My day out
The alarm clock went off at 3.43am (I say went off, but whichever idiot was in the radio studio last the day before screwed up big time, and instead of music, all I heard was a buzz) - and it then took me about two minutes to remember what day it was, and why I was getting up at such a stupid time. My room-mate then complained about me putting the light on, to which it was pointed out that getting dressed was fairly difficult without it.
Having needed three return trips to my room having forgotten my watch and most importantly digital camera, I finally made it off campus. Exeter's pretty dead most of the time, and there's even less life in it at 4.10am - I think I saw one car and two people (one of whom was the shop assistant in the conveniently placed 24-hour shop on the road into the Town Centre). Prepared with magazine to read and Alpen bar as a breakfast substitute.
Incredibly, there were five other people at the bus station, and on the 0445 National Express service number 501 to London Victoria, there were twenty or thirty occupants.. It was at about 6.30am, and somewhere near-ish Reading, that I realised I'd forgotten anything in the way of headwear - but fortunately not sun-cream.
We arrived at London Victoria coach station five minutes late, at 9.25am (the M4 Bus Lane is undoubtedly one of the greatest creations of all time), leaving me with 65 minutes to a) get across the Underground to St. John's Wood, b) find the ground and c) hope that there are some tickets left. I'd never been even in a London railway station before, so there was more than a little trusting of judgment and direction involved.
Sainsbury's sandwich section provided brunch, before experimentation with the automatic ticket machines was successful, and i proceeded down the biggest escalator I'd ever seen.. and I saw why 1987's King's Cross Underground fire was so deadly. A couple of distinctly thick slices of luck followed, as I wandered through the station at the mercy of the signs on the walls, and as I made it onto the platform for the Victoria line north, a train pulled in.
Two minutes later, a now more familiar plan was followed as the tunnels of Green Park station were navigated and straight onto the waiting Jubilee line train with seconds to spare. On arrival at St. John's Wood, the train was around 75% full. On leaving, it was about 95% empty. The next five minutes were spent following the rest of the throng of humanity down Wellington road - and the next ten in queueing for the tickets.
The lack of student discount was a disappointment, and the seemingly poor attendance was a surprise as I took my seat (slightly randomly) by making my up the nearest staircase and finding somewhere as close to behind the bowler's arm as possible and settled down to take in the atmosphere and anticipate a great day's cricket.
The morning session only served to intensify the pressure of the match situation, as Marcus Trescothick was very well taken, caught and bowled, by Daryl Tuffey before Mark Butcher looked distinctly unconvincing for a sustained period before flashing, hard, outside offstump with minimal foot movement, for Stephen Fleming to pick up the pieces in the slips. The magnificent Andy Strauss was the bright spark of the morning as he, seemingly single-handedly, kept England in touch with the asking rate of around about 3-and-a-bit an over.
Lunch was spent wandering around the outside of the ground, baulking at the prices of refreshments and being thankful for Spar's biscuits special offer, before meeting up with badgerhair, who kindly treated me to a drink (Cheers, Mike!) before setting off back to the Compton Stand Upper to see whether Strauss could become only third batsman in Test history (after Lawrence Rowe and Yasir Hameed) to record two centuries on Test debut.
The answer was no - after Nasser Hussain ran him out (or that's what it looked from where I was sitting). Truth be told, having seen the replays, it looked more like six of one - nonetheless, Nasser wasn't the most popular man in the ground, and as the afternoon progressed through tea into early evening, the required run-rate stuttered upwards as New Zealand went into ultra-defensive mode - with Vettori out-Giloing Ashley as he bowled feet outside leg-stump and Nasser contended himself with kicking it away.
Sections of the crowd started to show their discontent vocally, and the whole ground (with the obvious exception of the Members) devoted five minutes to Mexican waves through the middle of an exceptionally turgid passage of play. With Thorpe and Hussain there, however, I was never worried - and once Nasser reached his fifty , England cruised it. Hussain, having taken 158 balls for his first fifty, added the next fifty in 45, including one wonderful lofted on drive that I've captured to perfection on camera, to shouts of "you can't drop him now!"
The return trip from St John's Wood to Victoria was done by number 82 bus.. taking four times as long as the tube - but it was 55% cheaper, and seeing as I had three hours to burn before the return coach, it came in handy. Retracing my steps through Victoria station via KFC (and the discovery that Hot Wings are so named for a very good reason), I realised I was somewhere past the realm of tiredness when my brain thought that the Madonna song coming over the Victoria Place loudspeakers sounded like John Barnes.
A gentle meander back to the coach station, and cover-to-cover reading of the (overpriced) matchday programme consumed the remaining hours of the wait at Gate 7 for the 501 back to Exeter via Heathrow and, for some reason, Taunton (whose bus station is one in name only - a glorified car park with several metal posts indicating bays), a journey filled with disjointed and occasional sleep.
Bed was attained at 1.30am, Tuesday May 25th, and in the seconds that I managed before falling asleep, I asked myself if I'd go through it all again - a question to which there was only one answer: a resounding Yes.
Another post will follow with as many photos as the forum will let me post.
