Connection

S1E8

Another day, another train, another day trip. I do really like London despite the fact that I seem to spend a good portion of my time there leaving it. This time it’s to the delightful town of Bristol in the crook of England’s arm - somehow on its west coast while existing only a couple hours by train from London for those looking to take in some extra cricket.

Cricket, you may know, is a sport that lends baseball its premise but is differently nuanced. It sort of looks way easier to play than baseball but it’s actually way more complicated and expects more from its players. It involves a bat, a set of stumps with bales balanced atop, and forty two completely different things called Wickets. That’s a joke, but not really - a “wicket” is cricket’s version of a baseball “out.” But it’s also the name of the stump and bales. Oh and it’s also the name of the pitch or strip of ground used. (I’ve found it funnier and more accurate to call anything a Wicket that I can’t remember the name of because I’m likely to be right half the time.) I’d known the sport existed but it wasn’t until about 15 years ago on a work trip to Trinidad and Tobago that I would spend some time watching it on the local TV, hear so much chatter, and grow genuinely curious. Fast forward a decade or so later I’d follow a player from the Caribbean, Andre “Dre” Russell and the franchise teams he was on - jumping on his bandwagon right when he and I were both prioritizing mental health. He was having a public conversation few in the sport would have at that point so it was easy to embrace him - but also, crucially, he was really really fun to watch. Unlike Major League Baseball in America who fully stopped pitchers from batting, cricket values “allrounders” who can both bat well and bowl (think “pitch”). Dre was and is great at both - and when he bats he smacks the absolute shit out of the ball for sixes and that gives me home run vibes. I’d eventually find that the surging women’s side of the sport was even more interesting than the men’s (IMHO) and pick some favorites there such as: Smriti Mandhana who I watched score more runs than anyone in a year, and Issy Wong whose career was like watching a lovable, scrappy superhero start to find their footing. Issy also made appearances on my favorite cricket podcast, “Tailenders” which I found delightfully perfect for an entry-level cricket fan who loved music as I was in love with co-host and Maccabees / 86TVs guitarist Felix White who had written a positively delightful book about life, music, and cricket called It’s Always Summer Somewhere. I should also mention the Storylines podcast by Melissa Story and Nikki Chaudhuri who play for the two County teams I cheer for: Gloucestershire and Surrey, respectively. At home I watch replays of games without any worry that my friends will spoil scores. I even made it to a US professional match in Raleigh, NC. Am I watching and cheering alone in my community? Sure - but I’m an only child, I’m built for this shit. Plus, for baseball I’m an Arizona Diamondbacks fan in the middle of Virginia — isolation fandom is not new to me. All of that is to also say that with this trip I was looking to get some of the connecting and connections that I know others enjoyed in nearly every other country outside North America.

Before the train I had even began my morning with a tour of the famous Lord’s Cricket Ground, Home of Cricket or more specifically the home of Marleybone Cricket Club and where the original Ashes urn is kept, despite the fact that it should not be kept there. (Yes, surly Oval & Surrey fan here.) As a part of my extended solo trip I’d seen not just Iron Maiden and related concerts, but also a handful of plays and multiple cricket matches and tours of grounds. The day prior I’d toured The Oval and seen a County Championship match before seeing some Ibsen in a revival of My Master Builder and a short interaction with Ewan McGregor and Elizabeth Debicki at the stage door of the Wyndham Theatre. (A name drop to be sure, but one that rang in my ears with a smile having been able to finally meet Renton / Obi Wan after years of crushing.) The twofer tour of Oval and Lords provided some interesting perspective on two very different atmospheres. Lord’s had an undeniably historical feel mixed with… well, I hesitate to describe it this way but the whole place looked how a lawyer’s office smells. There was an unmistakeable feeling of exclusivity with an ever-encroaching modernity that it carried on its back for an awkward ride. (Also I was able to see it’s famed hidden “real” tennis court from 1838 where you can watch members play balls off of sloped roofs and walls like some sort of strange Jai Alai infusion - in case you thought I was all out of weird ball sport references.) My tour guide was lovely and sympathetic to my ambitious plan to go straight from the tour to Bristol for international matches. I was the only American in my Lords and Oval tours and that fact was a source of amusement and questions by nearly everyone else in the group. Bluntly, they had no idea how I had any idea what cricket was. Everyone was very sweet and mildly surprised I had favorite players and thankfully didn’t make me feel dumb for what I didn’t know, which could easily fill the Oval’s massive Gasholders (now being turned into apartments). In fact it’s important to say that everyone I met connected to or cheering cricket on the entire trip was lovely except for one very grumpy stadium aisle-mate who, “looked like the kind of person who travels with a small bottle of conditioner for his pubes.” (I didn’t say that bit aloud but wrote down to remember later.) In fact, one of the most jaw-droppingly big differences between cricket here and literally any sport back home in America: they will cheer for both sides. As in, even if the other team does well - at your team’s expense - you’ll hear a gentle clap and maybe even a cheer from the other side. This wasn’t just some away team plant either - I’d later sit next to many ardent England fans and Bristolians who cheered with a Lauren Bell catch but also politely acknowledged and congratulated the team from India while getting their ass beat later in the inning.

The gloomy day that whisked by the traincar window seemed strangely even darker than it should have been considering there wasn’t rain (which I was thankful for). Elastica’s eponymous album rang in my ears and my umpteenth abused copy of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy sat in front of me after being read for the hundredth time. (I’d leave it in the free library at the hostel later.) The train pulled into the Bristol Temple Meads station as the higher hills and even cliffs sprung up around the rails. A change of train at Bristol Temple-Meads might have been ill advised as I was trying to get as close as possible to the Gloucestershire Cricket Club’s Seat Unique Stadium; I technically made it work but it already felt like a mistake when I was the only person getting off at Ashley Downs. Not wanting to miss my first match of the day, the Mixed Disability T20 (England vs India Men’s), I scurried off the train onto a quiet but refuse-dotted pathway that was essentially the end of a small cul-de-sac. I’d walk along the sidewalks of the small village town homes, past wary dogs, trash bins set out the night before, amused locals, and after some twists and turns, finally felt like I was going the right direction for the stadium. A couple of brutal uphill climbs later and I’d back-door my way to the sprawling cricket ground where the all-afternoon festivities had already begun. Two international matches of England and India: beginning with the first international mens mixed disability championship and followed by the simmering rivalry of the same countries’ women’s teams full of players I’d been watching from back home in America (including a couple of my favorites such as Smriti, Bell, Issy, Nat Sciver-Brunt, and more I’d grow to love like Jemimah Rodrigues, Sophie Ecclestone, and Deepti Sharma).

The Gloucestershire grounds were inviting and clearly set up for a long haul of matches from afternoon into the night. Despite it being 2pm by the time I got there, it was a whole new day for me. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the mixed disability championship and particularly the prowess and teamwork it takes to make any group of athletes work as a team - but then add in that these players were all from different all-star teams with a different disability focus such as physical, intellectual, and sensory. Let me put that into more perspective: these teams were newly formed and there had never been a T20 on an international level of mixed disability - that is nothing short of herculean to make work. The interviews and press conferences were even fascinating to watch - I was so naive, it wasn’t until I realized both the English interviewer and the Indian player had separate sign language interpreters that I had considered that India had an entirely separate sign language (Indian Sign Language or ISL).

The mood of the teams and the crowd carried into a long break before the women took to the pitch for the India vs England women’s international match. Filling out any empty seats meant I snuggled into my front-row seat next to an effusive septuagenarian woman from Bristol and her central casting gruff bulldog of a husband. She and I, between pints of cider and ale, became best friends for the next several hours. It started slow, cordial at first but when I startled the hell out of her screaming in approval at a Lauren Bell catch for a wicket, I quickly apologized and she told me it was, “all right my dear, allow me to bottle some of that American energy.” Her husband was not amused by our friendship but could do little more than get us drinks while we called out and almost matched the energy of the nearby family chanting a familiar “In-di-aaaaa…” chant I’d heretofore only heard on TV at home. It was incredible and I sincerely can’t say enough about how the fans and Gloucestershire locals I interacted with took to having me around. I got to know food truck vendors, the volunteers, and a woman and her wife who gave me tips over lunch on how to score cricket games (I’m terrible at it but enjoy following). By the time the evening set in and the stadium lights flickered on over 7,000 fans I had definitively decided to cheer for their County team (Go Glos!) hereafter. Before the last over I said my goodbyes to my darling little old lady friend who had just turned 75 and her husband was surely relieved that I was leaving. I snuck out of the stadium and out from under its lights and light pyro for sixes to the darkened sidewalks and perplexingly quiet homes just a few turns in. Mercifully downhill I scampered, only just catching my train back to Temple-Meads Station for my connection to London where I would roll in at midnight, still smiling.

The Tale of the Tape: Elastica - Elastica

(London - “Connection” single 1995)

I remember buying Elastica at Mother’s Records in the Patrick Henry Mall in Newport News, VA. I was completely and utterly impressionable by any band mention in NME (Britain’s New Musical Express magazine) and there not staring at me was Justine Frishmann with her hair and a full band black and white photo that was almost as cool as the thrumming music therein. It was perfectly timed to careen into my regular rotation in 1995 and hovered in site for about a decade. The unrelenting engine of the album’s rhythm section that the guitars duck and weave around made it an easy listen if a quick one that found you flipping the tape over so frequently you’d wonder if it was an EP. For a band I would never see live - and I kind of disavow their other album (just focus on this one) - they’ve been a mainstay I didn’t cultivate a fandom around the way I did other bands. But they were fantastic and the album was lightning in a plastic cassette holder that stands the test of time.