County Champions: The Story of my Eagles

Champagne flows as the Champions celebrate their unbeaten title triumph

Sunday September 8^th 2002, the day my love-hate relationship with Essex County Cricket club was born, and a microcosm of everything that has followed to this day, and this week. The week my County, became 2017s Champion County.

Though this season’s success has primarily been with red ball and in white clothing, it all started with the white ball and a team bedecked in a yellow, blue and red horror-show.

The 45-over Norwich Union Sunday League Division Two of that particular year is unlikely to be recalled to readily, but that was what changed me from someone with a vague interest in the sport to a cricket tragic.

Having restricted Surrey to 162 all out, which was slightly inflated by top scorer Saqlain Mushtaq’s unlikely 28, the game was in Essex’s hands and it looked like my first game would be a comfortable home win.

It still looked like a cakewalk at 137/4 with captain Ronnie Irani and future coach Paul Grayson settled at the crease.

It STILL looked like a stroll when at 155/6, only eight more runs were needed to chalk up a victory that would’ve gone a long way to sealing promotion.

Unfortunately, all Hell, or should I say Helli-oake, broke loose, heads were lost, as were wickets, and with it the game. Surrey captain Adam Hollioake took 3/11 from 3.2 overs to skittle the tail and leave my Eagles two short.

Despite still struggling to grasp how they lost that game to this day, they had become my Eagles. In producing that collapse they somehow set the tone for the hope, followed by frustration and calamity, that the next decade and a half of supporting them has been.

There have been highs along the way, most notably the 2008 Friends Provident Trophy win, where I found myself sat behind David Masters’ uncle at Lords and had to be very careful how critical I was of his bowling. But the theme of ‘nearly but not quite’ has never been far from the best summation of an Essex match or season.

One of Essex’s party pieces over the last 15 years has been to finish third in Division Two of the Championship, either by only mounting a promotion challenge once the top two had pulled away, or by starting promisingly and fading.

Tendo with the Trophy - Essex upgraded from the Division 2 title won in 2016

One such third place came in 2013, and the strong finish that year couldn’t make up for the points and pride lost in the June of that season at home to Lancashire.

Starting the second innings at Chelmsford 125 runs adrift of their visitors, Essex contrived to last just 14.3 overs second time around, getting bowled out for 20. Listening to that on the radio was like having a particularly graphic car crash described in minute and painstaking detail.

That third place was repeated in 2014 and 2015 before Essex defied the odds, and all common sense, to finally seal promotion in 2016, the year that only one team was to go up, by cruising to the Division Two title.

In white ball cricket the hope and promise has been even more emphatically followed by abject disappointment. Since the 2008 trophy win, Essex have won a truly wretched two of 14 knockout matches across the T20 and 50/40 over competitions.

Often cruising through the group stages, or at least putting an excellent run together to progress, the Eagles have been just as unsuccessful at home as away or on neutral ground when the fixture becomes winner takes all.

Even this year, one that will be remembered for all the right reasons, also included the customary knockout heartbreak. Having topped the group and received a bye through the quarterfinal stage, Alastair Cook and captain Ryan Ten Doeschate both hit centuries as Essex posted 370/5 in the semi against Notts.

Unfortunately Samit Patel and Steven Mullaney spoiled my premature thoughts of where to sit at Lords, making the huge chase look relatively comfortable for the eventual champions.

The unfinished business of one-day cricket aside, some wrongs have been righted, some promise has been fulfilled, and the club that has caused me as much stress and agony as pleasure, have achieved the thing that felt furthest from their grasp through most of my time as a fan and member.

Not only did they have to put a season of consistent cricket together to achieve this, but they did it twice on the trot from the bottom tier.

Division one leading wicket taker - 75-wicket Jamie Porter

As I sat on the pavilion benches watching Cook and Nick Browne compile a record breaking opening stand of 373 in the first round of floodlit Championship games, I kept looking up at the scoreboard and laughing.

Suddenly the team I’d watched make cricket look tough for more than half of my life were making it look remarkably easy, and I’m still not quite sure what to make of it.

Essex County Cricket Club; Where 2016 didn't feel cursed

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Chelmsford, April the 10^th 2016, an 11am start. Essex without a front line spinner at the ground most recently famed for green pitches and Jesse Ryder-inspired collapses. For the first time away captain’s were given the option to bowl first without contesting the toss, surely Gareth Roderick would bowl first..? Nope.

The toss was contested; Gloucestershire won it and took first use. Despite the lack of an Essex twirler, we were about to find out just how much the new toss rule was going to shape the Division Two title challenge of Ryan Ten Doeschate’s nearly men.

262 all out, and the early wicket of Nick Browne before the close, looked to represent a reasonable effort on the first day at the ECG, where first innings runs have been at a premium for some time. However the England captain, and the man Essex members are adamant should be playing alongside him with the Three Lions on his chest, Tom Westley, had other ideas. A century apiece and a lead of more than a hundred, maybe the ECB directives have reached CM2, I wondered aloud…

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Before lunch on the final day the West Countrymen were heading back to Bristol on the wrong end of a 10-wicket defeat with Essex only one short of a maximum-points win, and the tone was set.

So adept at finishing third when the top two were being promoted, something changed in 2016, however loudly the Essex members could be heard predicting a tunnel at the end of the light.

There was of course still time in a 16-game season to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, providing Gloucestershire with their revenge in Cheltenham in July, but with only one team going up, Essex were far too good for their division two rivals.

Whether it was the end of Paul Grayson’s frequently promising, but then ultimately frustrating, tenure that had overseen eight trophy-less seasons since the day Grant Flower led them to Friends Provident Trophy success on the day that Usain Bolt announced himself to the World in 2008, or the new toss rule, something changed Essex’s approach. With the change in approach came a dramatic change of fortune.

For years the East-Coast County decided the way forward was low scoring games on devilish pitches to encourage David Masters and Ryder to put the ball on a length where the surface did the rest. This led to hugely important tosses and batting bonus points being as sporadic as an Alastair Cook six.

After the 385 posted against Gloucestershire, Essex added 441/8, 537/7, 268, 569, 358, 601/5 and 319 in the first innings’ of their remaining home games, belying their reputation for flaky batting displays and creating seamer-friendly surfaces.

Westley, Ten Doeschate and Browne all passed 1000 runs and Cook averaged nearly 92 in the seven games he played, and the bowling attack still thrived despite having the work harder for their wickets.

Graham Napier signed off his one-club county career with a personal best 63-wicket haul, with Jamie Porter taking 55 and David Masters adding 40 as the curtain came down on his career too.

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Spin only accounted for 13 opposition wickets, so it could be argued that Essex’s new approach still ignored the directive of encouraging the production of international-class spin bowling, but having been so unorthodox in finding ways to not get promoted or challenge for one-day glory, it would’ve been very un-Essex to achieve success in the way expected.

Anybody wondering if this was a new leaf being turned over will continue to wonder though as two quarterfinal exists in the one-day competitions meant an extension of what has become a dreadful record in knockout matches, both home and away.

That continued state of wonder, along with the sprinkling of success, some interesting overseas acquisitions in the shape of Neil Wagner and Mohammed Amir, and the prospect of more things to moan and cheer about make 2017 look like an unmissable year at Fortress Chelmsford.

The half-yard, football’s most fabled of distances

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Sergio Aguero making himself half a yard for a shot

Like many other facets of British culture, football in this country belongs to a pre-metric era. Alcohol consumed pre-match is measured in pints and speculative efforts on the pitch are measured in yards. Even once you get your head around the pitch being split into yardages rather than metres, there are 0.9144 of the latter in the former, there is the uniquely football term, the half-yard to contend with. 

It should be no surprise that a sport in which the 6-yard line and the 18-yard box figure prominently needs a smaller yard-based way to distinguish things that occur. Unlike Fight Club, the main rule when discussing the half-yard would appear to be always talk about the half-yard, however spurious the reference. 

The highest space-based compliment one can pay a striker is to say they only need half a yard of space. Whether they are known for creating that half-yard by shifting the ball or finding it with some clever movement is really not important, it’s simply that giving them said half a yard is almost certainly disastrous for your goals against tally.

At the other end of the scale, one of the most common criticisms of struggling teams or individuals is that they look half a yard off the pace. This can frankly mean anything from their opponents beating them to second balls or that their closing down has been dreadful or that simply they’ve been a bit rubbish and are either losing, or ought to be.

The offside rule, and the dubious attempts of officials at enforcing it, are often the most controversial incidents in football matches, and the half-yard is key to analysing them. Strikers can go too early and end up half a yard offside or just lose concentration at which point they tend to drift half a yard beyond the last defender.

So deeply has the half-yard platitude become ingrained within football culture, when Niall Quinn spotted a player drift offside, he was so determined to suggest it might be an issue of half-yards, that he declared the player should’ve looked across the line and stayed a half-yard onside. 

Quinn can probably be forgiven for that mistake, you only need to be level rather than behind the last defender, because of the way half-yards are measured in football. Namely that they aren’t.

Any shots that fly just wide are half a yard away from glory, players whose legs have aged lose half a yard of pace and cheeky fullbacks tend to sneak half a yard up the touchline when taking throw-ins. 

For the avoidance of any doubt, if you find yourself chatting away about a football match and have nothing else to say, if you spot someone doing virtually anything, comment about the half-yard implications and you’ll fit right in.

Alastair Cook on opinions and opinions on Alastair Cook

When, earlier this month, England captain Alastair Cook said: “Opinions are like arseholes, everyone’s got one.” I smiled at the slightly out of character response, but certainly didn’t expect to be quoting him in the near future.

It’s not my favourite turn of phrase, but seems particularly appropriate considering his use of it and the response to his refusal to enforce the follow-on at Old Trafford yesterday.

As England motored through the Pakistan batting lineup it became clear that they wouldn’t reach the target of 390 runs that would force England to bat again. Fairly early on there were whispers from pundits and the like suggesting he might not enforce it to give his bowlers a break, but there seemed to be a consensus that having rattled through the Pakstanis for only 198, they’d be fine to go again.

In the social media age everybody does have an opinion, and they speak with great authority on a range of subjects that they feel they are far more in-tune with than experts, and those employed to actually carry out decisions. I’m sure it only feels like society is getting more arrogant, because of how readily these views can be shared, but it grows tiresome.

Regularly I will hear or read people saying how stupid decision X or Y was and handing out a barrage of criticism for the person who made it, even though nobody knows for sure how it would’ve turned out if another option was taken, and crucially, that the decision was almost certainly made in good faith at the time.

Furthermore, even if the other decision had been taken, if that had gone somewhat awry, somebody else, or the same people would have criticised that too. In essence, you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t, and you’re damn-well damned if you take too long to make a decision at all.

The perfect example of this is Alastair Cook’s decision to bat again with half the Test Match left and a 391-run lead to build on. It has been variously mocked, described as dull or defensive and most ludicrously, described as one of the most glaring instances of cowardice in cricketing history. Brilliant.

While the knives were being sharpened, a bearded member at Essex, Alastair Cook’s county, was enjoying a day at the ECG moaning about everything from the campaigning in the lead up to the EU Referendum to Ravi Bopara’s bowling changes. Despite not bothering to look at the score from the Test, bearded-gent confidently proclaimed that there would be an argument for not enforcing the follow-on, but that Cook wouldn’t have the imagination to do that.

Without even considering the physiological and pyschological elements on the decision Cook made, quite incredibly, though sadly not uniquely, the England captain has been criticised for not enforcing and for enforcing a follow-on that he chose not to enforce. All of this gives a pretty strong indictment of where we’re at as a society and the attitudes towards people in a position of any sort of authority.

…and while I think of it; the result of the Test? - England won by 330 runs with more than a day to spare. I’m starting to think Alastair Cook used the right word to describe people and their opinions.

#CricketWorldCupdates: England out, but there are bigger lessons to learn

Winning the toss was just about the highlight of Eoin Morgan's day. 

Statistically speaking, he chose wrong though...

Moments ago, England crashed out of the 2015 Cricket World Cup. It has been a long time coming, but with the format as it is, until this morning they still looked set to make the quarterfinals. But they didn’t.

A hugely frustrating run chase that saw a steady start, a stuttering middle, a Jos Buttler-inspired rally and a tame end saw the Three Lions come up 15 runs short of Bangladesh's 275-7. This leaves them on two points after only one win in their first five games, unable to make the top four.

Rather than carry out the same post-mortem as everyone else, lambasting and lamenting the effort of the 15 professionals sent Down Under to do a job, I’ll simply say what England’s World Cup efforts have taught me.

This is the first global tournament to feature the key rule changes to ODI cricket that have seen different balls used at each end and a reduction in fielders allowed outside the circle. The experiment hasn't worked, and English trials and tribulations have only served to emphasise the point.

When the new playing conditions were introduced it was with the aim of making the game more exciting, compared to its little brother, T20. More runs were to be scored, with the aim of keeping the interest of fans for 100 overs of cricket.

After a while my observation was that it didn’t necessarily mean it would be easier to score every time. I thought the new rules served to emphasise and exaggerate the other factors on display. If it’s a good batting pitch, even more runs will come. But if conditions are favouring bowlers and the fielding side is on top, forcing the captain to bring an extra fielder up can make scoring even harder in the middle overs too.

During this World Cup, and particularly in England matches, I have seen more areas where match factors are exaggerated. Simply put, the conditions make the better side even better. Weaker bowlers are given a smaller margin for error and stronger batsmen are given more room and opportunity to score their runs, which inevitably makes the gap between sides even bigger.

Two examples of this are the way England’s bowlers have gone to all parts in the latter overs of the innings, and the results of the Irish team. Most teams have struggled to contain batsmen in these overs, but the England attack, lacking a clear plan or any semblance of confidence, has suffered more than most.

Ireland have beaten West Indies, UAE and Zimbabwe in this tournament and been one of the bright sparks of the whole event, but when they faced South Africa they didn’t have a prayer. I’m sure that a side full of confidence and with some very useful cricketers would have given the South African’s a much better game had they not been faced with the current fielding regulations that saw the last 15 overs they bowled disappear for 200 runs.

The other thing that the new rules has exaggerated and intensified is the importance and affect of runs on the board. In good batting conditions 300 is no longer enough but even if 350 is a ‘par score’, chasing it is some challenge. There have been 18 scores of 300 or more in the first innings showing the opportunity to go big is there, but only two of these have been chased successfully.

More tellingly though none of the scores over 310, let alone the scores upwards of 350 or 400, have been successfully chased. The opportunity to score 100 or more in the last ten overs is undoubtedly there, but doing that to set a score has proven immeasurably easier than doing it because you need to when chasing one down.

It’s not the battle between bat and ball that has reached an untenable level, but the battle between batting first and second. The experiment hasn’t worked.

The monotony of modern football

'I'm more than capable of looking after myself, don't worry about that...'

The first rule of football club is don’t say anything original about football club. Sam Allardyce’s ‘thump it forward and see’ description of Manchester United’s approach towards the end of Sunday’s game only serves to prove a theory I’ve been working on for some time; football has run out of ideas.

As pundits continue to trot out recycled thoughtless descriptions of what has gone before and what might follow and @footballcliches thrives on Twitter, I’m left believing that managers are destined to repeat accusations once thrown at them, as a cycle of nothingness continues to go nowhere.

Allardyce v Van Gaal: Long ball team…

Putting aside the negative connotations of long-ball football, the suggestion that this was United’s best chance of scoring a goal at the weekend was, from Allardyce, undeniably the pot calling the kettle black.

Recently United have gone noticeably direct in an attempt to utilise Marouane Fellaini’s attributes and avoid previous criticisms linked to ponderous build-up play, but let’s be honest, Allardyce was just frustrated about conceding a late goal.

Anything else would be hypocrisy, as during his tenure at West Ham he has repeatedly come under fire from his own fans for a style of play far removed from the passing game believed to be the ‘West Ham way’.

We're not keen on long-ball football either Sam...

Less than a year ago ‘Fat Sam out, killing WHU’ was displayed on a large banner as Allardyce watched his side lose to West Brom, and this followed a long period where results were poor, and the style of play was regularly criticised. Despite this harrowing experience, something he also dealt with in his ill-fated period as Newcastle boss too, Big Sam was happy to make the same accusation this weekend.

Allardyce v Mourinho: Parking the bus..?

Just over a year ago, as Allardyce was fighting against poor form and the abuse from sections of his own fans, West Ham won a hard fought point at Stamford Bridge against Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea.

‘It's very difficult to play a football match where only one team wants to play,’ declared Mourinho, as he described the West Ham playing style as being from the nineteenth century.

This particular assertion, that West Ham had wronged Chelsea by not attempting to take them on blow for blow is not a new one to Mourinho, as he has put teams out to (often successfully) stifle and suffocate all creativity from a game. Not more hypocrisy, surely?

His comments received a variety of responses, including a description of Victorian-era football, and reasonable suggestions that he has been equally guilty of this type of tactic.

Jose is disgusted by defensive football...

The best response though, comes from Mourinho’s own archive of witticisms. Following a 1-0 defeat at the Nou Camp that saw his Inter Milan side reach the Champions League final on aggregate, Mourinho triumphantly rejected allegations that his side had parked the bus.

‘People say we park[ed] the bus,’ he said. ‘That is not true, we park[ed] the plane!’

Van Gaal v Koeman: You came for one point…

The most blatant example of repetition involves colleagues turned nemeses, Louis Van Gaal and Ronald Koeman. When Koeman took his Southampton team to Old Trafford, and beat United 1-0, Van Gaal was exasperated by the result.

‘They came for a draw and they got away with a victory,’ he said, barely making sense.

Three weeks later, Koeman’s team were the hosts, and Swansea City were the visitors. After more than an hour of near-domination by the home side, Jonjo Shelvey scored the winner for the Welsh side, and it was Koeman left lamenting a smash and grab defeat at home.

As if reading off a script prepared for all managers faced with explaining a 1-0 home defeat, the Dutchman said: ‘I think the luckiest team won today. They came for one point and theygot three points.’

Maybe the bizarre touchline incident involving Nigel Pearson and James McArthur on Saturday was the Leicester manager's attempt to break the monotony and repetition of modern football, and we should be grateful if that is the case. Strangely, his comment after the incident that he is ‘more than capable of looking after himself’ was rhetoric more akin to Fight Club than a football club. Fortunately, the Leicester manager didn’t breach the first rule of this club any further by explaining or justifying his behaviour, a shrewd move indeed…