Cromer, MayWith mum in Cromer, MayAt The Killers gig at Carrow Road in JuneFriday night drink in Wells-next-the-sea, JuneWatching Norwich at Dereham Town, JulyPet-sitting Oscar, JulyWatching England women in the Euros at the fan park in Manchester, JulyMum with England batter Jonny Bairstow at Old Trafford, JulyWatching England v South Africa at Old Trafford, JulyWith my friend Gavin at Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach in August With my friends and family on my 30th birthday in AugustOn top of Norfolk’s highest point, Beeston Bump, September My night wandering around London in September Happy bunny… receiving the new Arctic Monkeys album in OctoberAt the Blossoms gig at the UEA in NovemberLovely winter walk at Castle Acre, December
Friday 21st October. A package lands on the doormat. Could it be? The previous day’s postal workers’ strike had put doubt in my mind. It was the right size and shape. All the signs were good. I opened it. YES! It is!
The new Arctic Monkeys album!
Me, excitedly showing off my copy of the new Arctic Monkeys album
Yes, I know I could get it on Spotify or Apple Music, but I always like to own things that are important to me in a physical form if I can. Maybe, as someone born in 1992, I’m part of the last generation that doesn’t automatically go digital with everything. The CD will live in my car, appropriately enough given its title.
This will be my ‘review’ of The Car, the seventh studio album to be released by Arctic Monkeys. Just don’t expect it to be an impartial review. In case you’re not already aware, I LOVE Arctic Monkeys. I mean, look at the photo above! I’m wearing an Arctic Monkeys t-shirt, I’m holding an Arctic Monkeys album and on the wall (my bedroom wall) behind me are framed prints of each of their previous albums and their track listings. It sounds like a cliché, but Arctic Monkeys have been the soundtrack to a large part of my life. The lyrics speak to me. Their songs have helped me through tough times and accompanied me at high points. I’ve been to The Grapes in Sheffield, the pub where they played their first gig, and I have also seen them play live in their home city. I even had my photo taken next to an Arctic Monkeys-themed elephant sculpture (evidence provided below).
With the Arctic Monkeys elephant sculpture, Sheffield city centre, July 2016
The last decade has seen us fans have to wait a long while for new material from our heroes. After the phenomenally successful album AM was released in 2013, there was a near five year wait until its follow-up Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino arrived in 2018. The tour for that album came to an end in the spring of 2019, and the now familiar silence from the Monkeys began. We did get a pandemic treat in the form of a live album, Live At The Royal Albert Hall – a recording of a 2018 concert released in December 2020 with all the proceeds going to charity – but otherwise the band were on hiatus.
In August 2021, reports that Arctic Monkeys had been recording at Butley Priory in Suffolk made the NME. The band had enjoyed the experience of all living and recording together under one roof on their previous album when they used La Frette studios just outside Paris to put their sci-fi inspired masterpiece together, so it was not unexpected to hear that they’d taken over what is essentially a wedding venue for their next record. Butley Priory’s website referred to hearing “the double bass, drums and piano wafting out of the open double doors”, indicating that this album would likely be as light on heavy guitar as their last.
Then, the trail went cold again. In November last year, an announcement was made that Arctic Monkeys would be playing a small number of shows in Europe in August 2022, starting in Istanbul, Turkey. The months passed, that first date came and we still had no new music. Some people were even questioning if the band would actually be performing in Istanbul. YouTube footage confirmed that they definitely did, and served up a selection of hits with no new songs. They continued to do this on subsequent tour dates until 23rd August, when they played I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am for the first time. At last, we had an idea of what the seventh album might sound like.
A day later, the lid was finally lifted. The new album would be called ‘The Car’ and it would be released on 21st October. I pre-ordered my copy on CD immediately. The track listing was also released, with ten songs. Click on the title of one to hear it:
Unlike the last album, which had no singles released from it at all in the build up, we did get to enjoy some of the songs from The Car before 21st October. As 29th August became the 30th, I was eagerly awaiting the release of There’d Better Be A Mirrorball (click here to read something I wrote about it a while ago). Going by the title alone, I was expecting something with a kind of 70s groove, but it is actually a wonderfully concise break up song. Frontman Alex Turner has addressed the end of a relationship before, but in Do Me A Favour from 2007’s Favourite Worst Nightmare he did it in a far more aggressive way. In Mirrorball, he’s approaching it in a more mature manner. The song actually turned out to be extremely indicative of what the rest of the album would be like – Turner would reveal in interviews that the brooding intro to Mirrorball opened his eyes to the direction this new material was going in, and the theme of a break up or a goodbye runs throughout the album.
I Ain’t Quite Where I Am gets as close to the groove I was expecting from Mirrorball with its guitars, then Sculptures Of Anything Goes is a gorgeous tune that contains these lyrics:
Puncturing your bubble of relatability With your horrible new sound Baby, those mixed messages ain’t what they used to be
Sculptures of Anything Goes
I wonder if that might be aimed at the ‘fans’ of the band who felt isolated by the direction the Monkeys went in with TBH&C. Those complaints have always annoyed me. The first Arctic Monkeys album was released in 2006, when they were still teenagers. The tales of nights out in Sheffield would sound ridiculous now they are closing in on 40. The band have grown up, and so have their music. I doubt they would have remained relevant for as long as they have had they tried to replicate their first album time after time, and if they had done that they’d look as ridiculous as Green Day.
The Car isn’t an album of songs that you can dance to, but I would argue that it is never its intention. I put it on in my car and I am transported to another world – these songs take me somewhere, away from the stress and anxiety I feel most of the time. While it felt like it took a couple of listens to the previous album to go through a sort of ‘wall of understanding’, the effect of The Car was instant – by the end of my first play-through I was hooked. I’ve listened to little else in the last week and I am nowhere near being remotely bored by any of these songs.
It strikes me that this album contains no filler at all. Usually at least one song will be one you don’t remember too much about and don’t come back to after a while, but The Car is incredibly strong throughout. The closest it gets to filler is Jet Skis On The Moat, but even that contains a catchy chorus with the lines:
Is there somethin’ on your mind Or are you just happy to sit there and watch while the paint job dries?
Jet Skis On The Moat
Body Paint was the second single to be released. Its repeated chant of “still a trace of body paint, on your arms and on your legs and on your face” towards the end is guaranteed to be belted out by crowds for years to come and we’ve just discovered that it sounds bloody amazing live:
The use of strings on this album blows me away. They never feel like they are fighting with the rockier aspects of the tunes, the band has managed to pull off making them sound like they complement each other. The title track, The Car, sounds wonderfully cinematic thanks to its use of strings.
My personal favourite song on the album is the epic Big Ideas. These lines are a fantastic contemplation on the act of songwriting:
I had big ideas, the band were so excited The kind you’d rather not share over the phone But now, the orchestra’s got us all surrounded And I cannot for the life of me remember how they go
Big Ideas
The instrumental at the end is simply beautiful. Arctic Monkeys had actually convened much earlier than the Butley Prior sessions of summer 2021 to attempt to record some new material, pre-pandemic, and everything they did then ended up on the cutting room floor – everything apart from Hello You, the most upbeat tune on the record. We are then introduced to a mysterious character called Mr Schwartz, who we are told is “stayin’ strong for the crew”. Finally, a wondrous way to close an album, Perfect Sense tells us:
If that’s what it takes to say goodnight Then that’s what it takes
Perfect Sense
You’re not inside the world of The Car for long – the album is over and done with in about 35 minutes. But boy, have I loved being inside that world. Yes, I know I’m a massive Monkeys fan and that this would have had to have been a really poor album for me to say anything else but, truly, I think it is a masterpiece. Its overtones of farewells have got some fans wondering whether this is the band signing off after 17 years at the top, but I really hope that isn’t the case. This is a band who have more stories to tell, more avenues to explore. I’m going to see them at Carrow Road, the home of my beloved Norwich City Football Club, in June next year and I couldn’t be more excited.
England vs New Zealand 3rd Test (of 3) Headingley, Leeds 23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th, 27th June 2022 Result: England (360 & 296-3) beat New Zealand (329 & 326) by 7 wickets England win the series 3-0
England received the trophy after winning the series 3-0
It was only innate English pessimism that put any doubt in the ability of our re-energised Test team to knock off the 113 runs required to win the third Test and seal a 3-0 series whitewash.
Tickets for the final day at Headingley were free, just as they were at Trent Bridge last week, but some stayed away as grey Yorkshire skies on Monday morning brought showers of rain that prevented any play until after lunch. I think allowing free entry on the last day of the matches in this series has been a great idea, and I suspect a deliberate ploy to get the fans back in love with Test cricket, which had been in a desperate state over the last couple of years.
With an entire session lost to the weather, part of me was watching the clock, worrying whether England would have enough time to seal the victory. I was a fool – once they did manage to get on the field, they had it done and dusted in just over an hour.
Before this series, chasing anything more than 250 would have been daunting, but in a very short space of time Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum have the squad believing they can win from any position. At Trent Bridge, they chased 299 in a mere 50 overs and in Leeds they went after the target of 296 at more than five runs an over. This final act was a formality, a New Zealand side run ragged longing for the plane home.
Joe Root averaged 99.00 in the series
It has been a series full of highs for England, but the brightest lights were Joe Root – officially the player of the series – and Jonny Bairstow, so it seemed fitting that they were together at the crease at the end. Root was 86 not out and would surely have gone on to a third century in the series, while in his current form Bairstow is brilliant fun to watch. Confident and totally at ease with his game, on his home ground he followed up his first innings 162 with a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it 71 from just 44 balls. With ten to win, he cracked a four off the very much part time bowling of Michael Bracewell and I said out loud: “will he try to finish this with a six?”. Next thing I knew, the ball was sailing into the stands. Jonny, you beauty!
Jack Leach was the deserved player of the match for taking 10 wickets across the two innings. In my piece about the Trent Bridge Test, I said the Somerset spinner “just doesn’t seem like he’ll ever worry a batter”. He is a very likeable cricketer and is clearly highly valued by his team mates, so it was nice to see him do so well but I maintain that if England are going to dominate in Tests they will need to find a better spin bowler. Ollie Pope also had a good series, playing at number three for the first time. He rounded off his series with an 82 to go with the hundred he scored in Nottingham. Matty Potts bowled some excellent spells and, in his captain’s words, appears to have taken to international cricket “like a duck to water”, while Jamie Overton did not look out of place on debut, scoring a superb 97 with the bat and sending down some hostile short pitched bowling.
In fact, the only England player to come out of this series badly is Zak Crawley. He made a tortured 25 on Sunday, during which he ran out his opening partner Alex Lees because he was too busy admiring his own shot, played flashy drives at deliveries that weren’t there to be driven and finally slapped a dreadful shot into the hands of Kiwi skipper Kane Williamson. He looks utterly out of his depth, but is in the squad for the India match next week. With a break after that until the South Africa series in the middle of August, it seems he may have a chance to get some runs for Kent, because surely he will need them if he’s going to keep his place.
Zak Crawley scored just 87 runs in 6 innings in the series
So, having gone into this series with one win in their last seventeen Test matches, England are celebrating a 3-0 clean sweep of the world champions New Zealand. Next up is India at Edgbaston on Friday, followed by three games against South Africa and then the tour of Pakistan in the autumn. The new regime has breathed new life into the red ball side and the fans will be looking forward to, rather than dreading, each fixture. But what of the visitors? It was a year ago that they were crowned the inaugural winners of the World Test Championship, but since then they have lost key players – wicketkeeper BJ Watling and batter Ross Taylor have both retired – and their usually reliable captain Williamson has been out of form. The only partnership England struggled to break was the one between Daryl Mitchell and Tom Blundell, who between them scored more runs than the rest of the New Zealand team combined. They struggled with injuries, Colin de Grandhomme and Kyle Jamieson both going home early, while Williamson missed the second match with Covid. Their team selections were strange, they didn’t play a proper spinner in two of the three Tests and the one when they did he was only given two overs.
All that aside, however, it needs to be said that it is always a pleasure to play against New Zealand, the true gentlemen of the sport. England have had some terrific tussles with the Black Caps in recent years (this being the obvious one) but they always play the game in the right way and in the right spirit. I look forward to our next meeting.
Watch the highlights of the fifth, decisive day of the third Test
England vs New Zealand 2nd Test (of 3) Trent Bridge, Nottingham 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th June 2022 Result: England (539 & 299-5) beat New Zealand (553 & 284) by 5 wickets
Jonny Bairstow’s astonishing century won the second Test for England
Sport is my strongest passion. My life is essentially a continuous festival of sport, and football and cricket are the headline acts. I love them both, but it might surprise some to learn that in the unlikely situation I was forced to sacrifice one to keep the other cricket would be my number one.
It’s not easy to argue cricket’s case in the face of a sport that dominates as football does. Governing body FIFA estimates that 4% of the world’s population are active players or referees, and 3.2 billion watched the 2018 World Cup on television. In Britain, it feels like someone you meet is more likely to be a football fan than not and it is often a safe bet to use a following of the game as an ice breaker.
Cricket is actually the second most popular sport in the world, though the numbers are boosted somewhat by its obsessed following in very large countries such as India and Pakistan. Here, it is not so common to come across a fellow cricket fan (even less so one in their twenties like me) and it at times feels like a passion – a guilty pleasure – to be kept a secret, fearful of hearing some nonsense about it being “boring”.
I expect many to scoff at this, but I believe cricket is far from a boring sport and actually more exciting than football. You see, in football the sole aim of the game is to score a goal. Everyone watching is waiting to see a goal. Some will say they are interested in the tactical battle or the attractive passing style of play, but deep down they just want to see a goal. Even when a goalkeeper makes a great save, what the neutrals really wanted to see was a goal. Absolute goal fests in high level professional football are, however, very rare – that’s why they get talked about so much when they do come along – so in reality most football fans are disappointed and bored more often than not. People keep watching, keep turning up for each game because maybe, just maybe, the next one will be the one with all the goals in it.
Every ball of a cricket match is an event. It has lulls of course, every sport does, but it can’t possibly be boring in comparison to football because you could see the equivalent of a goal every few seconds. Each time the bowler approaches the crease, there is so much that can happen. Perhaps a wicket will be taken – stumps flying everywhere, a stunning catch – or maybe the batter will whack it out of the ground, or try a risky reverse sweep. No one has ever unironically enjoyed a 0-0 result in football, either, while in cricket a draw can sometimes be among the most thrilling things ever to happen in any sport.
Daryl Mitchell scored a century and a half century in the match but was on the losing side
With three distinct forms of cricket (four if you count the Hundred, which I don’t), the thrills come in many ways. The five day Test match is my favourite and the game that finished on Tuesday, with England winning at Trent Bridge, is one of the best I’ve seen in nearly twenty years as a fan.
A flat pitch and a small ground meant a total of 1,675 runs were scored, compared to 837 in the first Test at Lord’s last week. 249 boundaries were hit across the five days, a record for a Test match. New Zealand, missing their captain Kane Williamson because he tested positive for Covid on the eve of the match, made the most of being put into bat by racking up 553. Nine of the eleven batters made it into double figures, with Daryl Mitchell adding 190 to his century at Lord’s and Tom Blundell joining him with 106. On Saturday, many were saying that England had gone back to their old ways – they got the decision at the toss wrong, they didn’t bowl well, they were wasting reviews.
The new approach from the skipper Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum is always to take the positive option, and England were certainly positive with the bat. Scoring more than 500 in the first innings will usually ensure that you don’t lose the Test, at least, but New Zealand remarkably found themselves beaten by five wickets with a whopping 22 overs unbowled on the last evening.
From Alex Lees starting to express himself as a Test opener with 67 and 44, to Ollie Pope’s long awaited second Test century, Joe Root continuing his astonishing run of form with 176 and Ben Stokes seeing England over the line with 75 off just 70 balls, it has been a series to savour for the batters.
Then there’s Jonny Bairstow. In my piece about the Lord’s Test, I was dropping Jonny for Trent Bridge and criticising his recent lack of red ball cricket. More fool me. Unleased, given licence to go full on white ball mode, he cracked one of the great Test innings. 136 off 92 balls makes it the second fastest century by an England batter in this form of the game and, though he nicked behind and wasn’t there at the end, he had certainly “broken the back of it” in his words. An extraordinary cricketer.
England complete a win that will live long in the memory
At the end of it, England have won a series for the first time in 18 months and go to Headingley for the last match full of confidence. For all the positives, Zak Crawley contributed only 4 runs in the game and Jack Leach sent down some very uninspiring spells of slow left arm bowling. So, will they be tempted into a change for Leeds? Here is who I would pick:
Alex Lees
Rory Burns/Ben Compton
Ollie Pope
Joe Root
Jonny Bairstow
Ben Stokes (c)
Ben Foakes (wk)
Stuart Broad
Matty Potts
James Anderson
Matt Parkinson
I maintain that there is still a Test match opener in Rory Burns, who scored a timely century for Surrey this week. Ben Compton is still in excellent form for Kent so should also be in with a shout. I expect them to stick with Crawley, mind. They might decide to rest one or both of Anderson and Broad, the veterans having played two in a row. Jamie Overton has been called into the squad. Matty Potts deserves another go. I completely understood the decision to stick with Jack Leach, who never got the chance to make an impact at Lord’s as he left with concussion after about an hour, but it just doesn’t seem like he’ll ever worry a batter. Parkinson should play in his place.
Just over a year ago, New Zealand sportingly set England 273 to win from about 75 overs at Lord’s. There were no World Test Championship points on the line in that series, so not much to lose. They didn’t go for it, and trundled to 170 for 3 and a draw. It’s incredible how much things have changed. 299 in 72 overs is a stiff ask, and at 93 for 4 even I would have been inclined to shut up shop and take the draw, but this England side are afraid of nothing. That last day needs to be seen to be believed, so I’ve put the highlights video below.
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:
Alex Lees
Zak Crawley
Dawid Malan/Ben Compton
Joe Root
Harry Brook
Ben Stokes (c)
Ben Foakes (wk)
Matty Potts
Stuart Broad
James Anderson
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:
I love music. I love all kinds of music. It doesn’t have to be a certain genre or style, it just has to make me feel something.
One of my favourite bands is Blossoms, who I was delighted to discover when they were heavily promoted by Radio X (formerly XFM) in 2016. The five piece from Stockport have a knack for catchy riffs and singalong tunes, with every song written by frontman Tom Ogden. Their self-titled debut album reached number one, as did their third effort Foolish Loving Spaces in 2020. On 29th April 2022, the band released their latest: Ribbon Around The Bomb. Here’s my review.
Blossoms. Left to right: guitarist Josh Dewhurst, drummer Joe Donovan, frontman Tom Ogden, bass player Charlie Salt and keyboard player Myles Kellock.
It was soon after 6am on Friday and I was hauling myself into my car for the half an hour drive to work, contemplating the day ahead. It had been a hell of a week. The new Blossoms album had been released at midnight, though, and I was looking forward to having the time to give it a good listen on my journey.
The best thing about music is its ability to take you out of yourself. No matter what you’ve got going on, a song can change your mood in an instant. The very best songs transport you to somewhere else entirely. One of my heroes, Alex Turner from the Arctic Monkeys, sums it up:
“Some of my favourite records, to me, feel like places that you can sort of go to and move in to for a bit.”
Within a few seconds of hearing the strings of short instrumental opener The Writer’s Theme, I had a smile on my face. When it beautifully segued into Ode To NYC – a love letter to the Big Apple and one of four singles released ahead of the full album – I had the feeling that the world isn’t such a bad place after all. The rest of my car journey was serene, totally enraptured by the tunes coming from the radio.
Ribbon Around The Bomb, the title track and my favourite of the four singles, is followed by The Sulking Poet, a highlight of the album and a song inspired by a Blossoms fan account on Instagram that referred to frontman and principle songwriter Tom Ogden as such due to him often appearing to have a ‘face like a slapped arse’ in interviews.
Next is Born Wild, which for me brings back memories of the band’s previous chart topping album Foolish Loving Spaces. Then it’s The Writer, which carries a more than passing resemblance to the Oasis track Half The World Away.
Blossoms show how they have matured on their new album
Everything About You keeps up the album’s theme of marrying intriguing, inward-looking lyrics with cheerful melodies. Care For is a disco-inspired joy, with Ogden waxing lyrical about his new wife. Cinerama Holy Days has perhaps the album’s most repeatable chorus, while Edith Machinist has those wonderful strings adding the cherry on top of the cake.
At 7 minutes, Visions is one of the longest songs Blossoms have ever made and contains its most talked about lyric:
Was I complete at 23?
Visions by Blossoms
Then, with another instrumental lasting less than minute, the appropriately titled The Last Chapter brings us home.
This is an album that I think will prove as pivotal to the longevity of Blossoms as Humbug was to Arctic Monkeys. An evolution, rather than a revolution. The sound of a band maturing and learning with every new track. Work on a fifth record is apparently already underway and I for one can’t wait to hear more. Ribbon Around The Bomb is an album they should be very proud of.
Listen to Ribbon Around The Bomb by Blossoms on all usual musical streaming services, including Apple Music. You can buy the album from their official storehere.
LEE PAYNE 