I can’t ride a bike.

Not in the technical sense of can’t, more so the physical act of.

My last knee operation left me with a leg that I can’t bend beyond 110 degrees, if you view a straight leg as being 180. To ride a bike, to push the pedals round, you really have to be able to bend your knee past 90 degrees.

So why then, am I writing a post about professional road racing as a joyous, audience participation sport? Why, for the backdrop; naturally.

I’m not the first to highlight the joys you can have from adapting the route of a road race, and putting it in to a more social context. The wine writer, Juel Mahoney, produced an excellent reference point for the Giro d’Italia last year – where she mapped out the route in terms of regional wines. I spent a good number of evenings last spring, watching highlights of the race, as it rolled through the Italian countryside, armed with one of Juel’s many recommendations.

This isn’t a drinking game – this is a relaxed, social way of trying out new wines – whilst watching some of the finest athletes, the drug free ones at least, rolling through the Italian countryside – before the peloton shatters during the final sprint. It’s also a bonus that with the race being in Italy, there are a number of city based finishes – on streets I know, have walked on; have even drunk a glass of wine on.

This year’s Giro d’Italia takes in Verona, Modena, finishes in Milan – and even visits Montecatini Terme – the main town near where Amy and I got married.

But that’s not till May.

Last week the Strade Bianchi finished in the main piazza in Siena – somewhere I’ve stood, sheltering from the rain – marvelling at the Palazzo, whilst trying to work out which bar offered the most protection.

This week the Tirreno Adriatico takes place. It is a race that goes from one coast; one side of the country; one sea to the other, over the course of seven days. Today’s stage runs from San Vincenzo on the east coast to Indicatore, just outside Arezzo in Tuscany. The route takes in two Tuscan wine regions – firstly Venrnaccia di San Gimignano and then Chianti Classico. I rarely drink Chianti. Amy doesn’t like it. But we do like the white wine of Vernaccia di San Gimignano you can pick up in Waitrose.

So that’s tonight’s viewing and drinking sorted then. Today’s highlights on Eurosport, Vino Bianco in glass, as I hope to toast the good fortune of Mark Cavendish – as he bursts across the finishing line in first place.

Cin Cin!

Rondolino Vernaccia di San Gimignano 2009, Tuscany, Italy

Image: Official route map from La Gazzetta dello Sport

Bit of a departure from the usual stuff on here.

Was given free rein to write a Nostradamus influenced preview for the forthcoming Spurs season. The repetition and length also lends itself to the Epic poetry of Homer etc.. Though that makes it sound fairly highbrow – when all it really is, is a chance to let my overly active imagination run riot – whilst taking the proverbial out of Spurs players along the way.

Big thanks to Spooky at Dear Mr Levy for letting me bring the quality of his site down somewhat.

The Tottenham Prophecy – Part One

The Tottenham Prophecy – Part Two

The Tottenham Prophecy – Part Three

I’m stood on a railway platform in Hexham, Northumberland. It’s 8.30am and I’m waiting for a train to take me to Newcastle.

It is the start of a journey that will eventually take me to Bury, Lancashire; passing by the outskirts of Leeds. The city where I live – the city I left yesterday to travel up here.

As I stand there, my mind starts to flood with questions I already know the answer to. Why am I really making a journey others would have happily backed out of? Why am I leaving my family behind when I could be spending a day relaxing with them? What must Amy’s friends think of me for travelling all the way up here, only to disappear the very next day?

The answer is always – because I love it. Not the travelling or the fact that I often miss out on days with family and friends. No. The love is for that simple game that seems to take up so much of my time; exhausts so much of my frustrations, yet ultimately gives me such great pleasure – Lawn Bowls.

Playing sport at an amateur level is both a time consuming and costly exercise. It puts pressures on relationships – both loved ones and friends. It can appear, to the outside observer, to offer more frustration than pleasure; yet we never really question why we continue to take part.

The pre-game rituals are always the same. I skirt around the issue of me being picked to play in a game that means taking the car, and restricting any chance we, as a family, have of doing something together. I puff out my chest and blurt out my desire to play, and what it means in the context of my season.

It’s been harder this year as, with my first season of nominating for my latest adopted county (Yorkshire), I am doing everything to make myself available for selection. This has meant that I have been picked for both the ‘A’ and ‘B’ teams. Playing (or acting as reserve) every Saturday since the end of May. As Amy so mockingly points out – if I wasn’t so average, if I was good enough to guarantee a game for the ‘A’ team – I wouldn’t have played so many game this year; puffed out my chest so many times – planned so many speeches in my head.

The stations rattle by between Newcastle and York. I yawn. I scratch. I overly consider what mood I will be in on the return leg should we lose – I am such a negative bastard.

I get to York. Get picked up, and we three bowlers head over to play “arch rivals” Lancashire. It’s been awhile since Lancashire would have been anyone’s true rivals. I say this speaking as one who once played for them – always fighting the wooden spoon as we set off on another league campaign that few thought we would do well in. The county have got better since I left (arf). New bowlers have given them a shot in the arm, so much so that the county has qualified for the national finals – even if Yorkshire did turn them over on their patch; with me sat, patiently on the sidelines.

I’m asked for directions to the ground. I point towards the only way I know, even though my fellow co-pilot claims there is a quicker way. Who would have believed that a man would have gone the wrong way, three times a week for best part of three summers? Most women I know.

We arrive at the ground in time for the buffet. Buffet is such a romantic word. It should bring to mind images of rivers, punting students and sun-baked days. What it really means is pig; numerous ways. This is actually a good offering of pig – sliced ham, sausage rolls, pork pies, scotch eggs, mini sausages. I try to show a modicum of restraint – desperate to keep trim ahead of the big weigh-in (there is no big weigh-in).

I look past my pig and see nothing but grey clouds. It started to rain shortly before we went past Leeds. Rain was still in the air when we got here. It was still raining when we walked on to the green. Lawn Bowls is supposedly a summer sport. That’s why we carry around waterproof clothing that wouldn’t look out of place on a Discovery Channel Crab Fishing series.

Speeches concluded; the game eventually gets underway.

I won’t bore you with the details– suffice to say we lost a game we could, quite possibly should have won. I take nothing away from our opposition, yet only one of our four can honestly say they had a good game and still we lost by just two shots.

I’m lucky to have decent travelling companions. They stop me from descending in to a black hole when we lose. They are buoyant from winning their rink. We should all have been buoyant as the county won – yet still I internalise my disappointment of our rink losing. Evaluating what went wrong, where I went wrong. I only ever really let a game go at the start of the next game. Though as part of an agreement that I can play as much as I do, I have had to learn to at least – as Amy so delightfully puts it – fake it till I make it.

My smile belies how I truly feel.

We break all land speed records in getting back to York. We get to the station ahead of time and I start the second leg of my return trip to Hexham.

I’m back now with just my thoughts – that is if I could hear them over the sound of the film blasting out of the laptop behind me. Thanks to twitter I am easily distracted from the planned post-mortem. I tweet the result. I opt not to explain what that means to me.

I refuel at Newcastle. The diet of a bowls player is not what you might call, balanced. I tend to play most of my games between 6-9pm at night. I grab what I can, often having to buy food I can eat one handed – the other grasping a steering wheel, piece of chalk or bowl depending on how hungry I am. Pig is on the menu once more, this time in the form of a bacon double cheese burger. I regret buying it as soon as the first streak of fat explodes in my mouth. I still eat it. Regret never satisfies my hunger quite like a burger.

I try to contact Amy to inform her of my imminent arrival but I can’t get through due to the poor reception at her end. I’ve been on the road (rails and green) for 12 hours now, and I’m still unsure what time I will definitely get back. The train to Hexham leaves on time. I’m no more than 50 minutes from a cold beer and the bosom of my family.

Or so I thought. There are no taxis at Hexham station. The man on the end of the phone doesn’t understand where I am trying to go – I do not understand what he is trying to ask me. I could be in another world for all the confusion that emanates from our conversation. He eventually tells me (I think) that he doesn’t have a cab. I begrudgingly head for a taxi rank in town.

The driver pulls up outside my destination some 13 hours after I left this morning. I know on the other side of that door my family, our friends, a beer and their tales of the day await. I ready myself in preparation for conversations about a game I’d much rather forget – but I know that if I go in, bemoaning about the game, the travel; anything – I’m giving Amy ammunition to moan when I next ask to play. She never uses it. She knows how much this all means to me – how much I love it.

And I do love it. Even if I’ve spent £70 travelling, 13 hours out of the house getting wet, frustrated and loaded up with pig. I’ve missed seeing friends and Amy’s family – I’ve even missed putting my little girl to sleep – all for what? A two shot loss on a tricky green against old friends I’d have loved to have got one over on?

But then I know I’ll be back here again next Saturday.

For all pre-game rituals, the time away from the family, the miles on road and rail – I can honestly say that part of me has loved every minute of those games I’ve played this season. I may not have played well – we may have lost games we should have won – I might even have returned home with a slight air of disappointment cloaking my mood, yet for all that; it was definitely worth it.

It is always worth playing for the love of it.

I was once told that through sport, I lived a double life.

I disagreed. My view was that what I did was no different to how others involved in amateur sport lived their lives. I had a decent job, a part-time hobby and a dedication to the sport I played.

But then if I introduced myself to anyone new. Told them what I did. How I made my living; where I would be on a Friday night – what I would then be doing on a Saturday morning – a lack of understanding would permeate through the rest of our conversation. They simply refused to believe me.

The job meant working at different European sites. The hobby was as an events reviewer for DJ Magazine. The sport – Lawn Bowls. See, the first two aspects were fine – it was when I tried to present the case for the third – the most important aspect of the three that all belief exited the conversation – and doubt; near mocking was all we had left. It was as though the two components of my life simply could not exist together.

There are a host of truths that bowlers often claim as myth, which I have always been more than happy to cover in those introductions. The primary truth thrown at us is that the game is played only by old people – who only have bowls and Werther’s Originals to occupy their days. The next claim is that the game is boring to watch. That nothing happens and that it can’t really be a sport if all you are doing is rolling a ball along the ground. The final view is that it looks old fashioned – that no sport should ever expect you to wear grey trousers or a tie.

The problem those of us actively involved in the game have is that we can try our hardest to dismiss those points as misguided – yet deep down we accept that there is more than a hint of truth to them.

More people over 50 will play the game than those under 50. I played in a team of 16 last night, with only one bowler younger than me – with the majority of the remaining 14 close on 25 years older than me. They may well be past their “sell by date” in terms of career development or other sports, but it doesn’t mean that they no longer have that sporting fire in their bellies – no longer enjoy a competitive environment; boiled sweets optional.

The game is often boring to watch. It’s not an action sport (though is rolling different to throwing?). Things only tend to get really exciting when the noise levels rise, or when a player has run out of ideas, and all that is left for them to do is send a bowl up as fast as they can in the desperate hope that something might happen. It is therefore left to the players to make the game exciting. They will run down the green after bowls – shout their team mate’s efforts closer to the jack – often high fiving, just like cricketers do, when the end result goes in their favour.

The hardest one to counter is always going to be the old-fashioned look of the game. I am honoured to have been selected to play for Yorkshire this coming Saturday. Yet there’s no getting away from the fact that with my selection, comes instructions on how I must present myself – blazer, white shirt, county tie and grey trousers upon arrival. Then white county shirt, white trousers and white shoes during the game – from school boy to cabin boy in one quick change around.

Now like many I work in an environment where a dress code is more of an informal agreement. I wear a shirt and trousers with the coloured shoe of choice. I don’t have to wear a suit jacket. I don’t have to wear a tie. It’s not that they are optional, just not expected. When we try to sell the game to friends who have a similar working dress code, and a steadfast dislike of formal attire born from school uniforms, it’s near impossible to get beyond this point.

But get beyond it we must – for bowls is in trouble and we need your help.

Some of you may have seen the sporting news feature on bowls on BBC Breakfast last weekend with Natalie Melmore (pictured above), a 21 year old, female Commonwealth Games gold medal holder encouraging youngsters to take up the game.

I can’t remember what reason I give for taking up the game these days: That my dad joined a club at the end of his garden (which is true). That my knee went at 16 and four operations later, it is the only sport I can play (I carried on playing cricket till I was in my late 20s so not strictly true). That I had access to a sly pint away from home under 18, and access to cheap booze at my home club past 18 (true, but I now play for a club with no bar).

Whatever the real reason, one thing is for sure is that once I did take bowls up, at no point did I think this game is not for me. More so, there were times when it completely dominated my life. I would be sat in meetings in Paris, clock watching until I could get a plane back to play in a game of fours. Or sat in an after party in Bristol at six in the morning, politely having to hurry through an interview with a couple of really engaging DJs for fear I’d miss the train back to London to play in a club game.

And I’m not alone in that respect. As with any sport, if you have pretence of actually being any good at bowls – you have to accept that it will, for a short period each year, completely take over your life. With so many competitions – all thoughts of a social life, family life; normal life – are often put on hold. When I first met Amy I would regularly enter every competition going. Since moving up north, getting married and Lauren’s arrival – I have grown to appreciate that I can’t bowl half as much as I used to, though I do stretch the boundaries of what is acceptable with comments like: “well, if we lose tonight we won’t have to play this competition again” – knowing full well that I am going to go out there and do everything I can to win.

Like the image presented by the BBC, I believe that bowls is a sport for all. If the third round of the FA Cup gives the media the opportunity to roll out the hackneyed “everyday man” feature, then bowls has its FA Cup style team stories with every game we play. I may have stuck out like a sore thumb working as a nightclub reviewer, but there are postmen, bankers, MPs, IT experts, civil servants and company directors in our midst. Admittedly a number of clubs have their history ingrained in a blue collar, political or military backgrounds, but there’s every chance you will be sharing a car to a game with a captain of industry as you will a student. The game will accommodate you, in many forms, no matter what sector of society you come from.

The other beauty of the game is that it is accessible for those with a differing range of sporting backgrounds. I’ve played with those at the start of their sporting careers, those coming towards the end – or those who shied away from any kind of physical activity at school. It’s true that a lack of competitiveness will only get you so far but there is always a place for that type of grounded personality within our clubs.

If however, like me you are at the other end of the spectrum – where you have to sit in your car for 10 minutes, alone, with only your dark thoughts – trying to compose yourself after another loss; another competition exit – then failing miserably to appear upbeat when you walk through the door – then come on in.

For if there is one image of bowls that is false – it is the quiet, sedate, near death state that non-bowlers have grown to accept. On Saturday when playing for Yorkshire I will undoubtedly run up the green after a bowl. I will spend most of the game bellowing my thoughts out across the greens for the other 95 bowlers to hear. I will laugh, I will engage in kidology, and with the opponents I know – will spend a fair bit of time in winding each other up. For I know full well that when I play a bad bowl, shout for a team mates bowl to do more – look up to the heavens and ask where it has all gone wrong – there will be someone at the other end of the green ready with a few choice words to cut me down in my tracks.

I no longer live a double life.

I’m of an age (36) – of the fitness levels that a new acquaintance will accept that I play bowls. They will acknowledge that as a father, office worker and now bowls correspondent for the Yorkshire Evening Post – I will need a “hobby” to get me out of the house.

Yet there is a new generation, a younger generation – like Natalie Melmore – that need our support, need us older heads to encourage our friends to come along and try the game. For if every bowler introduced one of their friends to the game, we’d not be in a mess – we won’t be worried about falling participant levels, declining competition standards or clubs closing. We’d be healthy, prosperous and who knows – we might even be taken seriously as a sport.

My challenge today was to write a piece that would be read by those who have no interest in reading about bowls.

My challenge now is to try and convert one of those readers in to a participant – one of my mates in to becoming as passionate about the game as I am.

If you would like to find out more about the game, please do get in touch – or follow the links below to the Bowls England and BBC websites:

Home of Bowls England

BBC feature with Natalie Melmore

Bowls Australia – truly leading the way in convincing the world that bowls is a sport

My column in the Yorkshire Evening Post

A guest post written for the football website, In Bed With Maradona, on the growing complexities within the game – and a modern reliance on data to formulate a view on how players perform.

Football. Previously a simple game

Post on the so called demise of footballing heroes – who shroud themselves in expensive suits; courting favours and votes in exchange for the right to kiss the hem of their cloaks.

In Bed With Maradona – No More Heroes

A guest blog for the Dear Mr Levy website. A site dedicated to the trials and tribulations (with the occasional happy, positive post) down at Tottenham Hotspur FC

Here I am allowed to dream; to slip back in to my childhood and remember a time when Spurs were once a European force. Oh what a night that was….

European Dreams

This piece was written as a response to Iain Macitntosh’s article on In Bed With Maradona. It is intended as a counter-argument to the view that football is fun. For it is my genuine belief that football is fun, there are just far too many current examples of football being as far detached from fun as you can possibly get.

Football is fun. Football. Is. Fun.

See, as three words it is easy to say. But as a viewpoint, is it really so easy to accept; to simply agree to and move on?

I imagine football is fun if you are playing keepie uppie in the corridors of Barcelona’s training complex, whilst waiting to interview one of the top three footballers on the planet. Or when you’re loading up on the branded ice cream tubs in the press lounge, as the paid spectators are bemoaning the poor service at the burger stands (or Falafel stands if you are Forest Green Rovers fan).

Clearly I write that with both a pang of jealousy and a massive tongue wedged firmly inside my cheek. However, to simply proclaiming that the beautiful game is fun because of an excellent interview, in a sea of clichés and lacklustre punditry is somewhat hard to swallow. Especially if you are a fan of one of the clubs making the headlines for all the wrong reasons last week.

Consider the Leyton Orient fans who woke up last weekend, contemplating how many more seasons they might be able to follow their club, now that West Ham have won the bidding process for the Olympic Stadium. Or the Plymouth Argyle fans who took to the streets to protest at the way their club is being managed on a financial level. They’ve survived a recent winding-up petition, yet the players are still to be paid their January wages; and there appears to be no immediate end to the club’s financial woes. Does that sound like fun to you?

The Xavi interview was a great insight in to a player who appears to be able to pass judgement on the state of the game, as well as he can a football. It was positive, complimentary and educational – yet, it was the views of one of the great winners in the game; someone who is the fulcrum of what is hotly debated as being the greatest club side ever. He has every right to find the game fun – but it was still refreshing to see the enthusiasm burst out of the screen as I read Sid Lowe’s piece.

Though, not everyone agrees with talented Spaniard. I caught two minutes of chat on the radio on Saturday afternoon, where the anchor suggested that Stoke fans couldn’t care less about the passing ability of their players, or their style of play just as long as they won. Only with three points comes happiness? Do their fans really only find football fun on a rain soaked, midweek night, whilst watching players not quite up to Ballon d’Or standard?

Is it really as bad as I make out? Is there really no fun to be had in the game?

Of course not, but I guess I was still quite lucky on Saturday. I watched a Manchester derby that included a “rare”, attacking City side and the sort of goal from Wayne Rooney that highlight clips were invented for.

I watched Barcelona stumble to a draw against a tenacious Sporting Gijon that was uncharacteristically full of belief for a side playing the champions. I love watching Xavi, Messi and Iniesta play the game, but rarely do I feel that I’ve got any pleasure from the contest. In the same way that I don’t like to see a boxer’s career finished, simply because a referee failed to step in and bring a halt to a one sided fight; neither do I want to watch Messi merely adding to his goal scoring tally in an 8-0 victory. No matter how great those goals were.

I even left my cynicism at the door as I paid my fiver to watch a match in the ninth level of the football league structure. That turned out to be a one-sided affair, with as many goals for Farsley A.F.C against Hallam FC as pounds paid on the door, but I wasn’t there for the result, more so to see if there was any fun to be had?

There was a freedom to the afternoon that I’ve not experienced in years. The crowd was so small you could hear every comment in the stand, and on the pitch. There were no overly officious stewards or signs telling me what I couldn’t do. I don’t think I could watch that level of football on a weekly basis, but for an excuse to get out for a pint and a bit of live action, it certainly proved to be an enjoyable, if not an entirely fun day out.

So I did find some fun in the matches I watched, but is that because it is always there – or because I chose to take “the game a little less seriously?”

It did help that I had nothing riding on the outcome of the match I went to see. That I was not being harangued to get involved in the latest protest, or paid through the nose to sit in a cramped stand, marshalled rigorously to ensure that the natives are kept under control. But as a journalist, Iain Macintosh knows that his ask for us to take the game a little less seriously, flies out of the window as soon as his pay masters require him to file copy on the latest title race, managerial sacking or shambolic team performance by the great and good. Once that hits the news stands, or his views are shared via a podcast, it’s hard not to let go of all reason and devote far too much time and energy debating the pitfalls in his argument. Even if he does it with a level headed, often mocking manner.

We do take football far too seriously, but then who am I to tell the fans of Plymouth Argyle or Leyton Orient to “chill out”, take a step back and realise it is not as important as they are making out. Especially when my club has a manager that may end up in court this summer, a chairman who tried to sell the club down the A406; or will be wrapped up in hyperbole turned up to 11 when they play AC Milan tonight. There’s not always a lot of fun to be had supporting that lot – even in our best period for decades.

It would be easy to trot out the famous Bill Shankly quote right about now, but I think that is far too overplayed. What I would say though is that football unites and divides families; it brings us both friends and (internet) enemies – It gives us focus, entertainment and excitement. Football is no longer an escape from the hardships of our lives; it is an easy out from the mundanity of our daily existence.

We take football seriously, because if we didn’t – we’d have no choice other than to take life seriously – and without football, where would we escape to when that starts to go wrong?

The image at the top is of the main stand at Farsley A.F.C.

At what point did my life become nothing more than a collection of labels or tags by which I am instantly recognised by?

I don’t mean the simple police style IC1 Male. More the often, somewhat lazy and disparaging label that identifies me not as an individual, but as part of a wider network of people I barely have anything in common with?

I understand being classified by my job title. It’s what I do for eight hours a day, five days a week. I also understand being referred to by my relationship choices – that of husband, married man or father of one – for I am all three.

What I don’t understand, is when I am classified not by my actions, but more so the actions of others.

My annoyance at such labelling intensified this week with two important announcements – one sport and one drinks related – that saw me cast as a sad, bitter loser who has a somewhat, serious drink problem.

The sport one is simple. With England losing out to Russia in the race to host the 2018 World Cup, the media and swathes of twitter and internet forum users all saw me as being sad, deluded and bitter that England failed to win the bid. I was almost stupid to think we stood a chance of winning. I was wrong to want to host the World Cup in England (give others a chance they typed. We can’t afford it was another regular response). I needed to understand that the world was no longer mapped mainly in the colour pink (an old colonial way of showing what was part of the British Empire) and that England was no longer important. Through one desire I was labelled as being stuck in the past, greedy and more often than not, naïve.

I didn’t for one minute think we would win the bid. When Putin, the bare-chested hero of Russia, stated that he was not planning on turning up to the bid announcement, part of me wanted to sell my shares in Orange Juice and Pork Bellies and go big on a Russian win.

Think, no. Really want us to host, very much so.

In the aftermath of the announcement I tuned in to a radio phone in show where I listened to the presenters, guests and callers and found myself disagreeing with nearly everything those involved had to say. Did we therefore, really have anything in common with each other beyond wanting to see the World Cup in England? If not, why assume we are all the same?

It is the same view with the government announcement that duties, therefore cost, on what is commonly referred to as super strength beers (over 7.5% in strength) was to rise next year. The reason for this move is an attempt to crack down on binge drinking and “preventable illnesses” which includes alcohol abuse.

Now, I drink beer over 7.5%. This is a fairly new thing as I have only just started to get in to drinking what are collectively known as craft beers. There are some craft beers like the monster % “End of History” which comes in at a whopping 55%, but it also cost a reported £500. Not for me, nor the myriad of support groups and media outlets that decried its release.

My market is the more reasonably priced BrewDog “Hardcore” or the American Green Flash “Le Freak” – both tipping the scales at 9%. Because I drink those beers, from a purely tax perspective, I am instantly classified in the same bracket as someone that drinks Tennents, Kestral and Carlsberg “Special Brew”, thus leading some to believe that my health could be at risk. The big difference being that I will only drink one bottle of “Le Freak” – mainly through cost (Le Freak is already the wrong side of £10) – where as a Tennents drinker will happily pick up a pack of four and drink them in one sitting.

Not only will my desire to drink a 9% beer cost me more from next year, through association, I am now also part of a Governmental policy. It is a policy that looks past the fact that I also buy wine at 14%, often for half the price of a bottle of Le Freak. As a wine drinker, am I less of a problem to the NHS and the wider society? Am I viewed in a better light because wine is more culturally acceptable than a bottle of super strength beer? Is there a class argument at play here, and are the policy makers more likely to be wine drinkers than “super strength beer” aficionados?

There have been other occasions in the past week where my choice of activity has led some to label me as middle class (for drinking in a wine bar), a dinosaur (going to see Madness in concert) and arrogant (for being both English and from London). All three are just lazy labels. Class isn’t defined by the venues in which you drink. Good music is timeless and there were plenty of people younger than me at that gig – and yes, I am occasionally loud and forthright, but is that simply down to where I was born?

To label me is to dismiss me; to put me in to a box from where I will only return if you were not instantly put off by your original label. I have more to offer than my job title, my relationship status, my nationality or my choice of beverage. What you find beyond those labels may not be to your taste, but at least we made the effort to get beyond the initial tick box phase. Don’t hate me because I have a child, a dog or that I struggle with the concept of meat free Mondays. There may be plenty of other reasons not to want to know me, just don’t dismiss me because of a label.

Here is David Bailey of Hardknott Brewery’s view on the duty rise and what it means to the industry

“The aim of English cricket is, in fact, mainly to beat Australia.” Jim Laker

Today is the day that the Ashes start. It’s not the first test, it may not even be the first game for a number of the squad, but it is the start of – what is viewed by many as – the only thing to really get excited about in the cricketing world.

I don’t want this blog to be specifically sports based. There are plenty, no doubt better offerings out there for your specialist needs. However, I do want to mark this occasion, the start of the 66th Ashes Series (the series of cricket matches played between England and Australia), with a few thoughts on why it should mean so much; but now leaves me feeling slightly cold to it all.

The above quote, possibly given at the height of Laker’s Ashes prowess in the ‘50s, suggests that the demand for a victory over Australia has always been with us. Yet there is a nagging inside which makes me think we have lost sight of where this series fits in the wider, international game. Cricket is by no means a global sport, which makes it all the more depressing that it feels as though it is no longer a game played on an equal footing, amongst those countries that love the game.

Of course The Ashes are billed as the big one, but has it always been so far ahead of any other encounter, that we complacently forget what it was like to get excited about all our upcoming series? There are factors as to why this may now be the case. Be it the demise of the West Indies, the advent of Twenty20, the fact that we seem to play an Ashes series every other week – English cricket is now so focussed on 25 days (five days across five tests) of action every two years, that the rest – what made the game so great – is mere fodder to fill the television schedules.

Since 2005, I sense that my passion for the game is going in a different direction to the rest of the nation. There I was, sat in front of the TV after eight consecutive defeats at the hand of the old enemy, watching people hanging out of office windows around Trafalgar Square, feeling completely detached from the scenes of joyous celebration.

What puzzled me was how we went from the Veuve Clicquot sponsored celebrations at The Oval, to the open top bus tour, the MBEs to the excuse for a well known satellite broadcaster to over hype every future Ashes series from that point on. Where had this new level of euphoria come from? Why were people who had previously shown no interest in the game (and would just as quickly lose it) desperately trying to get tickets, take days off and spend hours recounting every ball of that series?

It felt as though history had been eroded. We quickly forget how many times the great Alan Border or Steve Waugh sides had dismantled our hopes from the first ball, on the first day. No longer were we under the Aussie yoke. Now we were the greatest test match side in the world – even if the standings suggested otherwise.

Things quickly came crashing back down to earth when we had to defend our title over in Australia. Vaughan’s injury, Flintoff’s misdemeanours and the opening test selection issues were the first act of a disastrous play (an Australian Tragedy if you will) that saw us home with our batting tail firmly between our legs.

Yet all was once again forgotten thanks to the heroics of “our boys” and their nail biting, last test victory in 2009; which saw the urn of ashes (no behemoth like Stanley Cup for our victors) returned to their rightful place – where technically they very rarely leave; much to the annoyance of the Australians. That 2-1 victory supposedly signalled the end of Australia’s dominance – they are currently in a slump of six straight defeats in all forms of the game.

All of that brings us nicely on to the current Ashes series. To put this series in to context, it is five games between the fourth and fifth best side in the world. The best team, India, are happily twirling away in their series against New Zealand; having beaten Australia last time out and waiting patiently to do the same to England next summer.

Keep that last paragraph in mind as you watch the adverts for Sky’s build up to the “greatest sporting spectacle ever.” Ian Botham wheeled out to look like Oliver Reed, giving his final wine soaked monologue on the set of Gladiator. Shane Warne, now more at home on the poker tables than a cricket field, seen having a Nasser Hussain induced nightmare in first class of a flight simulator. It is hyperbole turned up to 11, and I can’t see it stopping.

The real cricket writers may play the events of this series down to try and detach themselves from the furore around them – but their column two pages in from the back (football will still dominate the back pages), will be lost in amongst the puntastic headlines or scoops from inside the camp. Ask me who my favourite cricketer was, and without hesitation I would say Malcolm Marshall (RIP). If he was alive today, you can be sure a microphone would be thrust under his nose with the question “how much would you have loved to have played in the Ashes” put to him by presenters on top of rolling sports tickers, desperate for a story to fill the endless hours of highlights from the practice grounds.

Marshall was one of the finest exponents of the game, playing in one of the most formidable sides ever; yet in the modern era he would have had to make do with second or third billing in a competitive calendar that has one series, and one series only marked in bold. When cricket was great, really great, it was more than just an endless parade between each Ashes series. There was the West Indies blowing us and others apart. There was Kapil Dev taking Eddie Hemmings over his head and in to the scaffolding of Lord’s – Imran Khan’s Pakistan would give great entertainment, as would Richard Hadlee and his New Zealand side. Their compatriots may no longer be up to those lofty standards, but it doesn’t mean that they no longer exist.

I have been on a losing Ashes tour. I saw an average side win at the MCG – it ranks up there as one of the greatest days I have had watching sport – it meant far more to me than 2005 or 2009 ever did. The Barmy Army were there. The plethora of football flags with small town club names were there; but so was a genuine knowledge, a genuine interest and a genuine camaraderie born from watching years and years of hopeless cricket, played out by an ever changing, underperforming side.

Oh for the days when you could simply turn on the telly, read a newspaper and not have The Ashes presented to you as the be all and end all. Win, lose or draw (yes draw, that strange quirk of a game where you can play for three months and still have no winner) you know that the BBC will have their 2013 Ashes countdown clock primed and ready to go, and that Sky will have their production teams working overtime to produce a “How the Ashes were….” programme they will repeat ad nauseum.

I will stay up and watch the first day’s play. I will read every decent article I can on the game; catch the highlights or listen to the myriad of podcasts published after each day’s play – but I’m not sure how much my heart will really be in it? The Ashes are to cricket what prawn sandwiches are to football. It attracts a new, certain kind of fan (read JCL) that has no interest in the issues plaguing the county game; no idea what it was like to follow the (mis)fortunes of the English side in the ‘90s – happy to sing out the only verse of Jerusalem they know, pay the ever inflating ticket prices and sit with their barmy army t-shirts in their comfortable seats – no longer fearful of the hoi polio on the Western Terrace. The problem is that we need those fans. We need their money and their fleeting interest. All sport, not just cricket, needs the revenue (through ticket sales and TV coverage) their temporary affection can bring.

I hope England win the Ashes, I really do. I just hope that come January, if our “gallant lads” do scoop the “ultimate” prize on Australian shores – that every satellite falls from the sky, and we endure a media blackout until the start of the new county season in April.

Just not until we’ve seen Ricky Ponting resign.

(Jim Laker is 1st and 4th on the all time list for best figures in an innings by a bowler. What is important to know, is that both feats happened in the same match – v Australia at Old Trafford in 1956. Laker took 19 wickets for 90 runs. Tony Lock was the only other English bowler to take a wicket in that match)