Summer Sports - Cricket
good for the county game and cricket in general. “They should be part of the county scene,” he said. “It gives cricket followers the opportunity to enjoy different surroundings, and have a different experience. For our business, it gives more groundsmen the chance to prepare pitches for a higher standard of the game. There is an added pressure, of course, on us outground custodians. It’s a one-off, your one chance to shine, or get it wrong. You do feel like everybody’s looking at you. I can take it, and it is good though.” “Match day duties are that bit less
Lee’s assistant Iain Sykes
relaxed than for other matches. I fret about mechanical failures and holes in sheets especially. I can’t think of any black days though. I’m just a worrier and have sleepless nights about things that never happen.” For Lee, nothing tops the moments when someone comes up to him and thanks him for what he and his assistant Iain Sykes have done. “A lot of people only come here once a year. It’s their big day out and it means something to them,” he said. The boys from Eastbourne College won’t
play here again, in all probability. You can imagine ‘I’ve played at Arundel’ having a ring of pride about it. Lee is a cricketer himself, in the twilight
of his career, as he puts it. He captains the estate team ironically called the Grasshoppers. They play regular matches at the ground on pitches he has prepared. “I’m a bowler, but I do like batsmen getting big scores on my pitches,” he admitted. “The other day, a batsman called Jordan
Silk, playing for the Duke of Norfolk's XI in a 50-over match against Oxford University, scored 236 here. It was an Arundel record, beating Murray Goodwin’s 235 for Sussex against Yorkshire in 2006.” “When it comes to 4-day games, I want
A strip for a future match gets attention “ 66 I PC JUNE/JULY 2016
more than anything that they go the distance and there’s cricket every day with close finishes in the final session. Whatever happened to sporting declarations?” The club owns all its maintenance kit. Lee
Match day duties are that bit less relaxed than for other matches. I fret about mechanical failures and holes in sheets especially. I can’t think of any black days though. I’m just a worrier and have sleepless nights about things that never happen
Boundary rope being put out
has a budget for improvements, but money is perpetually tight and he has to make a good case to the committee to get something new. “They’re all good cricket guys and I get a decent hearing every time,” he said. “We needed a new tractor a couple of years ago and the club held a fundraising dinner to get the money.” A visit to Arundel cannot pass without
mentioning the splendid Arundel Castle Cricket Foundation. This charitable organisation, set up in 1986 and now run by former Sussex skipper John Barclay, works alongside the Friends Club and is specifically aimed at youngsters with disabilities and special needs, particularly from inner city backgrounds. In thirty years, it has brought the joy of cricket to hundreds of them, at the Arundel Ground and at an indoor cricket school, funded by the late Sir Paul Getty and opened by HRH The Prince of Wales in 1991.
Lee draws attention to a group of such youngsters enjoying a supervised day out.
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